Fish Eating Bats
When I learned we weren't going to Mexico and were heading instead for Puerto Rico I dispensed with even the pretense of learning more Spanish. Or adding to the three page internal phrase book that best describes my understanding of the Spanish language. Also I gave up on good manners, positive attitude, belief in an afterlife and that right wins over wrong and that some fish can fly and that some bats do eat fish.
In the Aguadilla Airport the taxi drivers hanging by the baggage carrousel all hawked their services eagerly in English. And the young woman behind the rental counter also spoke perfect English and I would guess Spanish as well, although there is some doubt as to whether she was aware of the fish eating bats from Isla Mona. No extra nada I said and got assigned a Kia Rio at the cheapest price possible, a white one, and after signing and initialing and receiving back my paperwork I headed off with Bernadette into the early morning heat of Puerto Rico. The wheels of my carry on luggage clicking over the pavement made enough noise that Bernadette commented on it. That's on account of I have the all terrain wheels I explained to her. This baby can go anywhere, through sand or mud or wet concrete.
The rental car parking lot was small so we were not immediately concerned that we had forgotten the rental woman's exact directions. We both knew she said fourth row after the guard booth but whether left or right after that....?, we really could not say with any amount of certainty. No matter really, the car was not anywhere. This we verified after three young guys, from three different car rental agencies, none of whom spoke English by the way and made me regret the careless abandonment of my studies, searched the lot for us. No big deal. The one youngster loaded up our luggage and drove us the short drive back to the terminal and we tried again. This time the woman gave us a car that had not even been checked in properly, and was right outside the door in a much smaller lot, and this one also a Kia Rio compact, but a blue one. She even told us exactly what slot (number 8) the car would be in.
But getting the hang of things now, we took no time at all to come to the conclusion, all by ourselves, that the blue Kia was not around either. There were no Kias at all in this lot so when I saw a car of similar size, a Mazda 3, arguably an upgrade, but as it and the Kia both only have four tires I could not see that it was a huge upgrade, I suggested to Bernadette that while she waited in the not exactly sweltering heat, I would copy the license number and see if we could just take the Mazda. I did not, but thought about saying, but hey, you keep an eye on this one.
Walking up to the counter and trying my best not to project a frustration which I truly did not feel, I apologized to the woman with two words in Spanish (from page one of the internal phrase book), and then continued in English to explain that the blue Kia was also absent. I felt not happy to be the one bringing to attention that many of their cars were seemingly disappearing into thin air.
I tried to joke with the woman a little and after signing and initialing all the forms for a third time, and after which she made her own little joke by saying--we'll try not to charge you three times, I smiled, said see you in two weeks, and then Bernadette and I drove off in the Mazda, only briefly concerning ourselves with the ramifications inherent to the fact that because we were taking the car from the unofficial lot, we were therefore not exiting through a guard booth, so that our papers could be checked. Also, although the license on this car matched the one on the paperwork, the color listed was gold. I cannot really describe what the color of the Mazda is (if forced I would say green) except to say that it is not gold.
After finding this place on the beach and realizing that the waves were crashing barely a hundred feet behind the comfortably sized backyard, we entered the house with the key a trusting owner had left under the mat, rifled through our bags and after quickly putting on our bathing suits, jumped into the ocean.
The unhappy ending to this day was that later in the evening, pulling shit out of a musty and polluted thin air, an air that was also possibly inhabited with a slew of missing rental cars, I started and then continued to carry on a nasty fight with Bernadette. It took me awhile, too long for sure, but I did eventually come to the conclusion that on this particular occasion I was, rare as it might seem, completely wrong, about everything, and this morning after finding not one single blunt and rusty machete wedged into my flesh, I felt fairly certain that possibly I had been forgiven, and so today was a new day.
...more recent posts
I Can Turn To The Right
Bernadette, I just got back from the doctor. It only took you a little over a year to assist me in the decision making process which led to last week my getting blood work done and this week a trip to the urologist. As I told you the blood work came out fine. Cholesterol numbers good and on all those other readings, twenty or so in total, I came in mostly right at the midpoint of acceptable levels, although at the high level of acceptable for carbon dioxide, and what that's doing in my blood I'll never know, nor would I desire anyone chiming in to inform me of what it is doing in my blood.
Now for the bad news, and it's worse than we thought. While it would seem likely that I am not suffering from colon or prostate cancer, it would appear very likely that I am in the advance stages of Alzheimers. I got up early enough to have time to kill so after taking a shower and in my clean sparkling going to the doctor outfit, I slathered a coat of paint on the railing for the little porch outside the cottage front door, that door that only the Jehovah's Witnesses use. Then like they always do, coming right out of the blue, I got one of those cricks in my neck, first just barely noticeable and then full blown, and now I have to turn my whole body to look left, but not so bad looking to the right so thank God for little favors. I hate to complain--not that it stops me from doing so--about little minor problems but did I tell you already that last night I cut my finger opening a can of anchovies?
Anyway, the slight nausea brought on by the discomfort in my neck has subsided somewhat, especially after having breakfast.
We were concerned you and I because after drinking a half bottle of wine, two beers and a couple of whiskies at night I was, after going to bed, getting up to pee several times. And while this could be caused by the fairly common non cancerous enlarging of the prostate, we thought it would be a good idea to get some of my parts checked out.
After the doctor I went to the Lowe's at the new and growing butt end of Front Royal. I used up too many of those mullion strips for the breezeway screening as door stop material for the two screen doors so I needed to get some more. But they didn't have it, that kind we got in Culpeper, only they did have the stuff, the plain stuff I was looking for in the first place, so I just decided the backside, facing the back porch area, won't have the more decorative stuff. And I got a couple of slices of rough cedar to repair that garage door. And a can of black spray paint for the strap hinges. Looking at it all now it would seem rather certain that something on my last minute to do list isn't getting done, because I don't know if you noticed last time you were here but this house has growing now something more like dust-elephants than dust-bunnies, so a good cleaning is in order, which really wasn't on the list.
Well next to the Lowe's is a brand spanking new ginormous Walmart so I went in there because you know how I love my one stop shopping. You are nodding, or perhaps shaking your head now. You say, "yes baby I do know how you love your one stop shopping. You are a good little shopper you, right up to that point in time when the panic strikes and you come find me in whatever store we are in, and you sweating and white as a dirty t-shirt grab my arm and say 'we have to leave now.' And if I so much as bat an eye you say, 'no, now. We. Have. To. Leave. Now. Put. The. Butter. Down. And. Follow. Me. Out. Of. Here.'"
I don't know how many times you've heard me say this but this was the biggest damn Walmart ever. And, practically vacant. Shopping paradise. So I got some more travel items for our trip to Mexico.
And HAH, the jokes on you all you nay-saying ooohhhh, you can't go to Mexico, the crime, the crime, I saw it on CNN about the crime. I got a pandemic for your pie holes.
So yes, back to holes. I am not overly averse to the idea of some of the seemingly unnatural aspects of medical procedure. If medical science has determined that it is good for me have a latex-gloved finger smeared with vaseline and inserted searchingly into my rectum, then so be it. That being said, it does require a little bit of psyching up on the way to the doctor's office. But after some deep breathing and a few well delivered jokes to myself, I was good with it, almost cheerful you could say. But when I pulled on the doctors door it was locked. The outside door to the office, the access door to all medical personnel employed therein, shuttered.
I went downstairs and tried the Ob-Gyn office. It wasn't locked but the receptionist was gone, vacant, not to be found.
I then went back to the family practice office, across the parking lot, where I had my blood work done, and ask them what may be up.
You know, I wasn't sure if any of the procedures would require me having an empty stomach but just to be safe I had not eaten or had anything to drink that morning. And as you try to weave your way out of the Lowe's/Walmart parking lot you practically run right into The Cracker Barrel. We've eaten there together. I will for the record, to save you no small amount of embarrassment, state that I made you eat there with me, just in case any of the real smart readers are able to crack the code of who really is this Bernadette. I didn't have to make Bill Macy eat there. He was like--"Cracker Barrel? Cracker Barrel? When do we get there, are we there yet? I want Cracker Barrel, I want Cracker Barrel." Cracker Barrel is great if you have a longing for seventies hairdo's on a waitress. And if your waitress doesn't call you hon' you get ten percent off your check. As for the food--well the sawmill gravy is at least accurately named. It really does taste like sawdust. But it filled me up and not once did I feel like gagging, So I'm giving it one thumb up, but there is grease under the nail of that thumb. Then I went home.
"I don't know why the door would be locked," the receptionist said. I didn't know either. "Did we make this appointment for you?" she asked in a way to imply that if I said no she was going to tell me to get the hell out and quit wasting her time. So I just said yes, even though thinking on it now, no, I don't think they did make the appointment. While she was checking into matters I joked with the other receptionist, "this is Monday, April 27th isn't it." She smiled and said it was and I continued, "you know, just in case I did a Rip van..." but I trailed off before finishing because none of this was really that funny and they are probably sick of lame jokes delivered by uptight patients about to get a finger up their butt.
When I walked out I was pissed off I don't mind telling you, but I had no one to direct it at because these receptionists were not part of the loop. I most certainly DID NOT make the appointment for May 27 I fumed to myself on the way out. A week and a half ago I asked for the earliest possible appointment and the receptionist said May 27? Is that even possible? You know, I am remembering now to four years ago when I saw this guy last. I was there on the right day but I was about six hours too early, they fit me in that time, but this time there was no one there behind the locked doors to be fit in by. The specialists at this office only come through on a revolving schedule and are not based in the town of Front Royal. So I'm sorry Bernadette, I wanted to get this done and check it off the list but on the bright side, I didn't get a strange finger up my bum today. I promise when we get back from Mexico, if we do get back from Mexico, that I will start over and perhaps even find a better doctor up in Warrenton, and hell, I'll even throw in a colonoscopy and barium enema to prove to you how serious I am about the health of my insides, although we should probably face it, it will be my mind that's the death of me.
Bernadette, I just got back from the doctor. It only took you a little over a year to assist me in the decision making process which led to last week my getting blood work done and this week a trip to the urologist. As I told you the blood work came out fine. Cholesterol numbers good and on all those other readings, twenty or so in total, I came in mostly right at the midpoint of acceptable levels, although at the high level of acceptable for carbon dioxide, and what that's doing in my blood I'll never know, nor would I desire anyone chiming in to inform me of what it is doing in my blood.
Now for the bad news, and it's worse than we thought. While it would seem likely that I am not suffering from colon or prostate cancer, it would appear very likely that I am in the advance stages of Alzheimers. I got up early enough to have time to kill so after taking a shower and in my clean sparkling going to the doctor outfit, I slathered a coat of paint on the railing for the little porch outside the cottage front door, that door that only the Jehovah's Witnesses use. Then like they always do, coming right out of the blue, I got one of those cricks in my neck, first just barely noticeable and then full blown, and now I have to turn my whole body to look left, but not so bad looking to the right so thank God for little favors. I hate to complain--not that it stops me from doing so--about little minor problems but did I tell you already that last night I cut my finger opening a can of anchovies?
Anyway, the slight nausea brought on by the discomfort in my neck has subsided somewhat, especially after having breakfast.
We were concerned you and I because after drinking a half bottle of wine, two beers and a couple of whiskies at night I was, after going to bed, getting up to pee several times. And while this could be caused by the fairly common non cancerous enlarging of the prostate, we thought it would be a good idea to get some of my parts checked out.
After the doctor I went to the Lowe's at the new and growing butt end of Front Royal. I used up too many of those mullion strips for the breezeway screening as door stop material for the two screen doors so I needed to get some more. But they didn't have it, that kind we got in Culpeper, only they did have the stuff, the plain stuff I was looking for in the first place, so I just decided the backside, facing the back porch area, won't have the more decorative stuff. And I got a couple of slices of rough cedar to repair that garage door. And a can of black spray paint for the strap hinges. Looking at it all now it would seem rather certain that something on my last minute to do list isn't getting done, because I don't know if you noticed last time you were here but this house has growing now something more like dust-elephants than dust-bunnies, so a good cleaning is in order, which really wasn't on the list.
Well next to the Lowe's is a brand spanking new ginormous Walmart so I went in there because you know how I love my one stop shopping. You are nodding, or perhaps shaking your head now. You say, "yes baby I do know how you love your one stop shopping. You are a good little shopper you, right up to that point in time when the panic strikes and you come find me in whatever store we are in, and you sweating and white as a dirty t-shirt grab my arm and say 'we have to leave now.' And if I so much as bat an eye you say, 'no, now. We. Have. To. Leave. Now. Put. The. Butter. Down. And. Follow. Me. Out. Of. Here.'"
I don't know how many times you've heard me say this but this was the biggest damn Walmart ever. And, practically vacant. Shopping paradise. So I got some more travel items for our trip to Mexico.
And HAH, the jokes on you all you nay-saying ooohhhh, you can't go to Mexico, the crime, the crime, I saw it on CNN about the crime. I got a pandemic for your pie holes.
So yes, back to holes. I am not overly averse to the idea of some of the seemingly unnatural aspects of medical procedure. If medical science has determined that it is good for me have a latex-gloved finger smeared with vaseline and inserted searchingly into my rectum, then so be it. That being said, it does require a little bit of psyching up on the way to the doctor's office. But after some deep breathing and a few well delivered jokes to myself, I was good with it, almost cheerful you could say. But when I pulled on the doctors door it was locked. The outside door to the office, the access door to all medical personnel employed therein, shuttered.
I went downstairs and tried the Ob-Gyn office. It wasn't locked but the receptionist was gone, vacant, not to be found.
I then went back to the family practice office, across the parking lot, where I had my blood work done, and ask them what may be up.
You know, I wasn't sure if any of the procedures would require me having an empty stomach but just to be safe I had not eaten or had anything to drink that morning. And as you try to weave your way out of the Lowe's/Walmart parking lot you practically run right into The Cracker Barrel. We've eaten there together. I will for the record, to save you no small amount of embarrassment, state that I made you eat there with me, just in case any of the real smart readers are able to crack the code of who really is this Bernadette. I didn't have to make Bill Macy eat there. He was like--"Cracker Barrel? Cracker Barrel? When do we get there, are we there yet? I want Cracker Barrel, I want Cracker Barrel." Cracker Barrel is great if you have a longing for seventies hairdo's on a waitress. And if your waitress doesn't call you hon' you get ten percent off your check. As for the food--well the sawmill gravy is at least accurately named. It really does taste like sawdust. But it filled me up and not once did I feel like gagging, So I'm giving it one thumb up, but there is grease under the nail of that thumb. Then I went home.
"I don't know why the door would be locked," the receptionist said. I didn't know either. "Did we make this appointment for you?" she asked in a way to imply that if I said no she was going to tell me to get the hell out and quit wasting her time. So I just said yes, even though thinking on it now, no, I don't think they did make the appointment. While she was checking into matters I joked with the other receptionist, "this is Monday, April 27th isn't it." She smiled and said it was and I continued, "you know, just in case I did a Rip van..." but I trailed off before finishing because none of this was really that funny and they are probably sick of lame jokes delivered by uptight patients about to get a finger up their butt.
When I walked out I was pissed off I don't mind telling you, but I had no one to direct it at because these receptionists were not part of the loop. I most certainly DID NOT make the appointment for May 27 I fumed to myself on the way out. A week and a half ago I asked for the earliest possible appointment and the receptionist said May 27? Is that even possible? You know, I am remembering now to four years ago when I saw this guy last. I was there on the right day but I was about six hours too early, they fit me in that time, but this time there was no one there behind the locked doors to be fit in by. The specialists at this office only come through on a revolving schedule and are not based in the town of Front Royal. So I'm sorry Bernadette, I wanted to get this done and check it off the list but on the bright side, I didn't get a strange finger up my bum today. I promise when we get back from Mexico, if we do get back from Mexico, that I will start over and perhaps even find a better doctor up in Warrenton, and hell, I'll even throw in a colonoscopy and barium enema to prove to you how serious I am about the health of my insides, although we should probably face it, it will be my mind that's the death of me.
Pregnant And Sauntering Before Death
As a result of bad design, careless decision making and certain temporal and spacial limitations, it is now a pattern long established that I awake one morning pressed against Bernadette, and the next clutching a pillow infinitely inferior as substitute. Communicating solely with fingers against keyboard from distances not unbridgeable, we relate the movements of our days, or the lackings thereof. If I see a sad wasted lonely babbling senior citizen at the MacDonalds inside a North Carolina Walmart, who reminds me not only of myself but of Cecil the benignly demented wrong number caller, I might tell her of this (or I might not) and if she and her tightly knit building-mates on the Lower East Side are terrorized by packs of giant marauding rats intent on seeking revenge against those responsible for the wrongs done against them, she might relate such details to me.
Basic building maintenance is performed by the principal owners of the 5 story walk up. Antonio, as the only male in the owners group, is delegated in that age old sexist manner, the detail of garbage control. If only for the rather astounding number of wine bottles he removes and carries clinking in clear bags to the street for pickup, he would in any just society be pinned with a medal.
It began like this--Antonio, in the course of his duties, usually at night in that sliver of courtyard where garbage is stored, would come across rats.You must know by now that the word legendary is not misused in reference to NYC rats. Frankly, I think we all must admit that even the nervous scurrying of those cute little mice under our feet is enough to instill an unease in our lives that did not exist prior to the sighting of said small rodent. Now as a multiplier of size, and only to begin with, try the number seven. So Antonio suggested to the fellow owners that they install a light over the garbage area, and that was done. Which resulted only in Antonio being able to see the fulsome rats more clearly, with their red shining eyes and whiskers like walrus tusks becoming the images of his nightmares. And so attention was given to their sources of entry, which appeared to be from three or four broken areas in the concrete, down to the dirt, which implied a network of tunnels, a subterranean rat highway if you will, and although I without much creative reasoning begged off this repair during one of my visits, it was done, and as I believe in credit where credit is due, I think it must have been done quite well.
Bringing us to the recent party from which two smokers retired. Julia Creed, from up on three, and Bernadette's sister, Bridget, were in the basement happily restoring nicotine to their systems, when a mottled and lumpy over-sized rat (it is reportedly well over the aforementioned 7 multiplier) came sauntering out to see what all the racket was about. Bridget and Julia did not see a single beneficial aspect to prolonged rodent association and with much haste retreated up the stairs, and it is only rumor that has one or both thinking or screaming hysterically, "I don't have to outrun the rat, I only have to outrun you."
This morning I got another email from Bernadette. She said I am her buttercup, gootchy gootchy goo and I wrote back, no, you are my buttercup, gootchy gootchy goo. Not really. What she said was that the rat-sized glue traps they had set out had only succeeded in catching small families of mice or baby rats and that in their crowded sticky crypts she could hear them squeaking out a protracted death rattle. She is sitting at her desk in the basement office, illustrating children's books.
At this point in time it has been decided that the only reasonable solution to the problem is to bring into the building a rat terrier. As luck would have it there is one already living there, the cute and sassy well muscled Asher. When I first became introduced to the building I had felt some mild unease regarding the seemingly incestuous nature of its occupants, but time cures all and I have come to see the benefit of community living. This realization came to me shortly after meeting Asher for the first time, as we hit it off and began dating, if only briefly. The unseemly details of the relationship I will save for that time when I start drinking again. To leave it at this I will say, with no judgmental inference, that she was simply not my type, although I carry still a great fondness for her.
It was Bernadette who gave me the inspirational imagery for this post when she said she thinks the primary rat is a female, and pregnant, and that she saunters about mostly in the boiler room and general storage area, but also might be making her way into the clean and well lit, impressively finished basement office space. So I thought, oh, great, the giant sauntering rat, or, the giant sauntering pregnant rat, or, pregnant and sauntering, a giant rat story, or, she saunters pregnantly, or....
As a result of bad design, careless decision making and certain temporal and spacial limitations, it is now a pattern long established that I awake one morning pressed against Bernadette, and the next clutching a pillow infinitely inferior as substitute. Communicating solely with fingers against keyboard from distances not unbridgeable, we relate the movements of our days, or the lackings thereof. If I see a sad wasted lonely babbling senior citizen at the MacDonalds inside a North Carolina Walmart, who reminds me not only of myself but of Cecil the benignly demented wrong number caller, I might tell her of this (or I might not) and if she and her tightly knit building-mates on the Lower East Side are terrorized by packs of giant marauding rats intent on seeking revenge against those responsible for the wrongs done against them, she might relate such details to me.
Basic building maintenance is performed by the principal owners of the 5 story walk up. Antonio, as the only male in the owners group, is delegated in that age old sexist manner, the detail of garbage control. If only for the rather astounding number of wine bottles he removes and carries clinking in clear bags to the street for pickup, he would in any just society be pinned with a medal.
It began like this--Antonio, in the course of his duties, usually at night in that sliver of courtyard where garbage is stored, would come across rats.You must know by now that the word legendary is not misused in reference to NYC rats. Frankly, I think we all must admit that even the nervous scurrying of those cute little mice under our feet is enough to instill an unease in our lives that did not exist prior to the sighting of said small rodent. Now as a multiplier of size, and only to begin with, try the number seven. So Antonio suggested to the fellow owners that they install a light over the garbage area, and that was done. Which resulted only in Antonio being able to see the fulsome rats more clearly, with their red shining eyes and whiskers like walrus tusks becoming the images of his nightmares. And so attention was given to their sources of entry, which appeared to be from three or four broken areas in the concrete, down to the dirt, which implied a network of tunnels, a subterranean rat highway if you will, and although I without much creative reasoning begged off this repair during one of my visits, it was done, and as I believe in credit where credit is due, I think it must have been done quite well.
Bringing us to the recent party from which two smokers retired. Julia Creed, from up on three, and Bernadette's sister, Bridget, were in the basement happily restoring nicotine to their systems, when a mottled and lumpy over-sized rat (it is reportedly well over the aforementioned 7 multiplier) came sauntering out to see what all the racket was about. Bridget and Julia did not see a single beneficial aspect to prolonged rodent association and with much haste retreated up the stairs, and it is only rumor that has one or both thinking or screaming hysterically, "I don't have to outrun the rat, I only have to outrun you."
This morning I got another email from Bernadette. She said I am her buttercup, gootchy gootchy goo and I wrote back, no, you are my buttercup, gootchy gootchy goo. Not really. What she said was that the rat-sized glue traps they had set out had only succeeded in catching small families of mice or baby rats and that in their crowded sticky crypts she could hear them squeaking out a protracted death rattle. She is sitting at her desk in the basement office, illustrating children's books.
At this point in time it has been decided that the only reasonable solution to the problem is to bring into the building a rat terrier. As luck would have it there is one already living there, the cute and sassy well muscled Asher. When I first became introduced to the building I had felt some mild unease regarding the seemingly incestuous nature of its occupants, but time cures all and I have come to see the benefit of community living. This realization came to me shortly after meeting Asher for the first time, as we hit it off and began dating, if only briefly. The unseemly details of the relationship I will save for that time when I start drinking again. To leave it at this I will say, with no judgmental inference, that she was simply not my type, although I carry still a great fondness for her.
It was Bernadette who gave me the inspirational imagery for this post when she said she thinks the primary rat is a female, and pregnant, and that she saunters about mostly in the boiler room and general storage area, but also might be making her way into the clean and well lit, impressively finished basement office space. So I thought, oh, great, the giant sauntering rat, or, the giant sauntering pregnant rat, or, pregnant and sauntering, a giant rat story, or, she saunters pregnantly, or....
Growing Up With Verne
I was checking a spam folder on the World Wide Web and noticing a dearth of penis enlargement solicitations. I remember when spam was primarily meat in a can. And when no one had yet thought to solicit other people to enlarge their penises. That's right, I go way back. Today in North Carolina there was limited visibility. I was driving around listening to Elliot Gould read Raymond Chandler but I was thinking about the noise my dryer makes and wondering if the sun would come out. It never did and now it's night.
I sleep on an air mattress and I yell at my cat when she uses it as a scratching post. Get scratching post was on a list I never made.
I'm listening to Verne Lundquist in the background. He was a local sportscaster in Dallas while I was growing up there during a tiny piece of the fifties, all of the sixties, and 70 percent of the seventies. Verne is a good guy.
I think vultures are overrated. That thing about how valuable they are because they clean up the countryside of carrion doesn't wash with me. There has been in my backyard a dead cat which turned out to be a dead raccoon for going on two months now and the resident vulture is taking forever to deal with it. I was all about delegating the work out here but this vulture thing doesn't seem like it's working out.
Verne says was it a goal tend? Yes. And a foul.
I was checking a spam folder on the World Wide Web and noticing a dearth of penis enlargement solicitations. I remember when spam was primarily meat in a can. And when no one had yet thought to solicit other people to enlarge their penises. That's right, I go way back. Today in North Carolina there was limited visibility. I was driving around listening to Elliot Gould read Raymond Chandler but I was thinking about the noise my dryer makes and wondering if the sun would come out. It never did and now it's night.
I sleep on an air mattress and I yell at my cat when she uses it as a scratching post. Get scratching post was on a list I never made.
I'm listening to Verne Lundquist in the background. He was a local sportscaster in Dallas while I was growing up there during a tiny piece of the fifties, all of the sixties, and 70 percent of the seventies. Verne is a good guy.
I think vultures are overrated. That thing about how valuable they are because they clean up the countryside of carrion doesn't wash with me. There has been in my backyard a dead cat which turned out to be a dead raccoon for going on two months now and the resident vulture is taking forever to deal with it. I was all about delegating the work out here but this vulture thing doesn't seem like it's working out.
Verne says was it a goal tend? Yes. And a foul.
It Made A Noise I Didn't Like
To Build A Connection
In Charlottesville good health and ravenous hunger waged war and I like a spectator miles away at Bull Run waited patiently for a winner so I could get back to pretending I have not a care in the world. Good health fought admirably but lost and at the drive thru window waiting for KFC chicken strips my unhappy cat shit in her carrier. There was little doubt that this would happen before our destination was reached. The man up above slid open his window and I rolled down mine and the animal aromas--of those butchered and fried and those simply car sick--mixed. Would you like some sauce with this? he wanted to know and not ever before having had the chicken strips at KFC I was uncertain how to answer. He did not know that I wasn't a regular customer so he answered "all of them" when I asked what kind do you have. This was like being at a hardware store before the recession dealing with an experienced clerk playing hard to get and making you sweat for not knowing what sized basin wrench you wanted. And my mind went blank as I stared stupidly off to his left but finally I chanced humiliation and blurted out--sweet and sour? He nodded and I was good to go.
I had some good luck yesterday with a plumbing project here in Fence Post. There are some things that aren't that hard to do but which still require a certain confidence and level of experience and I was lacking in both with regard to sweating copper pipe. But I made a few practice sweats and then I just barged right in and after more than one trip to the woeful and inadequately supplied big box hardware store I've got some new plumbing under the sink and a new faucet to replace the one that was, I am sure, over thirty years old. As is my custom after modest successes I rested on my laurels, and today did nothing.
Rereading Call of the Wild for the first time in 35 years though is quite pleasant and poetic and brutal. Even the predictable parts are rendered so finely I find myself caught up in the suspense, though truly there should be no suspense, on account of I know what is going to happen. I suspect the ending, which I can vividly remember from childhood, is going to, if not make me full out weep (not to say I'm ruling out full out weeping) at least instill in me a sweet and sublime melancholia. Although one I am sure to recover from rapidly so as to move on to more productive endeavors.
I am reading on the Kindle given to me by Mr. BC. For 5 bucks each I acquired a good many collected works, including pretty much everything by Jack London. So that five bucks buys his generally accepted five really good novels, about twenty more novels, of which at least one, The Abysmal Brute, is not terrible, and hundreds of short stories. The 5 dollar collections also include an author's biography that, while not comprehensive, is a good place to start if you are curious about the author's life. So that's what I was doing when I decided to stop reading, and write this. Reading biographical material on Jack London. I didn't get anywhere near the parts about his unattractive political views or the plagiarism charges or the questions about his racial intolerance. I only made it middle way through the first page where it suggests his place of birth may have been near Third and Brannan Streets in San Francisco. And I have connection to that area, which I have referred to before, but which I only now realized, and it is at Second and Folsom in San Francisco. Only not really at Second and Folsom but near there. So that it is possible that London's boyhood home and the place where I camped on my 21st birthday are actually the same place. Which is to say that it may be that Jack London's birthplace is now under the on ramp to the Bay Bridge. And one of his more famous short stories is To Build a Fire. I built a fire under the Bay Bridge.
So I had a moment there where I felt connected. Which is the goal.
In Charlottesville good health and ravenous hunger waged war and I like a spectator miles away at Bull Run waited patiently for a winner so I could get back to pretending I have not a care in the world. Good health fought admirably but lost and at the drive thru window waiting for KFC chicken strips my unhappy cat shit in her carrier. There was little doubt that this would happen before our destination was reached. The man up above slid open his window and I rolled down mine and the animal aromas--of those butchered and fried and those simply car sick--mixed. Would you like some sauce with this? he wanted to know and not ever before having had the chicken strips at KFC I was uncertain how to answer. He did not know that I wasn't a regular customer so he answered "all of them" when I asked what kind do you have. This was like being at a hardware store before the recession dealing with an experienced clerk playing hard to get and making you sweat for not knowing what sized basin wrench you wanted. And my mind went blank as I stared stupidly off to his left but finally I chanced humiliation and blurted out--sweet and sour? He nodded and I was good to go.
I had some good luck yesterday with a plumbing project here in Fence Post. There are some things that aren't that hard to do but which still require a certain confidence and level of experience and I was lacking in both with regard to sweating copper pipe. But I made a few practice sweats and then I just barged right in and after more than one trip to the woeful and inadequately supplied big box hardware store I've got some new plumbing under the sink and a new faucet to replace the one that was, I am sure, over thirty years old. As is my custom after modest successes I rested on my laurels, and today did nothing.
Rereading Call of the Wild for the first time in 35 years though is quite pleasant and poetic and brutal. Even the predictable parts are rendered so finely I find myself caught up in the suspense, though truly there should be no suspense, on account of I know what is going to happen. I suspect the ending, which I can vividly remember from childhood, is going to, if not make me full out weep (not to say I'm ruling out full out weeping) at least instill in me a sweet and sublime melancholia. Although one I am sure to recover from rapidly so as to move on to more productive endeavors.
I am reading on the Kindle given to me by Mr. BC. For 5 bucks each I acquired a good many collected works, including pretty much everything by Jack London. So that five bucks buys his generally accepted five really good novels, about twenty more novels, of which at least one, The Abysmal Brute, is not terrible, and hundreds of short stories. The 5 dollar collections also include an author's biography that, while not comprehensive, is a good place to start if you are curious about the author's life. So that's what I was doing when I decided to stop reading, and write this. Reading biographical material on Jack London. I didn't get anywhere near the parts about his unattractive political views or the plagiarism charges or the questions about his racial intolerance. I only made it middle way through the first page where it suggests his place of birth may have been near Third and Brannan Streets in San Francisco. And I have connection to that area, which I have referred to before, but which I only now realized, and it is at Second and Folsom in San Francisco. Only not really at Second and Folsom but near there. So that it is possible that London's boyhood home and the place where I camped on my 21st birthday are actually the same place. Which is to say that it may be that Jack London's birthplace is now under the on ramp to the Bay Bridge. And one of his more famous short stories is To Build a Fire. I built a fire under the Bay Bridge.
So I had a moment there where I felt connected. Which is the goal.
Once More, About The Bombs
Mr. BC as a boy was much concerned about us getting caught every time we made a bomb and blew something up on that cul-de-sac in Texas. The explosions were always louder than we had anticipated and who else was there to blame on that street whenever the window glass shook? Everyone else it seemed had grown out of their bomb making phase.
BC enjoyed the time spent unwrapping hundreds of Black Cat firecrackers and the smell of it and the way the silvery-grey powder stained our fingertips. And I think he liked the danger of it and the sharing of anecdotes about other kids who had blown off a finger or two. We, with all of our fingers, were able to feel accomplished. Part of the elite group of child bomb makers.
But with fondness and no measure of condescension I enjoy looking back 40 years to those very specific seconds in history, those moments after the cast-iron water meter lid in front of the Praeger house shot six feet straight up, and then landed with a clunk on the asphalt, when we were both running like hell back to the safety of his "Texas Room" and he with a voice pitched higher by fear, would shriek, really, quite frantically, "oh crap my dad's gonna kill me, my dad's gonna kill me, my dad's gonna kill me." But neither his dad, nor his mom for that matter, clearly very patient people, ever did kill us, or in any way let on that they disapproved of our science experiments.
Mr. BC as a boy was much concerned about us getting caught every time we made a bomb and blew something up on that cul-de-sac in Texas. The explosions were always louder than we had anticipated and who else was there to blame on that street whenever the window glass shook? Everyone else it seemed had grown out of their bomb making phase.
BC enjoyed the time spent unwrapping hundreds of Black Cat firecrackers and the smell of it and the way the silvery-grey powder stained our fingertips. And I think he liked the danger of it and the sharing of anecdotes about other kids who had blown off a finger or two. We, with all of our fingers, were able to feel accomplished. Part of the elite group of child bomb makers.
But with fondness and no measure of condescension I enjoy looking back 40 years to those very specific seconds in history, those moments after the cast-iron water meter lid in front of the Praeger house shot six feet straight up, and then landed with a clunk on the asphalt, when we were both running like hell back to the safety of his "Texas Room" and he with a voice pitched higher by fear, would shriek, really, quite frantically, "oh crap my dad's gonna kill me, my dad's gonna kill me, my dad's gonna kill me." But neither his dad, nor his mom for that matter, clearly very patient people, ever did kill us, or in any way let on that they disapproved of our science experiments.
How Long Does It Take?
There was up to seven inches of snow here in north central North Carolina not barely a week ago and just now out checking pork ribs on the grill I spied several mosquitoes hovering over my right arm. And getting rid of dead cats with a buzzard, or turkey vulture if you prefer, is not all it's cracked up to be. Thematically this is about small but irritating bloodsucking insects, frozen precipitation, and much maligned and misunderstood scavenger species. Thematically this is about snow, scavengers, and vampirism. Or surfing without a wave, falling through cracks, and climatological effects on animals at rest. Thematically this is about searching for theme, flying with entrails, and cold white blankets. Spring and Winter, rapid transitions, slow decay and a force of will. There is little more to say but much to be done. There are sixty to choose from but just this one.
There was up to seven inches of snow here in north central North Carolina not barely a week ago and just now out checking pork ribs on the grill I spied several mosquitoes hovering over my right arm. And getting rid of dead cats with a buzzard, or turkey vulture if you prefer, is not all it's cracked up to be. Thematically this is about small but irritating bloodsucking insects, frozen precipitation, and much maligned and misunderstood scavenger species. Thematically this is about snow, scavengers, and vampirism. Or surfing without a wave, falling through cracks, and climatological effects on animals at rest. Thematically this is about searching for theme, flying with entrails, and cold white blankets. Spring and Winter, rapid transitions, slow decay and a force of will. There is little more to say but much to be done. There are sixty to choose from but just this one.