Skip to: Site menu | Main content

I'm not THAT old. Geez.

2007-05-31

Good morning Boys and Girls.

Nine hours. I slept nine hours straight.

Don't remember the last time I slept that long without even a middle of the night bathroom break.

And I feel as rested as I've felt in weeks.

As usual, we sort of skipped spring here except for a few days between snow storms and of late it's been in the upper eighties, with summer still three weeks away.

This isn't a complaint, mind you, as I'll wait till August to begin my public lobbying effort for Autumn to make an appearance, but a few weeks in the sixties or seventies would be nice sometimes. Seems like it was always late July or August before things got unpleasantly warm when I was younger, but maybe I just twist the memories.

(Actually, just heard the high here over the weekend is upper seventies, so maybe I'm bellyaching for nothing.)

Got a phone call from Jesus last night, but I haven't had time to transcribe it. Maybe tomorrow. He's okay. Hadn't heard from him in six or seven weeks and I gave him some crap about that since I'd left a couple of messages.

He asked so I told him about some stuff going on in my life. His response? He started laughing at me, told me I was older than dirt. I swore at him, to which, in response, he laughed even harder.

Sometimes it's hard to be friends with that guy.


Be good to everyone.

Lesson one: Why you shouldn't refer to thirty year old movies in your posts...

2007-05-30

Good morning Boys and Girls.

Yesterday, I saw and heard GW make the speech on sanctions the U.S. will place on Sudan - and - I was proud of him.

Can't remember that happening before. It's long overdue, but at least he's done it.

Got to give the devil his due.

The spark in my dreams is real. I have this vision taking further form each night. A fullness I've not felt in years bubbles and percolates and then, cooling, settles, leaving a base to build on. I can't see what it's becoming quite yet, but I know it's good. I'm Richard Dreyfuss joyfully playing in his mashed potatoes, manipulating a soft sculpture into... what?

And if I do know, or think I might; if, by chance my hunches are correct; what then?

Then - according to the analogy - you climb the mountain and see what's up there, dead birds and cows and barbed-wire be damned.


Be good to everyone.

Super-surrogate? Uh, no.

2007-05-27

Good morning Boys and Girls.

My dreams have been vibrant and satisfying of late.

Need to spend hours a day writing, but the world here gets in the way, something I find increasingly annoying.

Small chores inspire larger ones, and last night I realized that over the last four and a half weeks I've made at least forty trips to various home improvement stores and spent more hours doing stuff around here than I have either working or writing.

-and worst of all, not only is my golf game suffering, but I'm feeling guilty for feeling that enough is enough is enough. I'm incapable of having so many things on my mind AND feeling the least bit creative.

Even over the winter as I worked on this last novel the list grew and items would be added as I wrote - always only "for my consideration."

There's one true thing I've learned about myself over the decades; it is this: I can juggle a few things at a time. That's normal, and I'm pretty good at it. However, the minute just one too many things finds its way into the rotation, where it takes all my concentration just to keep things in the air, inevitably "the cycle" starts and I begin to find that everything I do, I'm doing less competently and without enthusiasm.

First I'll start concentrating exclusively on the juggling. Then I'll forget what it is I'm SUPPOSED to be doing. That's fine till my own priority pops into my head again and the fact that I'm not spending time doing that thing - cuz I'm busy juggling, well, eventually? Eventually the joy is sapped from life. And really, "eventually," isn't the right word since, because I recognize the symptoms so easily these days, it only takes a few weeks.

Soon I just start dropping things out of the rotation at random as my hand-eye coordination diminishes and my spirits drop like crazy. And if I sense that this is a disappointment to anyone, I just want to go away.

Some people like to fill every waking hour with things to do. I understand that. I've been in that place before - hell, I've been there most of my life - but no more. I want to work and and write and maybe play golf a time or two a week when the weather and budget allows it.

Happily, it's all moot anyway.


Be good to everyone.

Bad planning... Worse execution.

2007-05-25

Good morning Boys and Girls.

This month is zipping by at the speed of 24 hours per day and the hours, unfathomably, are going by even faster than that. I've accomplished far less than I'd planned to do during the month but have decided to get my ass in gear over the holiday weekend, and catch up... (since I'm out of mustard.)

(snare drum flam please)

First, gutters around the front entrance and above the sliding door and over the deck in back. I bought the stuff on Thursday which went like this:

Wednesday evening I went to the local hardware, having decided that if the price difference wasn't too much, I'd rather support them. Pulled all the gutter material and downspouts easily, then started grabbing the connectors and supporting paraphernalia. Nope. They were out of three or four items and it was a different brand than I'd ever seen before, meaning I couldn't run to get the missing pieces at one of the big box joints. Damn. Put it all away and went home.

Thursday morning. Stopped at Mennard's, a smaller regional Home Depot style chain. Waited a half hour for help to see if there was more stuff in stock overhead since many of their bins were empty. Nada.

Worked a while and bopped into Lowes. The less expensive line looked fine and I loaded up my big lumber-carrying cart with the stuff. Oh shit. No connectors. An employee said "You know sir, the other line is really better and it's only about ten percent more." Hmmm. Okay. So he helped me unload and reload, with me not paying any attention at all to the individual piece prices.

At the checkout? Well, when she was halfway through ringing me up and I looked at the screen and saw I was already well over my budget for the entire job, I sheepishly said. "Uh.. wait. Cancel this order. This is way more expensive than I'd realized." It was. I looked at a simple gutter connector; eight bucks compared to $2.49 in the other line. Why hadn't I looked more carefully?

"You know sir, we have a less expensive brand. This is the extreme-weather stuff," the cashier said helpfully. I nodded, apologized again and went back to restock all the stuff.

Late afternoon. Home Depot. In and out in ten minutes having grabbed all the stuff in a brand I'd used before, and at at a price about ten percent less than I'd budgeted.

If time is money? I wasted a bunch of money.


Be good to everyone.

No, I swear, I'm straight! I know I'm not supposed to like this stuff, but... but...

2007-05-23

Good afternoon Boys and Girls.

Off to a musical tonight. "Sweet Charity," with eighties kid-star Molly Ringwald in the lead. Only report I've heard on the production wasn't great, but the tickets were purchased months ago and who knows, maybe it'll have been worth the time.

I like musicals, though my tastes run to offbeat stuff. I loved "Jesus Christ Superstar," but other than "Evita," I've not been impressed by anything else Andrew Lloyd Webber's been involved in musically.

Loved Les Miz. Liked "A Chorus Line." I'm a Sondheim freak and Steven Schwartz is brilliant. "Wicked" has some incredible music in it.

My favorite to date is still "Sweeny Todd," with its diminished harmonies and counter rhythms and melodies running throughout, that when added to the darkly funny and tragic story makes the production a winner in the hands of any competent director and cast. I mean, who'd not think a story about unintentional cannibalism isn't tasty fare. And that line, sung by her desperate lover... "I feel you Joanna, I feel you."

Or the prelude, sung by various characters we meet during the show. Witty...Dark... Here, I hope I don't get sued by Mr. Sondheim... Remember, there's a dramatic pause between "Fleet" and "Street."

Sweeney Todd Prelude Lyrics

"Attend the tale of Sweeny Todd.
His skin was pale and his eye was odd.
He shaved the faces of gentlemen
Who never thereafter were heard of again.
He trod a path that few have trod,
Did Sweeny Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet... Street

He kept a shop in London Town
with fancy clients of good renown.
And what if none of their souls were saved?
They went to their maker impeccably shaved by Sweeny,
By Sweeny Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet... Street

Swing your razor wide, Sweeny,
Hold it to the skies!
Freely flows the blood of those who moralize.

His needs were few, his room was bare:
a lather bowl and a fancy chair,
A mug of suds and a leather strop,
An apron, a towel, a pail and a mop.
For neatness, he deserves a nod.
Does Sweeny Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet... Street.

Inconspicuous Sweeny was,
Quick and quiet and clean 'e was.
Back of his smile, 'n under his word,
Sweeny heard music that nobody heard.
Sweeny pondered and Sweeny planned,
Like a perfect machine 'e planned
Sweeny was smooth, Sweeny was subtle,
Sweeny would blink and rats would scuttle.
Sweeny! Sweeny! Sweeny! Sweeny!
Sweeny!

Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd.
He served a dark and a vengeful god.
What happened then, well that's the play,
And he wouldn't want us to give it away. Not Sweeney,
Not Sweeney Todd, The demon barber of Fleet... Street."




Impeccable.


Be good to everyone.

It is. It is. It is. I know it is cuz I said it's so. It is. It is. It is. I know it is cuz I said it's so.

2007-05-22

Good morning Boys and Girls.

Ever meet someone who says the same things over and over again so often that it quickly becomes their truth, whether whatever it is has any basis in reality or not?

It can be frustrating to be friends with such folks. You dare not point out that the self-talk might be harmful, or that what they're telling themselves might simply not be so, because, let's face it, if they can sway themselves so easily, it's no great stretch to think that they'll just as easily convince themselves that you're out to "get them" by virtue of the same practice.

My grandmother on my Dad's side was that way. Once she got an idea in her head, it went from mere "notion" to an etched-in-concrete "fact" in absolutely no time. Man oh man, anyone who'd even ask about the genesis of a situation that had become the foundation of any of her loudly espoused "beliefs" would instantaneously become a life-long enemy, and a footnote to the story in question. It was soooo tiring. When she died, I wasn't even sad.

I remember the morning my Dad died.

My brother and I - still in shock after leaving the hospital - we decided to drive over to my Grandma's to let her know about the sudden death of her son. She was still "with it" to the extent she ever had been, meaning she was sharp as a tack (or a dagger) but her health had been slowly waning for a few years. She must have been near eighty.

She answered our knock within a few seconds and immediately began the sarcastic remarks. "Ohhhh. What brings YOU here? Somebody die?" I'm not kidding.

"As a matter of fact," my brother said, "yes."

After we told her, she complained we hadn't let her know sooner. She complained she hadn't seen her daughter in two weeks. She started to go into a patented story about her former friend who'd owned an import store and who'd slighted her in some way years earlier and whose name had soon after become Grandma's own personal synonym for evil. My brother and I just looked at each other and left.

Sometimes? -that's all you can do.


Be good to everyone.

The face is familiar, but...

2007-05-20

Good morning Boys and Girls.

Nice weekend so far. Son-o-mine came over Friday night and we did absolutely nothing terribly exciting but had a good time talking and doing little things. Then, as four of us ate lunch yesterday, my daughter called to yap, so I called her back after the boy had departed for Detroit.

She tells stories in a funny way and in a few minutes, she had me in stitches. Evidently a boy (okay, now a man) who'd been a one time paramour, and whose name is legend within the family for his outrageous and outlandish attempts to win said daughter's favor ten years or more ago, has reentered the picture.

This having occurred, at first, much to her dismay and bewilderment, but, as is his style, he's again been, and is being, endearingly persistent. And, she says, that as leery as she is about allowing this to evolve even a little, he really and truly seems to have "changed" for the better.

So, as the days go by, she says, though she's been anything but encouraging, he seems to be making slow but steady headway into her blood pumper. This last, she said, in a few different ways to make sure I was catching the point, is annoying the hell out of her.

Perhaps you'd have to know her, but, my daughter really is one of the funniest people I've ever known.

Anyway, she had me laughing, and within a half hour of ending the call, meaning perhaps, forty-five minutes after Ryan left, I found myself descending into an evening long funk, missing the times when being part of their everyday lives was a matter of course; it simply... was.

Oh well. If - I'll call him "Romeo" - plays it straight, it sounds to me as though he has a prayer. If however, along the way, he happens to lapse into any sort of semblance of his former self - and I'm talking for even a millisecond or two - woe to the poor boy! She might just rip him limb from limb, and mostly because she'll feel especially stupid for having given him another shot.

For God's sake, Romeo, walk lightly! I have no shovel with which to clean your bloody mangled carcass from the street!


Be good to everyone.

Another story banging around in my head, and loudly...

2007-05-17

Good morning Boys and Girls.

Been in one of my self-imposed "news blackout" periods. Trying to stay away from any more than just the headlines for a week or so.

Was hoping that maybe when I came back to it, there'd be some good news about "the surge" having turned the corner, or that GWB might be listening to his constituents instead of the little guy sitting on his shoulder whispering in his ear he thinks is Jesus. Hoped I might find out that people were ignoring whether Paris Hilton has to go to jail.

Nah.

Started roughing out a new story a few nights ago about a miniature world that mirrors our larger one in terms of the pettiness and shortsightedness of so many of us who put form above substance. It's the story of a small church in a large city and the "fun" that results from antagonists holding sway; how a small vocal group of seemingly mean-spirited folks can poison the whole despite the best intentions of the majority. What if, for instance, the antagonists, in the end, have a valid point that's far from the one they're actually vocalizing?

At first I though I'd have trouble with it, but when I started substituting individual characters for large groups of people and giving those individuals the world views and prejudices held by far larger groups in the real world, it started coming together nicely.

Unfortunately, in the story, I'll try to take things through a natural progression to what seems to me to be a natural conclusion; an easy thing to do when it's shrunk down so much; and yet, I don't think things will turn out as I might have hoped.

Who knows.


Be good to everyone.

It's not a prison. It's a gated community.

2007-05-15

Good morning Boys and Girls.

I'm not awake. Think I needed another twenty minutes of sleep this morning, but it wasn't to be. My coffee has added a buzz to my tiredness, but so far, hasn't ended it. Like me, the cat sits here to my left, drowsy and satisfied.

The difference between us, of course, is that while I have things to do that necessitate my activities this morning, her biggest decision all day will be whether to, from time to time, hop down and meander over toward her food dish or her litter box. Hell, her only real responsibility is to briefly lick my hand with her sand paper tongue when I reach over to pet her, a responsibility she accepts well enough but shirks any damn time she feels like it, instead staring up at me greedily, "A little more to the left," her eyes intone. "Good... Right there."

To my knowledge, she has no goals. If she has any political leanings, she keeps them to herself. She has some enemies I guess, but even so - the squirrels and birds that excite what passions she can muster when she gets into her "pacing along the patio door mood," staring in disapproval at their existence - she has no desire to break through the glass, or the screen when the glass door has been slid to the side, or even to simply walk through the door when I've briefly left it completely open to do something just outside.

A week ago, I'd done just that, and lo and behold, she took about three tentative steps out onto the deck. I felt mild panic when I saw her there, afraid that now, having tasted freedom, she might bolt to take advantage of my carelessness. No. She looked up at me, seemingly a bit panicked herself and ran back in through my legs to her world.

A happy lazy incarcerate. Would that I could learn to find satisfaction in such an existence for myself.

Alas, I must wrap this up.

I have an urge to visit my litter box and then grab another cup of coffee.


Be good to everyone.

Frosted or Plain?

2007-05-13

Good morning Boys and Girls.

The Saturday before last, I dropped a friend at the airport and did a little regular work and then I was scheduled to work on a boat for the son-in-law of a regular customer.

Everything went smoothly and I arrived at my customer's place around two o'clock. The plan was for me to follow him, Ed, to his daughter's home as soon as he closed up. He was waiting for one of his customers at the time and asked if I minded waiting a few minutes.

We gabbed a bit and I asked him about one of the photographs I'd noticed a few times to the side of his desk. It was just a black and white print of a guy holding a box of donuts or something.

The story made me realize that someone invents everything, even if they're pretty silly things, or cause cavities!

The picture is of Ed's second cousin from a few decades earlier, and he informed me that I'd probably met him a time or two, and when he described him, I realized I had, because he hangs out with Ed's Dad who stops by all the time. I just didn't know his claim to fame. Well, fame is going a little far.

One of the main Keebler plants had for years been just around the corner from Ed's place. The building is still there, with its giant Elf logo emblazoned on the painted red block. This cousin, who from the looks of him must be around seventy now, worked in research and development during the sixties and seventies and was the guy, for better or worse, who invented "Pop Tarts."

"He didn't get super rich for inventing them, since he was an employee, but he did all right. For about ten or fifteen years - I forget how long the deal was they worked out - but for whatever period of time it was, every time someone ate a Pop Tart, he received some tiny fraction of a penny. By the time he retired, he was very well off."

The picture was from during the time period when they were working out the packaging for the new product.

"We were over at his place last weekend," Ed said. "Pretty neat house. We call it the Pop Tart Palace."

Ed's a funny guy.


Be good to everyone.

Bacon maybe? Pot Roast?

2007-05-11

Good evening Boys and Girls.

Friday about 7:30.

Awaiting the arrival of a friend of a friend. He's a runner who will take part in the Grand Rapids Marathon tomorrow. Evidently he's run in dozens and did the Boston again a few weeks ago in that awful weather, meaning, I think, he must be nuts. He's Danish and is though he's lived in Ann Arbor the last few years, he's planning on moving back there in a few months to rejoin his wife who moved back already.

He's staying here just so he doesn't have to make the drive all the way from Ann Arbor before the event tomorrow. He called me the other night to confirm the arrangements and I had a very difficult time understanding his English and today sent me the following email:

"Hi Rick;
Sounds good. I am shooting for around 7 at your place - I hope you like the Red Wings?? They are having the first play-off game tonight against Anaheim..
See you.
Bent."

This struck me as funny because in the book I've been writing, I wrote a bit about an exchange student from the Netherlands who speaks a "poignant" line in the plot in the same sort of ever so slightly fractured English.

I'm looking forward to meeting Bent. I have a feeling there will be two distinctly different body types inhabiting this house this evening.

I wonder what the hell you feed someone who will be running 26 odd miles tomorrow morning? Ribs?


Be good to everyone.

New green and finding out I'd guessed correctly. Not bad.

2007-05-09

Good morning Boys and Girls.

Gently falling rain overnight, and it continues this morning.

Man oh man, over the past three days the green factor around here has jumped by three fold. We had a mid-April snow storm that delayed things a couple of weeks, but Mother Nature is recovering and all the large trees out back have had their leaves come out over the last day or two. From here, for instance, I can't see the ridge I walked up the other night because the new leaves have obscured it. -Glad I took the walk the other night. Plus, I mowed the lawn Sunday and it looks like it could use it again today, just three days later.

Spring done sprung!

Ever come to a realization that makes you smile like crazy? I'd been dealing with a situation and had been worried I might have handled it badly, but I wasn't sure, really. Then the other day, because of some unrelated information I stumbled across I figured something out that I can't get out of my mind, that (a.) makes me chuckle, and (b.) means, thankfully, in retrospect, I handled it just fine.

Here's an example of what I mean, though it's a completely different set of events and what I'm relaying here took place fifteen years ago or so.

I owned a little restaurant with a friend. Both of us had other businesses and we had a manager who ran the place day to day. He'd hired a kid that it seemed had decided to start taking money from the till on day one. After three or four days of being short exactly twenty bucks on the days he worked, I told our manager to just let him go, but not to make any accusations in the process. We weren't certain, but I didn't have the energy to make a big deal about it or to try to "set him up" or anything to find out for sure whether the sticky fingers were his. We did notice that when he'd gone, the shortages stopped.

As it happened, the kid went to work at another place down the block within a day or two and about a month later was arrested for stealing from them. I was satisfied on two counts; first, that he'd gotten his, and secondly that my judgment had been correct.

That sort of thing.

Sure is pretty here.


Be good to everyone.

Gobble, gobble.

2007-05-06

Good morning Boys and Girls.

I'd just walked outside to look at the sky. I'd heard thunder earlier and found myself surprised to see thousands of stars and a bit of the moon. I walked out passed the yard and up the hill.

At the top of the little hill the land levels off for a hundred yards or so and then begins rising again perhaps another fifty or sixty feet, maybe even a little more at perhaps a twenty degree angle. All oaks and poplars.

I'd never walked up that hill at night but it was pretty and still and I was in the mood. Don't know who owns that property, but I didn't think anyone would mind mild trespassing this time of night so up I walked.

At the top of that second rise, I found myself perhaps two hundred yards from the back of the house and looking down toward it.  Through the trees I saw the three lighted squares, two large and one small; the patio doors and the kitchen window.

There's a tree up there that's been hit by lightning, and one of it's twin trunks is snapped off and laying there, a bench upon which I sat for a few minutes and enjoyed the stillness.

Minutes later, just as I was about to get up and head back I was startled by movement behind me.

Turkeys.

Three of them doing their side-to-side walk, single file, no more than ten feet away. It was perhaps eleven p.m. but I guess I always thought turkeys were day people.

I started laughing which scared them, and off they waddled, double time. Pretty funny.

Be good to everyone.

A test.

2007-05-04

Good morning Boys and Girls.

A test:

Seeds cannot be stored for years before they're used. (T or F)

The more seeds you sew, the fewer crops you reap. (T or F)

Family trees generally do not grow generation by generation. (T or F)

If you found yourself or your country being blamed for something you had nothing to do with, and people all around you were being killed, you'd accept it. (T or F)

In no cultures are grievances are passed down from generation to generation as a matter of course. (T or F)

Martin Luther King's assassination ended the civil rights movement in this country and put blacks back "in their place." (T or F)

Christianity ended with the crucifixion of Jesus. (T or F)

Ideas can be killed with bullets. (T or F)

Communism in the Soviet Union ended (at least for a while) because of the violence between our two countries and the fact that the cold war finally erupted into World War III. (T or F)

I would gladly kill people whom I think are a threat to me even if it means their children will probably want to kill my children for generations. (T or F)

Jesus advocated and approved of killing as long as it was justified. (T or F)

Jesus said to love our friends but to kill our enemies. (T or F)

Gandhi helped gain independence for India by organizing an armed resistance. (T or F)

Christian love can at times be expressed by approving of the impersonal killing of non-Christians. (T or F)

If America was occupied by a foreign nation, you would not fight back, and eventually, you'd give in to whatever the occupiers wanted. (T or F)

Historically, counter-insurgencies sometimes work in the long run. (T or F)

We have a right to base our National Security on the resources of other nations. (T or F)

Fundamentalist Muslims have a desire to take over the world no matter what and no amount of conversation or showing respect for their beliefs, (as crazy as we might think they are,) could ever change that. Our only option is to kill them, that idiot Jesus, or any of those other crazies who touted non-violence, be damned. (T or F)

I separate my spiritual beliefs from my Geo-political beliefs whenever I find it convenient. (T or F)

Anyone who takes a stand against the war or this administration hates America and does not support the troops. (T or F)

Sadam had weapons of Mass destruction. (T or F)

America is more secure than it was when George Bush took office. (T or F)

Democrats voted to go to war when they authorized the use of force and are all liars when they say otherwise. (T or F)

Seeds grow best when planted in fertile soil. (T or F)




Be good to everyone.

 

 

Only one of the above is true, or at least ought to be.

George's are bigger than yours. See? Look at them in his hand there...

2007-05-02

Good morning Boys and Girls.

Sunny today.

Watched Bush's veto speech. Macho!

Bill provided 4 billion more than he asked for and NON-BINDING withdrawal dates. So he vetoed it why?

-Cuz he needs to prove his balls are bigger than those of anyone who opposes him, even if the opposition is just in spirit. Why just look as he proudly holds those BIG balls of his up for our admiration.

 
And his supporters smile in glee at his display! "Thanks King George! You're the MAN."

 
And what a man he is.

Idiot.

Oh how I wish they'd just cut the funding and be done with it. They can't of course, cuz big George would leave the troops over there to get slaughtered and then blame the Dems.

We have to stop electing red-neck morons. If we don't? We deserve every bit of what we get, which WILL be a hell of a lot more terrorism world wide and HERE too eventually since, frankly, there will be a hell of a lot more terrorists THESE same shortsighted goofballs, seemingly proudly, create.

Be good to everyone.

Men like mice.

2007-05-01

Good morning Boys and Girls.

May one.

There's an apple tree seventy yards up the hill to my left that still showed buds yesterday. Today all the leaves have popped. The lilacs bloomed a few days ago.

Perhaps we're really done with winter.

Haven't mowed yet, but it looks like it's in the offing for this weekend.

The cat is in a strange mood, poor thing, acting as though perhaps the long ago neutering didn't kill off ALL her desires.

More dead deer along the roads around here than I've ever seen before.

Four years since "Mission Accomplished" and we've still got three in ten Americans thinking this is (furrow your brows in seriousness) "a necessary task," ten's of millions of Lennies saying "tell about the rabbits George, tell about the rabbits."

And he does.


Be good to everyone.

Created with ShoutPost