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Poisonous Campaign
I woke up this morning to find a severed horse's head at the foot of my bed. This morning I awoke at dawn and there was a chill in the air. The pine boughs outside my window are weighted heavily with chirping birds. The sky is blue. Winds have shifted from the north to the southwest. Chainsaws churn against heavy lumber in the distance.

Yesterday I received two packages. In one package was a clear plastic bag knotted at the top and containing one dozen mouse traps. Also in the box were three plastic imitation granite boulders, hollow, with hinged lids and two entrance holes and four metal rods for each on which to thread chunks of poison. These I have loaded up and placed around the perimeter of the bighouse, with some of the contents of the other package, four pounds of rat and mouse poison. The other item in the second box was non-odorous deer repellant concentrate, as compliment to the locally purchased odoriferous deer repellant.

I placed poison chunks throughout the inside of the house too. I don't know if this battle is any more winnable than certain Mideast conflicts but the war is on. Told recently that two-thirds of the rodent population are against my methodology I was heard to respond--"So?"

Arrogance is rarely justified.

This morning I awoke with an imitation fur covered plastic mouse resting on my crotch.

Somehow they have gotten to her. I thought she was a trusted ally but clearly she has gone double agent on me. Maybe she is still sore about the ovary removal procedure. This cat won't hunt.

I'm heading out soon, across the DMZ to check my IEDs.

War is hell, for the losers, and the writers, and the photographers, and the families of the dead.
- jimlouis 3-25-2008 6:58 pm [link]
skypig
- jimlouis 3-25-2008 2:59 am [link]
Turn It On High
I suffer from the cognitive bias that the full moon effects my mood. There is no hard science to support the full moon being a mood affecter and I don't look forward to the full moon as a reason to expel stored up erratic emotions but occasionally I blame my unstable behavior on it anyway.

The night before Bernadette leaves I petition angrily--could I just have a few more inches of the bed? She says I am taking up one half of the bed but I think I am only taking up one third. I only want enough room to support my skinny left arm which is hanging over. She gave up a couple of inches and I reached up and closed the blind behind me to block out that goddamn full moon shining on my head and then burrowed myself into Bernadette's neck. The next morning I made eggs over medium with microwave-heated left over scalloped potatoes. Bernadette said I needed to reheat them in the oven when I made them for myself next time. The number of points on the list of reasons why I would not do that were so numerous the math of it all made my head explode right there at the breakfast table (number one--I am pro molecular structure distortion). Bernadette said you wanna fight and I said yes, but we didn't put the gloves on.

I dropped her off at Dulles and drove home in heavy traffic, wishing we could fight some more.

I stopped at a bookstore in Warrenton and bought the new Richard Price in hardback, which is a thing I rarely do, buy hardbacks. At the pizza joint next door I read the first sentence. Some cops in Lower East Side New York are staked out one diagonal block from Bernadette's place, looking for street dealers to bust. I transport there and watch. Richard Price comforts me. I walk up to a restaurant at the next corner and sit at the bar. A man named James, without asking, puts before me an astoundingly good Bloody Mary.

At the bookstore while in the Ps I also picked up a Richard Powers, an early one, The Prisoner's Dilemma. I was good to go when a young woman carrying a miniature tray of coffees walked by and offered me one. I enjoyed it and moved over to survey the state of PK Dick in the modern book world and it appears to be healthier than it ever was. Pretty much every novel and some new collections are shelved and although I think all of the "previously unpublished" stuff is already out, there seemed to be some new arranging of it. I don't buy his stuff anymore I just like to see so much of his collection on the shelves, which was never the case when I was avidly reading him years ago.

I would have picked up the Ulysses Simpson Grant memoir but it was not available and I already have too much to read anyhow.

At the bargain books section I picked up a shiny new copy of Strunk and White, which I do periodically out of some vague sense of sentimentality (did my father give me my first one?), and although I haven't ever really studied it, I probably should, and hold onto the hope that I will. If you need a copy you can have one of mine. I leafed through a TS Eliot and found it to my liking so I added it to my stack and went to stand in line at the checkout.

There waiting I saw a tabletop bowling game and picked that up too so I can play in the future with Bernadette, who suffers from my lack of original excuses for not wanting to bowl.

The next day was yesterday which was Easter Sunday, all day long. I collected some garbage and took it to the dump. On the way out the driveway I saw a Blue Heron over by the pond so I reversed back up and across my front yard and went inside to get my camera. I crept up on it and took some pictures. Eventually it took flight towards the next door neighbors house while I blindly let the auto shutter click away. After the dump I came home and performed a few outdoor chores.

I wasn't sure I was ready to be into college basketball madness yet but while surfing the Internet I discovered that CBS was streaming all the games live so I checked in and got hooked, switching between three games going on at once and the early games were some humdingers and the later Memphis v Mississippi St game was not too shabby either. I spilled half a beer on the bed and then later some Maker's Mark and still later I spilled some bottled water on the floor. So my bed is like a boilermaker, with water on the side.

I have some sardine pasta which I am going to heat in the microwave for breakfast, although look at the time, how it flies forward when we relive the past.

I am not that stubborn about molecular structure distortion. I have ordered a new Swedish made portable barbecue grill to facilitate cooking in an approaching future which has me moving back and forth between North Carolina, Virginia, and New York and in that future I will probably wrap my leftovers in foil and heat them on the grill. Aluminum foil causes madness. Perhaps there is no way around madness. Or maybe I will give in and wad up all my aluminum foil and put it in the microwave and turn it on high.
- jimlouis 3-24-2008 7:36 pm [link]