Monday, April 25, 2011

I Have Been Remiss, Auntie Em!

Hi! Sorry I haven't written in awhile. Actually, I have been writing an awful lot. Proposals and such. I remarked to Emily that I am so glad I went to college, because all the research papers with all the compiling and organizing and putting it all down into a cogent format is really coming in handy these days.

I'm in the middle of a 60 page barn-burner now. Let me tell you, it is a real page turner, as in you will want to keep turning pages until it's over! I assure you it is not my normal witty, fast moving, occasionally poignant writing you have all come to know, and I presume, love. It's hard to make something snappy with headings like:
6.05.1 Management Capability
6.05.2 Technical Quality
6.05.3 Contractor's Experirence and Capabilities

And on and on and on. It starts at Section 1.1.1 and goes to section 8..... something. I am not there yet. I have another one to write right behind it that is easily analogous in scope, if not more in-depth. They are both due on the same day. See, it's just like college, except out here in the pros, the money is a helluva lot better. But the drugs aren't as good. Everything is a trade off.
_______________________________________________________________

Truly, I have been in a dry spell insofar as coming up with cracked and twisted viewpoints on today's world. I think I have been reading too much news. Depressing. The weather in the south has been so dreadful. So many people are dying it's kind of shocking. In the past, you may see whole towns destroyed, but at the end the reporter seems to say "Remarkably, perhaps miraculously, no one lost their lives..."

Not so with the recent raft of severe storms. I don't want to make light of this at all, but it does strike me as a little odd that tornadoes don't seem to be content just swallowing up rednecks in trailer parks anymore. From the tornado that made a full frontal assault on Lambert Field in St. Louis to last night's partial leveling of Tuscaloosa, Alabama!

Did they have a convention? What is the reason for this apparent change in tornado policy? Do white trash people in rusting trailer parks not taste good? Maybe their like the anchovies you buy in the tin... tear open the top and eat the oily salty fish crammed inside. I admit, they are an acquired taste.

Or perhaps leveling corn fields is just not fun anymore and the tornadoes wanted to really get into the meat of things.

I am applying a malevolent sentience to tornadoes which clearly does not exist anymore than the wizards of Harry Potter, yet if you allow your mind to wander just a little, it isn't so hard to believe.

I write my company's newsletter and in it last month I inserted an article indicating this spring was going to be wild, wet and windy for much of the lower 48. It has been as predicted. I just hope we get through this unprecedented tornado season with no more deaths. May is the biggest month for tornadoes statistically... we all need to hold our breath.
_______________________________________________________________

Friday, April 22, 2011

Mentally Ill People, Unite!

Terry Jones, the pastor from Florida who likes to burn Q'urans and shout hate speech in the name of the Lord.

Donald Trump, insisting the President is born abroad and therefore not legitimately president; and so is running for President himself.

Mentally ill people - Now is the time to rise up! These people are giving mental illness a bad name! These aren't merely depressed and neurotic people! They are people who are living in an alternate reality and successfully sucking the rest of us into it.

They must be stopped in the name of normal everyday mental illness! Throw away the Ambien, get off the couch, take that first shower of the week, get dressed in something not made of terrycloth and use that last bit of available credit to find these people and stop them!

You are legitimately mentally ill and so will avoid trial. You will go to a nice hospital and eat pudding and watch "The Price is Right" on a continuous loop. All your clothes will be terrycloth! There are nice windows to look out of.

And those of us who are not mentally ill will regard you as a hero! A hero, I say, for releasing us from the vortex of evil and megalomania that these demonic 'people' visit upon our world.

It is time to remove the foil hats, shuffle on down to wherever these people are and do the right thing. It's time you are known for something other than taking away the people we revere, like Lincoln, Kennedy, Lennon, and that girl from My Sister Sam!

Only you, mentally ill people, have the power and the built in ability to avoid the chair, to do what must be done as foretold by the aliens who watch over us!

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Not What I Had Planned

Long story short, tonight was not what I had planned. It was the first nice day in my recent memory and so I decided to take the Vette to the bar for Green Drinks, put on by the Michigan Sustainable Something Something of Something. This is an event whereby I get paid to drink beer and be charming in the hopes of getting business.

It was very crowded and it became clear that the people who were there were not there to do business. I met some people, shook some hands, had a wonderful black and tan and left.

Nice night, thought I. Let's wash the car. After all, I just got a new hose, let's brake that baby in. Almost done washing the car and all is going according to plan when I by chance walk by the hose where it attaches to the spigot. I didn't immediately realize that I shouldn't be able to hear water flowing (since the hose nozzle was closed), but less than a second later the little voice in my head that knows every damn thing said; "Um, excuse me, Mr. Happy-go-lucky... if water is running, and it isn't running outside... should I draw you a picture?"

Shit.

Yep. my laundry room was under water. No panic, I just shut off the water at a valve I had the plumber install so that the spigot wouldn't freeze in the winter. The PEX pipe has a couple small cracks in it, making me think not all the water was evacuated out of the section between the valve and the spigot and it got ice burst. I can probably fix it without too much hassle.

Cleaning up the water is the hassle. I went to the garage and got my shop vac and began sucking. It was only about 45 seconds of sucking and the 6 gallon tank was full. There was a lot more water than I thought.

I dumped said container into my slop sink, not realizing that I had a bunch of grass clippings and shop dirt in there from my work on the lawn equipment last weekend. Now it was mud. I didn't discover this until I had dumped it already.

Now the slop sink was backed up, and our poorly executed drain which is accessed by lifting the bottom step of the basement stair was backed up, too. The carpet all around me was saturated.

So, I fixed both of those situations the only way you can... I got in shoulder deep and started mucking. So far, we have sucking and mucking which coincidentally rhyme with the word that was passing my lips at this time.

That situation fixed, I begin sucking water again which is when the smell kicks in. That would be the smell of my shop vac motor giving up the ghost. I did the rest by hand. There is still a lot of water in the carpet that I couldn't get out, so I go to set up fans. I get two set up and working, but the third is not working.

Up to the attic to get the last fan and back down to the basement where the cats are treating the disaster area like it is Disney.They both come tearing up the stairs as I was coming down with the fan. I did not die, but for a second I really thought I was going to.

Three fans set up and the washer running and I hear more ruckus upstairs. I think the cats. Nope. Neighbor needs my broadcast spreader. OK. I'm all wrapped up here with the flood, so no problem. That's when I realize I never dried the Vette, so it is now all spotted and looks even worse than it did before I washed it.

I needed a win. I decided to mow the front yard and test my overhauled lawnmower. At least that worked as planned, so I felt a little better.

Tomorrow is re-re-re-re caulk the tub day, so I have that going for me. I just wanted to have a relaxing night. Oh well. Can't win them all.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

For Me, On My Birthday

Not since I was say, 13 have I really been too excited about my birthday. Oh, there are the milestone years that everyone gets excited for; I was up every night from my 15th birthday until the day I got my license, (which was not on my 16th birthday because the fates like to screw with me putting my birthday on a Saturday so I couldn't get my license until the following Monday). I didn't too much care about 18... yeah, you can die for your country! Woot! And by 21 I admit, I had worn out the novelty of most of the intoxicants that could be found in a college town without looking too hard, so being able to drink a beer in a bar was not too big a deal.

I have discussed the concept of "birthday as national holiday" as adopted by most of the women in my life in this blog before. I don't have too much more to add on that subject, so I guess I'll just tell you my story. At least, my story as I see it. Telling stories is what I do best.

I am an adopted child, who grew up in a loving nuclear family. I found humor in everything from a very young age. I think I mystified my family with the things that came out of my mouth. One day, coming home from school, I could not have been older than first grade, I told my mom and sister a joke that was so funny I could hardly breathe. I remember literally rolling on the floor telling the joke. It was a stupid joke that made no sense, and I knew that, but it was still funny to me. that joke? Rubber balls and liquor.

Answer every question with "rubber balls and liquor"
What did you have for breakfast?
What did you have for lunch?
What will you have for dinner?
What would you do if you saw a naked lady on the street?

Ok, so pretty primal, but it was killer material back in the day! It is the first joke I remember hearing and the first I remember telling. An inauspicious beginning to what has become a pretty large repertoire of jokes.

I mostly preferred the company of adults. I thought kids were mostly stupid, at least until I got into my teens. Then I knew they were stupid. But I was, too so the playing field was pretty level.

The local creek, or crik as some of the kids of lesser parentage in the neighborhood called it, served as a place learn about nature, hide from parents, get dirty and have fun. One day I fell in at a particularly rocky section. Well, they weren't really rocks so much as they were large pieces of cement left in the basin to break up the flow of the water before entering a viaduct that went under Gentian Street. I scraped up my back very badly. My sister was there and took me home. I think she might have carried me. My hero! It was the first time I remember feeling pain. And it was a lot of pain. So high was this benchmark that I don't really remember feeling pain through the normal spills and scrapes of boyhood that followed.

I fell off my bike a time or two. One time I came home with some pretty bad road rash. I think I was crying. If I wasn't at the beginning, I am sure I was by the end since my dad could only muster, "is the bike okay?" I didn't understand until years later that my dad was smart enough to see I was fine, as I walked in under my own power and clearly had my wits about me. We laugh about it now. I was pretty sensitive for awhile in my youth. I think I grew out of that, too. Mostly.

I was o.k. in school academically. Not the worst, not the best. I always knew I could do better. I admit I left a lot out on the field. All the way through school I did pretty much what I had to to get by. My getting by was mostly A's and B's with a C mixed in here and there just to keep it real. Some of my friends hated that with seemingly little effort, I could bust a grading curve and come out on top.

In fact, I would characterize a lot of my friends as struggling academically, at least compared to me. I didn't hate school, in the learning sense, but I hated going. Elementary and Middle were great, but I suffered a lot in high school. I do not look fondly upon those years at all. At least not the social part as it related to school. I did some fun stuff and had good friends, but I was never very happy. In fact, when I see people now that I haven't seen in high school, my first instinct is to apologize for how I was, because I don't think I was very easy to get along with or very kind. I remember being proud that I could come up with insults and make people very upset without even trying. I didn't use my fists. I used my wits.

There were a lot of things on my mind a lot of the time. The family photos are all smiles, but like most families we had our troubles. Unlike many families however, I truly believe our struggles brought us closer in the end. We have been through a lot together and we love each other. I respect my parents for sticking it out when many of the other parents I knew were divorcing. I respect my sister because she has had a biblical level of hardship in her life and manages to be positive and keep going forward. Her story is positively Homeric in scope, yet she goes on. My family, despite all my jokes and quibbles about them, means a lot to me.

College sucked for the first year. After which it was the best time of my life to that point. I remember one day Sophomore year toward the middle of the first semester walking across campus. The weather was nice and I was in no particular hurry. And it hit me. I knew people. I recognized faces. People knew me and said hi! That was such a simple thing, but it is a lot harder to feel alone when you know people.

Academics in college were similar to high school. I tried harder in college and am proud of the effort I put into my education, though I could have made more informed choices and done better grade-wise. I don't think I would change anything if I could... I knew what I was doing. Well, mostly. After that day Sophomore year when I realized I was jacked into a social network, (the old fashioned kind where people actually occupied the same physical space and interacted with each other), my grades took a one semester dive.

My parents took it in stride, I think, because I don't remember getting the lecture. In fact, my dad told me at that time he once was on academic probation because he didn't have a balance of fun and work. He said he fixed it. I got the message. Good talk.

Earlier this year, I was talking to the parent of a former youth group student who is a freshman in college now. I asked how things were going and the answer was "socially wonderful, and that is the most important thing- grades will come." I couldn't agree more, knowing this student is already smart and wise. The level of confidence I see in her now is astounding versus just a few short months ago. Through this, I was reminded that college, indeed all of life, is about learning all kinds of things in all kinds of circumstances.
My school years ended in a blaze of glory. Literally. My house burnt down and I had to couch it for the last few weeks of my graduating semester. I realized the kindness of friends was very important. This is a lesson not to be forgotten.

I learned what love was, or at least what love wasn't during this time. I swore off trying to find someone or being in a relationship after a couple humdingers with bad endings. That of course is when I met Emily. See, the fates love to screw with me.

And almost 11 years later, I am officially at the dawn of my mid-thirties. I am officially double the age of my oldest youth group participant. Even though my body likes to remind me otherwise, I have to remind myself I am not a kid.

Having fun is still the most important thing in the world to me. I know it exhausts some people because I turn everything into a joke. It is just who and what I am. And I like it. So, don't look for that to change.

Happy birthday to me. The first 35 went by faster than a summer day and almost as enjoyably. I wouldn't trade the rough for smooth as I am like a stone weathered by the elements... I simply wouldn't be me without them. I could go on. I am my favorite subject. But even I am tired of talking about me. There is a tipping point between good old homespun reminiscing a megalomania. I think I just felt the tip.

Here's hoping for great things in the next 35 years should the good Lord see fit to give me that long on his earth.

Everyone Stop Doing Everything!

There are too many studies of about the specific behaviors that will surely result in my untimely demise (for my own edification, when you read the word demise, I would like you to do it as though you were Robert Shaw as Captain Quint from Jaws and say 'D'meeeeze'). As I sit shaking uncontrollably from my bottomless coffee mug, I am reminded of the dangers of excess.

One study says you must drink red wine here and there for the sake of your heart and blood pressure even if you are preggers! I say it is a necessity for the sake of my attitude and those around me. But don't drink too much, the study warns! What is too much? They don't say. Apparently, you'll know when you have too much, at which point it's too late. So too much comes right at the intersection of just enough and too late? Can someone make me a diagram?

Another study says that drinking wine, while good for the spirit does not lower cholesterol and blood pressure. This hurts my heart. Perhaps I should drink some wine. That always seems to help. And who wrote that study? Look closely and it's probably the Hester Prynne academy of good living through cautionary tales.

I do know that I have found it impossible to abstain from alcohol completely during Lent as was my intent. However, I have limited my imbibing to celebratory functions, (Hooray for Tuesday! Cheers!), and have not tippled to the point of intoxication.

I don't know if this booze control or lack thereof makes me a bad person, (which to some people I suppose I am), or a hero, (which to at least a few of my readers I surely am - I'm pointing at you Todd and Jason). What I do know, is that not since I, with all my heart and soul believed in a candy delivering hopping rodent have I been so excited for Easter.

Em asked me what I wanted for Easter; I said SCOTCH! She said, "for dinner, idiot!" And I said, "Oh, sorry... SCOTCH!" Apparently I am not ready for any 12 step programs.

I wonder if my doctor, the man of 50-something who said the first time we met, "Guys our age have to really watch our health" and then looked at the chart and discovered he had 15 or more years on me and shuddered visibly, would approve of my lunch today. I had what I'll refer to as the Jake Blues lunch. Four Fried Chickens and a Coke. And some potato wedges. And a roll. But that's all, I swear! And I only salted everything!

Seriously, stop a moment and contemplate the concept of moderation. Next time you are with someone you know, do a social experiment and discuss what moderation looks like. Here's how:

Make up flash cards that say "Liquor", "Wine", "Sex", "Cocaine",
whatever other vice you can muster. Ask the person what is a moderate
(and therefore implicitly acceptable) level of usage or do-age. Before you
do this,write down your own answers. Compare. Do some statistical
analysis (I'm partial to chi squares) and graph out the standard
deviation from the null (your own idea of moderation) and
send it to me. I will have my research assistant compile it and interpret
the results.

Moderation is not often defined by the medical community, leaving us mortals to guess. If I drink, say a pint of scotch, am I being moderate because I can still walk and talk and play Scrabble and maintain perspicacity? Or am I being immoderate because a pint of scotch, half a fifth, would be enough to put you under, for good? Am I being immoderate because that's like, $25.00 worth of scotch, (assuming I bought the bottle from a store)? Or is it moderate because I could drink far less at the bar and pay far more?

I think there is only one solution. Everyone stop doing everything! Since we cannot agree on what will kill us, we must just cease to do it. Going to the bathroom? Nope. Drinking? Certainly not. Being on Atkins? No way. Being a Vegan? Are you nuts?

I propose a movement, well really a lack of a movement, the central tenet of which is to do as little as possible as often as possible in the name of trying not to die. Because after all, anything... everything you do will surely kill you!


Saturday, April 16, 2011

Saturday in the Garage

I am relaxing right now and I deserve to be. I started working in the garage this morning at 10 am, and aside from my three and a half hour junket to Lansing to help a fellow Corvette enthusiast, I was in the garage until dark.

I overhauled the lawnmower; changing the blade, spark plug, oil, throttle cable and doing a tune up. I put in some fresh gas and voila, it started on the first pull. Grand total spent? $19.54. And I was going to replace it since a new one is "only" $180.00.

Since I did so well with the lawnmower, I started to overhaul my roto-tiller/cultivator. I love this little thing. I bought it for my yard in Jersey, which was essentially moss growing on beach sand when we bought the house. After three years, it looked like Matt Lauer's head inasmuch as grass way vaguely growing, but it wasn't thick. It was a display model and leaked oil from the first. The throttle cable on that seized, too. I am trying to get this one unstuck as I think it will be more than the $13.99 for the lawnmower, since it has a cut-off switch integrated into it.

I did manage to pull the engine apart and figure out the leak. I rebuilt it, but am out of oil and probably need a new spark plug, so I don't know if it will still leak or not.

I bring all this up only because I am on a hot streak of mechanical fortitude as late and I am waiting for the show to drop. I am generally handy, but also generally clutzy, generally impatient and generally inept. These are the ingredients of a dangerous person. One confident enough to dig in and too stupid to know when I am in over my head.

What has been different lately is that I have been really enjoying the work. I realize that I much prefer working on mechanical things than I do working on the house. I get far more frustrated working on the little details and taking it slow when I am doing a window, but I just check out and have a zen experience when I am working on a car or other mechanical widget.

But after a long day I am glad to be able to relax in front of the TV for a minute before I slip off to bed. It has been a very nice day, indeed. Even if it did snow briefly. You already know how I feel about that.

Friday, April 15, 2011

For Peggy on Her Birthday

Today is my sister Peggy's birthday. I figured it would be nice to share a story or two about her on her special day. I know she doesn't read the blog, but there is nothing else to celebrate today except the IRS. Even though we didn't always get along, she is certainly better to write about than the organized extortionists that constitute the strong arm of our crooked government. I digress (and not a moment too soon).

My sister was born in North Dakota where April 15th has the mercury still hovering around something just above absolute zero. My dad was stationed in Minot at a radar installation for his last year of a four year stint with the Air Force. I don't know who you had to piss off to get stationed in Minot, especially after two-and-a-half years in Manilla, Phillipines. Talk about your extremes.

They used to put a blanket on the engine of the car at night, presumably to keep it warm enough so it would start in the morning. One or the other of them would invariably forget it was there, cranking the engine with the blanket still in situ. That thick, general issue field blanket stayed around the house for years afterward, holes and all.

My sister was born into this idyllic winter scene. She was adopted by my parents. I am not sure how old she was, precisely, but she was an infant. My mother says the first few years were pretty quiet. My sister slept well, ate well and had a generally good demeanor.

They escaped Minot for Cleveland, which is a lateral move at best, living in a little old house on Eaton Road that my mother recalls wistfully. They must have been good times. Her parents were still alive and they were raising a child, flush from their double enlistment in the military and both working. The pictures from this time are the ubiquitous orange 1970's patina that we of a certain age remember so fondly. They are all smiles and young and fashionable.

Grand Rapids came into the picture when dad got a job here. I came just shy of two years after that. I, too was adopted. My sister was the first person in my would-be family to hold me. She presented me, (as I hear the story it was somewhat of a surprise), to my parents that day. The pictures from then on are also happy ones, if a little less orange.

We fought like cats and dogs, but we had each others' back as fiercely as any pack animal would. No one could call my sister the things I did and no one could mess with her brother except for her. If I ever had a black eye or drawn blood, rest assured it my sister who inflicted the damage... no one else.

One time, during the long and tempestuous teen years, she "ran away." she made it as far as the back yard shed. Clever. She got locked in. She never was the type to think these things out very far. I found her when bringing her some dinner which I tried to spirit away without my parents noticing. I don't think I did a very good job.

My mother would fuel the flames of our ignominy by making me chapparone when there was a boy over. She would send me down to the basement to check up on them. I would try to be funny and cute... you can imagine how that went over.

One time, my sister asked if I would like to play a game. I of course did. I was 7 and she was 12 and I adored her. She told me to sit at the top of the basement stairs. I did. she sat in front of me, reached her hands behind her and told me to hang on. I thought I was getting a horsey back ride. Instead, she flung me over her back and I went flying head first down the stairs crashing head long into an open door at the bottom. She said that was the Superman game. Perhaps this is why I prefer Batman.

Another time, (it could have been the same day for all I know), she told me to rhyme words with luck. Well, sooner or later I landed on the big one. I had never heard the eff-word before and I certainly didn't utter it with any malice this time. That didn't stop my sister from telling my mom, and my explanations and exhortations did not stop my mom from introducing me to the taste of a bar of soap. It was the first, but would not be the last time I ate soap.

I ate an apple core once as a kid. I was in first grade maybe and she was in sixth. This meant I was in her care until my parents came home from work. She faked like I was going to die because I ate the apple core. She fake called the poison control center while making me follow all sorts of bazaar instructions, ostensibly because it was the only thing I could do to survive. I cried and cried while she played me like a fool.

A year earlier, I had a crush on Amy (last name omitted to protect the innocent). I was in Kindergarten. If I remember right, she was my first kiss. And if I remember right, we kissed a lot. She also liked Jeremy Thompson. They kissed a lot, too. Amy grew up to be a kind and virtuous person having gotten her oats sewn at the early age of five. Anyway, Peggy, my evil sister and a friend of hers faked like Amy called me on the phone and wanted to meet me. They got me all dressed up in my little brown suit. I picked some flowers and we all walked out of the house. It was in the middle of the street that they busted out laughing and I slowly realized I had again been made the butt of the joke.

Sure, there was 52 card pickup and other squabbles that led to me being beaten somehow. But there was a turning point. My parents always told her I would get bigger and stronger than her someday and she better be awfully careful about the ire she was cultivating. This was too enhanced a concept for her until one night when I was 11 or 12. She sucker punched me in the back of the head while I sat on the couch watching TV. She was being cool in front of her friend, who was a co-conspirator in many a prank on me.

I was over the back of that couch and on top of her in less than a heartbeat and I hit her so hard she cracked her head into the corner of the wall and was out like a light. Never before or since have I used my fists in anger. I am absolutely unable to put any strength behind a violent action on another person. This is why on occasion I throw things.

She was ok. It marked the last time we were ever physical.

We became closer over the years, especially after we both left the house. We are confidants now. We don't talk as often as we should because as the years go on, we have less in common. distance and life circumstances keep us from seeing much of each other. we are both childless, so there is no great thrust to spend holidays and things like that together... no milestones to share, no fund raising things to sell.

I can't imagine another sister. Even though she was (and is) so different than the rest of us in the immediate family. You could swear she was adopted... oh yeah, right.

Happy birthday, sis. Thanks for the good times and the bad. I hope you have a wonderful day!


Edit: My mom sent me this to correct the record. Since I don't feel like retyping, I will just add her comments verbatim here at the end.

You haven't been posting your blogs on Facebook but I found them.
A couple of things to clear up............You and Peg were each adopted at age 5 weeks. You are five years and five days apart in age and were adopted in the fifth month. Number 5 is our lucky number.
We were stationed in Angeles City in the the PI, not Manila (different island) and then in Fortuna Air Force station in ND. Minot was a whole city! If you happen to look at a North Dakota map you will see a world of difference.
The little house on Eaton Rd had 5 bedrooms but you can't be faulted for that.........you didn't live there. But it was pretty big. The photos were orange hued tho!
My God, reading that, I am grateful you are both alive!!!
Love you
Mom

Thursday, April 14, 2011

99 years

_______________________________________________________________

In about two hours from when I am writing this will mark the 99th anniversary of the Titanic hitting the infamous iceberg in the cold, flat, north Atlantic. About two-and-a-half hours after, that harrowing event would be over for 1533 or so souls who went into the icy water. The infants, the children, the women newly orphaned and widowed in front of their eyes on an unimaginatively massive scale.

Even the crew, many of whom were unattached by design could only watch as their surrogate family, indeed their entire surrogate earth slipped away, taking much of what they knew with it. I wonder if the loss of the fathers and husbands mothers and sisters was drowned by the profound nature and terrible scale of the thing, or if the grief each survivor felt for each lost loved one was what moved them to tears that night. Of course, It was too cold to cry. And while the dead and dying floated like posed zombies, the ordeal was just beginning for the ones that made it in to the boats.

The movies like to portray thundering sounds of screaming from people splashing about in the water that level and then slowly die off completely. Mostly, the people who went in just died silently and in a state of shock; the freezing water stealing their ability to express the pain and dread they felt. Some were no doubt resigned before they went in, some were surely fighting that dreadful eventuality; scarcely able to comprehend the fate that was so plain and yet so unbelievable all the same. Sure, there are stories of people who went into the water and somehow made it to a boat, but they are a precious few among the ones consigned to the sea.

The screaming was reserved for the people who made it into the boats. The ship, which was for a short while on a perilous angle nose down into the black ink sea snapped with a thunderous crack that would have been audible for miles; there being nothing to stop it from issuing forth in all directions.

That would have been the moment when there was no denying the fate of the formerly sleek black steamer, adorned with classic lines and bedecked with technology that was supposed to be sufficient to stop precisely this from happening.

And after it was gone, they were alone. Adrift in an ice field, surrounded by dead bodies floating eerily around them. They knew help was coming, but they didn't know when. Some may have wished they were bobbing in the ocean as dead as dead could be rather than stuck on the boat, with nowhere to go and nothing to do but try to wrap their minds around what just happened.

They turned to the southwest and rowed until the with the dawn breaking over their backs, they spotted Carpathia, a ship of considerably less grandeur than the likes of Titanic. As it drew over the horizon and came closer, it must have looked beautiful beyond measure.

99 years ago those who made it, a mere fraction of the whole, waited patiently while they were hoisted, one by one, in slings onto the deck of an already crowded ship and awaited nervously their arrival to dry land and a new life that was altogether uncertain.
_______________________________________________________________

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

A Conspiracy of Fate

Nature is a Mother

Weather. This time of year in the great north, weather is a terrible tease with days like last Saturday, sunny and 81; and days like next Saturday's rain snow mix with a high of 34. The worst weather always happens on the weekends, at least so it seems, making it impossible for me to get my yard in order, unless I skip work one day and do it. That would be unethical.

Really what I'm pissed about is this. I offered to help a guy from the Corvette forum to which I belong go look at a couple cars on Saturday. He is a self-described "newbie", or as the kids call it, "NOOB". I hate to see NOOBs spend too much money because they are overwhelmed by the beauty of their conquest.

A Corvette, unlike a lot of old cars, hides its flaws pretty well. At least it does if you are objectifying it. And most people do. The plastic bodies don't rust, and so people who are looking don't think about the metal underneath. The panel fit on all these cars was middling at best, especially in the mid 1970's, long thought the nadir of quality in American cars. But is the panel fit on this car normal bad, or "I've been in an accident", bad?

Not to go too far into this, because I can see your eyes glazing over as you read, I was hoping to be able to drive my Corvette to do this. Any little excuse, right? Nope. Not to be if the weather is to be believed. When it comes to predicting rain and cold on a Saturday in middle April, it almost always is.
_______________________________________________________________

When it Rains...

...It pours. Things have suddenly gotten very busy and I am seeing some fruits of my recent labors. It almost is enough to restore some of my lost faith in humanity.
_______________________________________________________________

Daddy Needs a New Pair of Shoes

We walk so much that my walking shoes are walked out. I need a new pair. We are going shopping tonight. Hopefully I can find some good shoes made by people who aren't forced to live in abject poverty in deplorable conditions for less than my life savings.
_______________________________________________________________

Signs Signs, Everywhere a Sign

People have been protesting a lot lately about a lot of things. Some people want equality, some people want institutionalized racism, some people are up in arms about losing collective bargaining while still others just want a job.

Many of these protesters employ signs to put their points across. They range from cutesy to sorta homicidal looking. I saw one today that I can really get behind. It said everything I had been thinking. It was clear, concise and bereft of anything that would muddy its message.



About says it all, don't you think?

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Men are From Brooklyn, Women are from Queens

I haven't been blogging for a bit because I find myself to be in a bit of a mood. My mother always told me if I wasn't able to say anything nice, I should refrain from saying anything at all.

I have been very quiet this week.

I am not a patient man. I recognize this. I also do not like it when I feel as though there are demands put upon me that represent a certain amount of inequity. I can carry 36 grocery bags in the house at once while talking on the phone. I can use my chin to open the door. My dear wife, however cannot be bothered to reach for the door and pull it open with one bag in each hand. She also cannot be bothered to communicate this fact with me; leaving me in a position to not know she needs help, and therefore not help when she needs help. I should have known.

There are many differences between men and women. Most of them are praiseworthy and absolutely necessary to the growth and continuation of the species. But there are some small things that really bug us about each other. Like women smell good and men don't. Even if I were to slather myself in the same body washes and lotions my wife does, I would smell like a man. A fruity, desperate man. Our different sensibilities often define us; and often lead to problems like the pea under the princess' mattress, or the thorn in the tiger's paw. They loom large in our lives.

Men tend to be more self-dependent than women, asking for help only when they have exhausted all other options. This is what leads us to not ask for directions, or to lift an object that is clearly too big or too heavy for us. Often, when we have to ask for help, we wrap it up into a social context in an effort to mask the fact we are asking for help. For instance, it is not uncommon for a guy to say- "Hey, come on over and we'll watch the game and drink some beers and remodel my kitchen... It'll be like a party!"

Women often ask for help, not because they need help in the classical sense, but because they want help. I suspect, that to my wife, help represents the fortitude of our relationship. It is a bulwark if you will, a glaring example of our fortress marriage. Men don't get this. A least I certainly don't. My bulwark, is independence itself. My wife takes pride in "look what we did together!" Where I want to boast what I did all by myself.

I learned this (again) yesterday when Emily was saying how "we" fixed the brakes on the Corvette and had even thought about driving it to Indiana (for about a minute until reality took hold). Emily did indeed help there at the end. She followed my instructions to the letter and helped me complete the job.

My male need to show alpha sensibility out competed my need to get along with my mate and I took exception to the use of the word "we" insofar as it demonstrated relative equality with respect to the amount of work and expertise needed to complete the job. Fact is, the job could not have been completed without Em's help, but it never would have started without me.

I am not capable of letting something like this pass and had to straighten out the record for everyone. Which probably made me look like a jerk.

And then I, when on the (probably rare) occasion I help Em, or do something without being asked, expect a parade, or fireworks. Perhaps both should the situation warrant. If you were to cared enough to ask me, it usually does.

Similarly, I suffer a larger than normal indignity when my efforts go unnoticed or unappreciated, or worse, become the source of critique. I hate, simply hate hate hate, doing something kind only to have it said that I could have (should have, indeed, how could I not have) done it another way.

This is something in my experience my wife cannot stop doing. Her mother does it, and her mother's mother does it. They can't help it anymore than a bird can help singing, or a blade of grass can help growing. And I cannot help that I hate, hate hate hate, this trait.

I made breakfast this morning and even did the dishes. I put the dishes in the dishwasher rack to dry. We went to church. When we cam home, Em's mom said, "Oh, we don't put clean dishes in there, it's gross... we put them in the other dishwasher." They have two. One derelict (which I foolishly used), the other portable.

Em, who had earlier not only seen me putting them in the other dishwasher and later even commented I could leave them to dry while we were in church, now suddenly became an expert on where to put the damn dishes, agreeing with her mother and going so far as to say "yeah, they put them in the other dishwasher".

Now I am staring down two women, critiquing my performance when I wanted a parade. And fireworks.

There were fireworks alright. I am after all, not a patient man.

Now you know the rest of the story. I'll get over it and the dishes were duly rewashed in accordance with laws of cleanliness and tradition that would make a mohel throw his hands up in the air with an exasperated Oy Vey! Life will carry on and there will, God willing, be many more opportunities for flared tempers and grandiose ruminations on the differences between men and women, me and you, her and him.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Badd Spalling and Other Maladies of the System

I spend a lot of time on the internet. A lot. Too much. I am one of those who gets a little itchy if I haven't checked up on things for a little bit (30 seconds). I have developed this habit over the years. Some things change, some things do not change.

People's ability, or lack thereof, to spell and punctuate has only changed for the worse. The slow dissolution of our requirements to be correct is starting to jump offline and into the real world. For instance, I passed a building today that where the sign read: CPA's.

It is entirely possible that the person who owns that sign has the initials, C.P.A., making the sign somewhat less egregious, but it is very, very doubtful (see below where I decide to continue on this rant- for the sake of flow, I removed it down to the bottom). My own company's website is fraught with grammatical missteps and errors of this sort. I am too new to tell anyone. I feel embarrassed to point it out. That no one else has caught it, pointed it out or gone about correcting it is somewhat more worrisome, but apparently the fact that we fix flood's and fire's is okay by the leadership.

I was the only one who noted that a van we had just gotten back from the graphics shop spelled refrigeration as refridgeration. I am a terrible speller... I went into why at length in a blentry quite some time ago. In case you don't remember, that particular faculty was fried by some 110 AC current and an intrepid stab of metal into a light socket while taking part in a spelling bee. But refridgeration jumped off the van like a tigress ready to strike.

How come they didn't notice this at the graphics shop? Are you telling me the person who laid out the graphics was not capable of spelling? Or at least looking a word up? Is the graphic shop we use competitively priced because they do without things like spell checker?

It is 6 months after I noticed that gaffe, and that van is now in service on the other side of the state with a different arm of the company, and refridgeration is still proudly emblazoned on the side of the van. My question is, if we can't spell it, how the hell can we service it?

I am also a poor typist, another shortcoming I freely admit. On this very blog there are many an entry that have misused, misspelled words. I typically do not go back and spend a lot of time reading my own blogs. If I did, I would deem them worthless and they would never get published. I assure you, however, that when I am creating or editing business correspondence, I am Johnny on the Spot with the grammar and spelling.

How is it we are allowing this to slip? Why isn't proper language usage both verbal and written an absolute necessity in all we do? We don't even need schools to teach it, if we all did it right, that is how we would all learn, naturally, over time.

Em and I had a talk on one of our walks and she said something that triggered an idea in my head. How about we relent and give all kids cell phones? They can have the newest and best with free unlimited texting and talking. The caveat? They cannot send a text unless it is grammatically correct and spelled properly. There will be a tutorial on how to fix what was typed and therefore it will be a lot like learning! We can call it text-bot.

Similarly, phone conversations could be monitored by a talk-bot. if there is an egregious misuse of a word, or the use of a made-up word, (dethaw and irregardless pop to mind) talk-bot will interrupt you and correct you. You could even customize your talk-bot to have a celebrity voice. Imagine, Lady Ga Ga teaching the children proper grammar usage!

No longer will we hear "me and Sam are going to the store, or Sam and me are going to the store, or suffer through commonly overlooked errors like making a lot one word to read, alot. Who didn't learn this stuff?

My mother and father were so picky with me growing up and I hated every minute of it. They constantly corrected my speaking. If I asked about a word, how to spell it or how to use it, I was told to look it up and come back with the answer. It was brilliant parenting. It just seems as if may parents, or at least parents of their generation were amongst the last who knew the good they were doing by being such pains in the ass.

Without further ado, let's explore some of my most pet of peeves.

Irregardless- Did you know as I type this, it does not say it is misspelled? Which means this unholy mash up of the two words irrespective and regardless has made it into the common vernacular.

Dethaw- This would mean to freeze, yes? Would you say unthaw? How about defreeze or unfreeze? No? Right, because it is an abortion of grammar. So stop saying dethaw.

Deprivised (deprivized?)- As used by a boss I had once. Please don't make fun of the way I talk, I'm a little sleep deprovised.

Incorrect use of possessives- It is not "the lake's mall", it is "the lakes mall." The lake does not own the mall. It is certainly not CPA's, which would have to be read CPA-is. This makes no sense at all. And if it was C.P.A.'s, meaning a person with the initials C.P.A. owned it, then the sign is still wrong. Why the need to add an apostrophe to everything these days? not every word that is plural is possessive. Its/It's is a great example. It's means It is. Say it out loud with me. It Is My Cup, not its my cup. Its is assumed to be possessive already. It's (It is) in its very nature.

Incorrect placement of the plural- It is Mothers-in-Law not Mother-in-laws. Please, make the article/noun/pronoun, (mother) not the modifier (in-law) plural.

You're/Yore/Your- A contraction is the melding of two words, denoted by the use of an apostrophe. You're is therefore a contraction of you/are. The 'a' is dropped and replaced by the apostrophe. so 'you're' and 'you are' are both 6 characters. Some shortcut. Whomever came up with contractions is singularly responsible for all the bad things in the world since that day, ever. I long for the days of YORE when we did not write with contractions, ever. And Your is possessive... if I ever see your's, I am going to cut your fingers off and feed them to you.

Who/whose/who's/whom- when I figure this one out, I'll let you know. See also, Lye, Lie, Lay, Lain.

And many, many more... but lunch is over so I have to go.

Piece my Friend's. Please, make sure your fixing you're spelling and grammer errors before the world ends bad.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

HorrorScopes

I don't believe in the veracity or efficacy of horoscopes. I do read mine every day, though, because it's funny. I actually not only read my horoscope, but many days read all the astrological sign horoscopes. Then I pick the one I like the best.

Today, I am an Aries. This particular horoscope that comes across on my Google home page has me as a Taurus. But, I have always chosen freely between the two, since my birthday, April 20th, is on the cusp. Depending on who you listen to, if indeed you do consult astrology as a guiding principal, I can be either.

Today, as I said, I am an Aries. Here it is in its entirety:

The super-active Aries energy is over the top today and exuberant
Jupiter's conjunction with the Sun in your sign gives you something
to celebrate. Although it's the middle of the workweek, you
might not be able to concentrate on your job responsibilities.
You would rather spend your time lost in creative
self-expression than finishing up what should have been done
yesterday. As usual, your key to happiness depends on finding a
middle ground between feeling free and meeting your obligations.


The middle ground I am choosing to pursue at this point is avoiding work. I am leaving on the road for the day in a short while and figured since I am having a working lunch and a full day of appointments, I can lose the morning a little and indulge in my creative self-expression.

Trouble is, I am not feeling terribly creative. It's a rainy day. On top of that, instead of easing into it, we took our walk first thing this morning because that's what suited our schedule. Instead of drinking coffee in my robe, checking up on the news, (okay, checking up on Facebook), I was walking briskly in the rain.

When I got home, I sat down with some coffee, but somehow it wasn't the same. I didn't get that preternatural feeling of calm and comfort upon that first slurpy hot pull. I missed that first immediate rush of the day. I missed it a lot when I quit smoking, too. The things we associate with pleasure are very dangerous... or can be.

So instead of enjoying my coffee and its effects on my body and soul, I was engaged in wonder of what I would choose if I had to choose between coffee and other certain things in life that I find enjoyable. That is a topic for another day. It turns out, philosophical self-inventory is not the best way to spend a morning. I needed a diversion.

Checking on the news, (Facebook, whatever!), I see that one friend's sister is still going through chemo (she's 4 years my junior), and another lost a pet quite unexpectedly. Having had close family and friends suffer through cancer, and having lost a beloved pet quite unexpectedly, I was suddenly down. There is a lot of pain in the world.

My mind wanders back to yesterday. I took the time to send another letter to my friend who is in prison, awaiting trial for a crime committed a long time ago. I sent him a letter a month ago as a pick-me-up. I was a little surprised, but very happy to get one back. It is clear the letters help, so even though I don't have a lot to say, I am trying hard to write regularly. I remember how I liked getting letters at summer camp... and from what my friend tells me, jail isn't summer camp.

It is hard to write a letter to someone who is incarcerated. I want to believe that he had nothing to do with the crime... and his story is certainly plausible. But I also, maybe innocently, believe that people don't typically get arrested and held without a certain amount of evidence. I may be naive. I don't know how many people are wrongfully arrested or convicted. I don't have time to research it.

But, whatever the truth and the outcome, it is still nice to get a letter or two. Maybe for that five minutes, the worry melts away.

All these things, and the rain and the late spring have got me sorta spent. I would love to be able to, as my horoscope says, indulge my inner creativity. Instead, I think I am just avoiding work. And even the time for that has expired.



Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Taking a Pass on Passwords

This morning was a lesson in utter frustration. I renewed a prescription over the phone, which is easy enough and went to go begin my work day. It was 9:03 am. Sorry, boss, I was three minutes late.

But that's not the issue. Em says to me, "I'm going shopping... do you want me to pick that up, or should I give you, 'the card'?"

The card in this case accesses the funds in our Health Savings Account, or HSA. For those of you who are poor, like we are, an HSA is a way for your company to wriggle out of paying premiums for decent insurance by foisting upon you a savings account that they put money, (your money), into each month on your behalf. Or in my case, they put money in when they can. It has proven sporadic and I'm pretty sure not totally legal, but I am gonna leave well-enough alone.

Em just hit the card pretty hard for a three month prescription, so I said I didn't think we had much of an available balance. "I'll look it up," I said as though it should have been the easiest thing in the world to do. And it should have been. But if it were, this post would be about something else, now, wouldn't it?

I forgot the password. I checked each of my myriad e-mails in whichI store important things in hopes no one could ever access enough of my important information to steal my identity and therefore my tens of hundreds of dollars. In fact, I spread important information around like Voldemort stores Horcruxes, or for those of you who actually have a life and don't understand that reference, like a squirrel hides nuts.

No dice. It was not in my Yahoo, other Yahoo, other other Yahoo, Gmail, old work, new work or any other e-mail I remember having. It donned on my that I may have stored the information on my Blackberry, in the handy feature called "Password Keeper". Its icon is a safe, which makes me feel like it is good and secure. Like a safe.

I couldn't find the app at first, because it wasn't on my desktop. It was in a sub folder. I finally found it and typed in my password. Yes, a password to access my passwords.

Wrong password, it informs me. 1 of 10 attempts used.

10 attempts? How safe is that? I think most of the people in my life, were they to really do a little homework could figure out the passwords I use in 10 attempts!

Except of course, me. I began rolling through my various iterations and permutations of my standard passwords until I burned up 7 of 10 tries. I was sweating.

Then I remembered I told Em the password with the preface that "if God forbid, something should happen to me, all my important passwords and accounts are on this, here. And this is the password to get the password."

I knew she would write it down as soon as I walked away. And I know where she keeps these things written down, so I went there. The first password I put in was the right password. I must have mistyped it. Damn, I hate when that happens.

The HSA account password was not in there. It is now 9:20 am. I have spent 17 minutes and considerable perspiration, all to see if I have $18.00 in this stupid account. That's almost a dollar a minute if my math is right.

I had to admit to the website that I had forgotten the secret handshake. This triggered the waterfall five security questions, which have to be answered within a specific time and cannot be mistyped. The questions are easy so this should have been an easy task.

Again, if that were true, this would be a different blentry. Because the five questions are things that everyone knows the answers to, (or could find out easily), I answer them wrong, with answers only I would know. Who's dumb now?

Still Me. Because I couldn't remember my wrong answers. I thought it out, though, and got in. I had forgotten this password required letters (at least one uppercase), numbers AND a special character. I was only just now getting used to mixing letters and numbers.

It is now 9:23 am, and I figured out the answer to the question I asked of myself a full 20 minutes before. Yes, there is at least $18.00 available in the HSA.

Ironically, the med I am refilling has something to do with anxiety suppression, or at least that's one thing it supposedly does for me. Perhaps every new password should come with a prescription.

Monday, April 4, 2011

Sharing Nachos

Being the social anthropologist I am, I find small ways to make big observation about people when I am out among them. First, it is important to stay in disguise at all times - meaning, your subjects must never know you are watching them. If they suspect you are, their behavior will be altered and you may be asked to leave, depending on the type of establishment you are patronizing.

There are certain places that are excellent for watching humans in their native habitats. The shopping mall is one, and TGI Fridays is another. I pick on Fridays because it caters to the 85 percentile person. You will find a range in age on any given night. You will find people there to watch sports, to drink, to hook up, to have a girls night out, or any other myriad activity.

And they have nachos.

What do nachos have to do with anything? Oh, you are so good at asking the right questions. You can tell a lot about people from how they share nachos. For instance, a couple in the infancy of their relationship, within the first few dates, are almost always focused on each other and not the nachos. They deconstruct the nachos slowly, from edge working in to center. The nachos are a safety mechanism, a shared project and a possible source of conversation if it is getting a little dull. The girl will pick around for a nacho not too loaded, not too big and eat it in small bites, followed by a demure dab of the corner of her lips with her napkin. Neither party ever licks their fingers, for they are not far enough into their relationship for licked finger double dipping. This couple actually uses the small appetizer plates that the server handed them at the beginning of the meal. This is apparently the purpose for which they are intended. They often ask for, and use, extra napkins.

At the next table, we see a married couple over the same nachos. Sharing here is a relative term at most. They immediately dive in, going from center to edge grabbing for all the toppings that each chip will bear. There is little talking and what talking there is is usually about the nachos and their relative goodness, or a passive-aggressive comment about not eating them all. All talking is accompanied by small ejecta from the mouth area which is ignored, unless said ejecta is deemed large enough to warrant attention, in which case it is picked up from where it lay and reintroduced into the mouth. This is done with one hand, without looking while the eyes continue to scan the remaining nachos formulating the other hand's next move. the strategy employed is like a chess game, fluid and changing in response to the opponent's last move. The appetizer plates are shoved aside as they are merely getting in the way of the straight path to the nachos. They remain so clean the restaurant could use them for another table. The married couple's napkins stay firmly on their laps as they use the traditional lick and suck methods of cleaning themselves while eating. the tongue is employed to clean large foodstuffs from the immediate area around the mouth, while the mouth itself is used to clean the fingers.

In fact, the only time the napkin is used is when one member of the couple is signifying they are done; they are, in effect throwing in the towel. This is the signal that allows the other party to "have at it" and finish the plate. No eye contact shall be made during this picking clean process as it would only call attention to the graphic nature of what has just transpired.

Now, as we go back to the table of the couple who are dating, we see there is still a considerable amount of nachos left on the plate, even though the married couple is paying the check and grabbing for their coats. As the nacho supply dwindles, each person slows their eating, not wanting to appear too aggressive. The nachos almost never get finished. There are several different motivations for this.

The woman does not want to appear to be a "big eater" and the man, anticipating (nae, hoping for) some sort of physical congress in the not too distant future (perhaps even in the parking lot) tries not to fill up too much. There is also a tacit acknowledgment that there exists enough prosperity between the two that they can afford to throw perfectly good food away; which as we all know is very important in America.

In next week's lesson, we will discuss dessert sharing and how it relates to relationship stamina.

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Springing Forward Forward

Call Me Mister Tigger

Many years ago, before congress chose to ignore almost every important issue and instead exercised its power to screw with Daylight Saving Time. My wife bought me an Oregon Scientific clock that removed the burden of the user having to change the clock twice a year (and performed its real intent, my twice yearly rantings on the topic of time change).

What the clockmaker did not count on, nor provide contingency for was the unending idiocy of our elected officials manifest in changing the weeks that we spring forward and fall back. Even more at the core of why I write this at 6:00 am on a Sunday is the fact that we Americans are lazy and gadget hungry and too often are at the mercy of the devices meant to make our lives easy. I have railed against all this in previous blentries but I can't seem to find where. Oh well, if you read it once, you don't need to read it again and if you didn't read it then, you probably don't care to now.

My clock sprung forward last night, even though the rest of us sprung forward weeks ago. So, waking my groggy wife and my groggy cat in an unusually dark and cold room this morning, I did not posses the presence of mind to put the pieces together so that I might see the whole picture. It was 5:55 am, not 6:55 am.

I now have a clock, designed by a company that uses a form of the word 'science' in its title that doesn't actually work, strictly speaking, since 4 times per year it is unable to provide the service for which it was originally designed, requiring either my direct intervention or, failing that, causing some sort of exaggerated timeliness or tardiness.

The picture is, simply, I get an extra hour of time to do... something... with this morning. I think drinking coffee and bitching about it is a good use of time. Yep. Indeed.
_______________________________________________________________

Old Timey Pursuits

It was too pretty last night not to take a drive in the Corvette. It was cold, yes, but pretty. The weather in these parts right now is nearly indiscernible from late fall. There are a few less leaves on the trees and the telltale road debris that is a signature remnant of winter's snow is prominent. However, those clues aside, a person would be hard pressed to say whether it is March or November. And here we are in April. Spring is going to be short this year.

I went through a car wash for the first time I think since I have known the car, which is 22 years this week. It was very, very dirty and it is just too cold to wash it in my driveway. With an old car, even a mere carwash qualifies as an adventure. You can play "where will the leak come from" or my favorite game, "name that part" - in which you have to correctly identify the formerly attached part as it is hurling by you in the vortex of air, water and various scrubbing apperati (apperatusses?). Both games are fun and usually give way to my favorite "will we get out of this alive?" the game where you literally face death in the form of those heated air dryers that seem to go on forever at the end.

After the near death carwash, we took her out to the back roads away from the city. I was comfortable with this since everything seemed to be in good working order. We had a fine drive down 92nd street and its roller coaster like hills. We took a turn back to town and I decided to make a trip through the old neighborhood.

Like an anthropologist, I take a trip through the old 'hood to measure and note its slow rate of decline. I was pleased to say that it looked better that it has in recent visits. Maybe things are looking up. We then took a quick diversion past Chandra and Jason's. One car was there but we didn't stop. Dropping by unannounced is an old timey pursuit. It just doesn't happen any more.

As we were turning for home, we spotted Jason heading back home. He spotted us and we waved. I decided to pursue him and we pulled into his drive mere moments after he did. And we visited for an hour and left.

Back when I was growing up, it was not unheard of (indeed, it was fairly frequent) for my parents' friends to drop by while out on a walk, or just pop in in general. I always thought it nice. Neighborly. Friendly. I hope we were not an imposition on our friends. We were just trying to be... friendly.
_______________________________________________________________

Spring Fresh

Despite spring's late arrival, it was spring cleaning day in the Uebbing household, yesterday. After breakfast and coffee at West Coast Coffee, (owner and proprietor Doug is my friend from back in the day), we set to work, denuding the dark corners of the house. We moved the furniture, vacuumed the curtains, got all the little nooks free of crannies and generally worked our assess off.

The thing about spring cleaning is that you work hard for little apparent payoff. Had any of our friends decided to pop by they would have not noticed that the space underneath the couch upon which they were perched was sanitary enough to eat from, or that the wall behind our head board in our bedroom was now free of the accumulated cat hair and other various dust or that the area behind and beneath the refrigerator, and indeed the workings of refrigerator itself were both as clean as a whistle.

In the end, it must be done. And there are worse ways of spending an otherwise idle day than putting on some music (in this case a Bob Seger marathon) and bee-boppin' your way through the house with a rag in your hand.
_______________________________________________________________

S*it Warmed Over

I admit, Em... I wanted seconds. Nice job considering what you had to work with!