Global Warming
I can hardly see that it is debatable that we humans will hurry up the ending of our planet, be it by not loving each other enough or overuse of hair spray, but I would think that if the brain trust of scientists who put out this latest study on Global Warming wanted ME to take it seriously, they would have released it in the summer when it's really hot. Or even a month ago when it was an unseasonably warm winter month here on the east coast. It would have made greater impact on my simple-minded nature.
15, 11, 5, 8, 13, 16--These are not lottery numbers (but feel free to play them), they are the nighttime lows for my part of Virginia for the next six days. Of course, if I look at the weather for the whole country I see that there are a large number of states over this same time period that will be experiencing lows in double digit negative numbers. Forty or fifty below zero? I shudder, really I do, at the thought of it. I guess if I lived in N. Dakota and came to visit Virginia this weekend, where it might be a balmy 5 degrees one morning, I would think, jiminy, or holy cow, this global warming thing is for real.
...more recent posts
Can We Stop At Stuckey's?
Decided to clean up the hard drive a little and get rid of some files that seem under used or superfluous and in doing so accidently deleted all my audio drivers, or something, I don't really know what I did, nor do I want to pretend that this was some sort of well thought out computer maintenance scheme by a person who goes about boldly and courageously taking care of business in a kick ass and take names fashion. This clean up was more like one of those actions that would come under the general heading of dangerously bored. These are the types of periods that were it a little warmer I would be out building a fire in a fire pit and throwing into it all the leftover pyrotechnic devices that weren't exploded in the foyer of the bighouse several months ago.
So I lost all sound on this computer and my first step after doing this was to convince myself that sound on a computer is not all that important. I can do without sound, I told myself. And I could, too, but after awhile it just seemed dumb to make this relatively minor sacrifice so I tried to download a driver that seemed like it might fit from a page officially sanctioned by Microsoft. But when I tried to install the driver my Microsoft driven OS informed me that the software was not certified and I that I would go to hell for my bold, ill-conceived actions. And then this computer crashed, a thing it rarely does. I rebooted and carried out the same ill-conceived process a couple more times before moving on to something else.
Oh, a Vaio recovery system. That looks promising. It informs me that I can restore my computer to its fresh out of the store original settings or I can pick a date on a calendar and restore to whatever the settings were at that time. I don't need a recovery disc or any of the original softwares, which is great news because I would not have them anyway. The very idea of this frankly blows my mind. I know that deleted things on a hard drive are not actually deleted but just stored out of the way in some digital compartment, I mean I had heard this before, but still the idea that this computer is holding on to my past and every original installed software and also those I have downloaded and then becoming bored with, deleted, seems to carry with it such an amazing level of computational complexity that I find myself becoming in awe of this little device which I generally speaking, take for granted.
I only had to go back two days but instead I picked a date over two weeks ago and presto, I got sound. I don't know why I picked the date I did but it was stuck in my mind for some reason and after I realized I could not access the Internet it came to me that the day I had picked was the day the guys came and hooked up my cable and for some extra change configured my wireless router for me. The restore date is actually very specific and looking at the hour I could see that I had restored to an exact moment--10:43 a.m on January 11th. This was four hours before the guys had come and hooked me up and typed some commands into this laptop which made it communicate with the router. So I reconfigured for a time that to the system would now be the future but was still actually the past. A past that had no awareness I would in a couple of days forward delete something that controlled my sound. Or, actually, maybe this was a past that did have an awareness of the future, since it was a "future" that had already happened.
I'm telling you, when this worked it made me feel in touch with something extra-normal and made me feel close to an idea that is way bigger than I, like that something you might feel in nature, or in church, or under the influence of a psychotropic agent. I was in a sense, if only two dimensionally, time traveling. So yeah, time traveling, that's what I did this week. And some of it was good.
Decided to clean up the hard drive a little and get rid of some files that seem under used or superfluous and in doing so accidently deleted all my audio drivers, or something, I don't really know what I did, nor do I want to pretend that this was some sort of well thought out computer maintenance scheme by a person who goes about boldly and courageously taking care of business in a kick ass and take names fashion. This clean up was more like one of those actions that would come under the general heading of dangerously bored. These are the types of periods that were it a little warmer I would be out building a fire in a fire pit and throwing into it all the leftover pyrotechnic devices that weren't exploded in the foyer of the bighouse several months ago.
So I lost all sound on this computer and my first step after doing this was to convince myself that sound on a computer is not all that important. I can do without sound, I told myself. And I could, too, but after awhile it just seemed dumb to make this relatively minor sacrifice so I tried to download a driver that seemed like it might fit from a page officially sanctioned by Microsoft. But when I tried to install the driver my Microsoft driven OS informed me that the software was not certified and I that I would go to hell for my bold, ill-conceived actions. And then this computer crashed, a thing it rarely does. I rebooted and carried out the same ill-conceived process a couple more times before moving on to something else.
Oh, a Vaio recovery system. That looks promising. It informs me that I can restore my computer to its fresh out of the store original settings or I can pick a date on a calendar and restore to whatever the settings were at that time. I don't need a recovery disc or any of the original softwares, which is great news because I would not have them anyway. The very idea of this frankly blows my mind. I know that deleted things on a hard drive are not actually deleted but just stored out of the way in some digital compartment, I mean I had heard this before, but still the idea that this computer is holding on to my past and every original installed software and also those I have downloaded and then becoming bored with, deleted, seems to carry with it such an amazing level of computational complexity that I find myself becoming in awe of this little device which I generally speaking, take for granted.
I only had to go back two days but instead I picked a date over two weeks ago and presto, I got sound. I don't know why I picked the date I did but it was stuck in my mind for some reason and after I realized I could not access the Internet it came to me that the day I had picked was the day the guys came and hooked up my cable and for some extra change configured my wireless router for me. The restore date is actually very specific and looking at the hour I could see that I had restored to an exact moment--10:43 a.m on January 11th. This was four hours before the guys had come and hooked me up and typed some commands into this laptop which made it communicate with the router. So I reconfigured for a time that to the system would now be the future but was still actually the past. A past that had no awareness I would in a couple of days forward delete something that controlled my sound. Or, actually, maybe this was a past that did have an awareness of the future, since it was a "future" that had already happened.
I'm telling you, when this worked it made me feel in touch with something extra-normal and made me feel close to an idea that is way bigger than I, like that something you might feel in nature, or in church, or under the influence of a psychotropic agent. I was in a sense, if only two dimensionally, time traveling. So yeah, time traveling, that's what I did this week. And some of it was good.
Not To Mention XY-Wing
It is 15 degrees this morning but feels like 8. I am just going to take the computer's word for it. Aren't I curious about what 8 feels like? No I'm not. I have taken up Sudoku and all my curiosity is now used considering the candidates 1 thru 9, times 81. Ok, less than 81. A Sudoku puzzle with 81 blank cells. That would be a very hard one. I am working on one now with 55 blank cells and it is pretty hard. It is safe to say that I have perfected the technique of recognizing single candidates and hidden single candidates but am not as comfortable with recognizing at a glance locked candidates or naked pairs, triples or quads and am a long long way from attempting any X-Wing or Swordfish maneuvers, although am cautiously and optimistically looking forward to the day when I can in the context of any type of maneuver use those terms.
It is 15 degrees this morning but feels like 8. I am just going to take the computer's word for it. Aren't I curious about what 8 feels like? No I'm not. I have taken up Sudoku and all my curiosity is now used considering the candidates 1 thru 9, times 81. Ok, less than 81. A Sudoku puzzle with 81 blank cells. That would be a very hard one. I am working on one now with 55 blank cells and it is pretty hard. It is safe to say that I have perfected the technique of recognizing single candidates and hidden single candidates but am not as comfortable with recognizing at a glance locked candidates or naked pairs, triples or quads and am a long long way from attempting any X-Wing or Swordfish maneuvers, although am cautiously and optimistically looking forward to the day when I can in the context of any type of maneuver use those terms.
Pass On This One
I have been pretty successful (with some help) at distracting myself these last several weeks from the one year old imagery that is still crisply imprinted inside of me and which occasionally I will pull up and look at with pain and regret, knowing that such images fade but wondering at what point these will. There are some things for which intellectual preparation is both unavoidable and also a complete waste of time, for example knowing that my mother would die of some old age related disease did not prepare me for the specific circumstances of her death one year ago today.
I wrote that previous paragraph yesterday as the beginning of some imagined profound one year commemoration of my mother's passing. But the truth is, at this point, one year away, I am only grateful for the distance from the events that led up to her death and they are this--a thirteen year lonliness which began on the day of my father's death by cancer April 21, 1993. A "widow's hump" which made her seem strange to us, her six children adrift across the country ( I only speak for my siblings out of artistic license.), A day that began the end when in her early-eighties we took her car away and then more lonliness. Some years of it perhaps. A few years of discussion when it became obvious there was something to discuss regarding her well-being and then the giving of a name like Alzheimers or dementia and you can start the intellectual preparation. I love a good intellectual preparation. About a year after diagnosis we tricked her, I'm not being harsh it's just what we did, and took her on a trip to somewhere that was a facility we all felt very good about, but which to her was a prison imposed on her by the six of us. It was those thoughts she lived with for the next two weeks before dying. I honestly don't know what are the words on the death certificate or how accurate they may be.
I'll get a handle on this eventually, and this is me doing it.
I have been pretty successful (with some help) at distracting myself these last several weeks from the one year old imagery that is still crisply imprinted inside of me and which occasionally I will pull up and look at with pain and regret, knowing that such images fade but wondering at what point these will. There are some things for which intellectual preparation is both unavoidable and also a complete waste of time, for example knowing that my mother would die of some old age related disease did not prepare me for the specific circumstances of her death one year ago today.
I wrote that previous paragraph yesterday as the beginning of some imagined profound one year commemoration of my mother's passing. But the truth is, at this point, one year away, I am only grateful for the distance from the events that led up to her death and they are this--a thirteen year lonliness which began on the day of my father's death by cancer April 21, 1993. A "widow's hump" which made her seem strange to us, her six children adrift across the country ( I only speak for my siblings out of artistic license.), A day that began the end when in her early-eighties we took her car away and then more lonliness. Some years of it perhaps. A few years of discussion when it became obvious there was something to discuss regarding her well-being and then the giving of a name like Alzheimers or dementia and you can start the intellectual preparation. I love a good intellectual preparation. About a year after diagnosis we tricked her, I'm not being harsh it's just what we did, and took her on a trip to somewhere that was a facility we all felt very good about, but which to her was a prison imposed on her by the six of us. It was those thoughts she lived with for the next two weeks before dying. I honestly don't know what are the words on the death certificate or how accurate they may be.
I'll get a handle on this eventually, and this is me doing it.
Above Aisle Seven
While having the ability and inclination to appreciate a wide variety of activities it was not I think until she met me that Bernadette was made to consider football watching as one of the activities she might choose to enjoy. I do not mean to imply that I am a real football fan. For me it is a diversion I will gladly give into if in a given year there is a team that I can find even the remotest connection to and this year the New Orleans Saints more than fulfilled that role. There have been years or I daresay sequential years where I have not watched a single football game nor perused the sports pages for those statistics that seem to have so much meaning when you care about them and amount to so much wasted space when you don't.
Bernadette traveled all the way from NY to be here at Mt. P to watch with me last weekend's dismantling of the New Orleans dream season by the Chicago Bears.
It was predicted to snow here all day just as it was predicted for Chicago. I was going to make chili but only if I could find at a local mart a packet of chili seasoning that makes chili the way I like it. The seasoning packet is called Wick Fowlers, and I had the previous week seen it at the market . Several hours before the game I went to pick it up but it was sold out. There was not even a facsimile of the loose seasonings at the market to attempt real chili, that is chili the way I like it, which requires chili powder, onion powder, cumin, cayenne and whatever else I am forgetting, probably garlic. No sugar. Sugar is ok for Boston chili as is adding beans but I'm talking about chili with only chunks of chuck, and so hot with cayenne that it makes your cheeks sweat. I was not sure Bernadette would like this hot chili so I was not going to go all the way 3-alarm but maybe up to as high as 1.75 alarm. We have never talked about chili, Bernadette and I, so this was uncharted territory.
As Bernadette in her satellite office at Mt. P scratched on her Wacom tablet, filling in color to the outlines of the most famous and beloved (if slightly irritating) character in the modern history of children, a character emblazoned worldwide onto lunch boxes and t-shirts and panties and pencils, I broke to her the sad news. We won't be having chili.
At this point Bernadette, a woman who up to very recently, to my knowledge, was neither a fan of football nor chili, made in this context a rather curious and passionate response. She lifted her hand off the Wacom, thereby damning all children worldwide to a thing they are least good at--waiting (for some new product stamped with their favorite brightly colored character)--and said to me in no uncertain terms, we can't watch football without chili.
Ok then, I will drive to the nearest large grocery, in a town sixteen miles away, over one of the steepest and winding mountain passes in the area, during what was the very beginning of a mini-blizzard, and look for a product (Wick Fowlers) which I have never before seen on the shelves (it was a shock to see it at the local mart, as it is mostly a product sold in the southwest.) She said, great, see you when you get back, and returned to her work.
By the time I started climbing up the road to Chester Gap the snow was sticking and packing to the road quite well and I was shifted into 4-wheel drive. Or at least I think I was, this being the first time I had attempted to use it on this new second hand Jeep. I had already passed a few abandoned passenger cars skidded off into culverts but I was doing pretty well and was in no way grumbling or muttering under my breath--we can't watch football without chili? Where did she get that? I've never heard that before. Oh, so she's Miss Football Culinary expert now. None of those things did I say for they would have distracted me from the focus of keeping a very liberal distance between myself and the truck in front of me, with absolute minimal breaking, while keeping an eye on the passenger car behind me, on a winding 6 or 8 percent grade over packed snow.
I made it to the grocery parking lot and pulling into a space lost control for the first time but just a little fishtail, nothing serious. Inside the store was the predictable scene of an areas first snow of the season shopping panic. With two or three lanes open there was a line of at least 40 overflowing shopping carts running almost the entire width of the full sized grocery store. Sure I considering briefly that I could just loot the item and be on my way but then, above aisle 7, I saw the floating visage of Bernadette shaking her head and wagging a finger at me. Over the stores' loudspeaker system came her voice and it said--you get your skinny ass home right this minute. So I bolted.
Back at home but only after a crawling speed of 20 mph passing several more minor wrecks and I was met by a Bernadette apparently broken out of that spell, that fugue state which had her temporarily acting as a football crazed, chili loving chick, and she welcomed me contritely and lovingly in a way that made me feel that she honestly did care about me more than some dumb old NFC championship game and chili that would make her face sweat.
The game was a disappointment as was the Taco Bell queso dip I had heated up in the microwave. But football fan or not, the season of the Saints was of inestimable value to New Orleans lovers scattered around the country.
As it turns out, Harrisburg, PA, is the midpoint between Mt. P and NYC so if Saints rookie receiver, Marques Colston, holds any more of his fundraisers at the bowling alley there, I might just meet up with Bernadette and bowl a game or two. And I'll stock up on some of that Wick Fowlers before next season rolls around.
While having the ability and inclination to appreciate a wide variety of activities it was not I think until she met me that Bernadette was made to consider football watching as one of the activities she might choose to enjoy. I do not mean to imply that I am a real football fan. For me it is a diversion I will gladly give into if in a given year there is a team that I can find even the remotest connection to and this year the New Orleans Saints more than fulfilled that role. There have been years or I daresay sequential years where I have not watched a single football game nor perused the sports pages for those statistics that seem to have so much meaning when you care about them and amount to so much wasted space when you don't.
Bernadette traveled all the way from NY to be here at Mt. P to watch with me last weekend's dismantling of the New Orleans dream season by the Chicago Bears.
It was predicted to snow here all day just as it was predicted for Chicago. I was going to make chili but only if I could find at a local mart a packet of chili seasoning that makes chili the way I like it. The seasoning packet is called Wick Fowlers, and I had the previous week seen it at the market . Several hours before the game I went to pick it up but it was sold out. There was not even a facsimile of the loose seasonings at the market to attempt real chili, that is chili the way I like it, which requires chili powder, onion powder, cumin, cayenne and whatever else I am forgetting, probably garlic. No sugar. Sugar is ok for Boston chili as is adding beans but I'm talking about chili with only chunks of chuck, and so hot with cayenne that it makes your cheeks sweat. I was not sure Bernadette would like this hot chili so I was not going to go all the way 3-alarm but maybe up to as high as 1.75 alarm. We have never talked about chili, Bernadette and I, so this was uncharted territory.
As Bernadette in her satellite office at Mt. P scratched on her Wacom tablet, filling in color to the outlines of the most famous and beloved (if slightly irritating) character in the modern history of children, a character emblazoned worldwide onto lunch boxes and t-shirts and panties and pencils, I broke to her the sad news. We won't be having chili.
At this point Bernadette, a woman who up to very recently, to my knowledge, was neither a fan of football nor chili, made in this context a rather curious and passionate response. She lifted her hand off the Wacom, thereby damning all children worldwide to a thing they are least good at--waiting (for some new product stamped with their favorite brightly colored character)--and said to me in no uncertain terms, we can't watch football without chili.
Ok then, I will drive to the nearest large grocery, in a town sixteen miles away, over one of the steepest and winding mountain passes in the area, during what was the very beginning of a mini-blizzard, and look for a product (Wick Fowlers) which I have never before seen on the shelves (it was a shock to see it at the local mart, as it is mostly a product sold in the southwest.) She said, great, see you when you get back, and returned to her work.
By the time I started climbing up the road to Chester Gap the snow was sticking and packing to the road quite well and I was shifted into 4-wheel drive. Or at least I think I was, this being the first time I had attempted to use it on this new second hand Jeep. I had already passed a few abandoned passenger cars skidded off into culverts but I was doing pretty well and was in no way grumbling or muttering under my breath--we can't watch football without chili? Where did she get that? I've never heard that before. Oh, so she's Miss Football Culinary expert now. None of those things did I say for they would have distracted me from the focus of keeping a very liberal distance between myself and the truck in front of me, with absolute minimal breaking, while keeping an eye on the passenger car behind me, on a winding 6 or 8 percent grade over packed snow.
I made it to the grocery parking lot and pulling into a space lost control for the first time but just a little fishtail, nothing serious. Inside the store was the predictable scene of an areas first snow of the season shopping panic. With two or three lanes open there was a line of at least 40 overflowing shopping carts running almost the entire width of the full sized grocery store. Sure I considering briefly that I could just loot the item and be on my way but then, above aisle 7, I saw the floating visage of Bernadette shaking her head and wagging a finger at me. Over the stores' loudspeaker system came her voice and it said--you get your skinny ass home right this minute. So I bolted.
Back at home but only after a crawling speed of 20 mph passing several more minor wrecks and I was met by a Bernadette apparently broken out of that spell, that fugue state which had her temporarily acting as a football crazed, chili loving chick, and she welcomed me contritely and lovingly in a way that made me feel that she honestly did care about me more than some dumb old NFC championship game and chili that would make her face sweat.
The game was a disappointment as was the Taco Bell queso dip I had heated up in the microwave. But football fan or not, the season of the Saints was of inestimable value to New Orleans lovers scattered around the country.
As it turns out, Harrisburg, PA, is the midpoint between Mt. P and NYC so if Saints rookie receiver, Marques Colston, holds any more of his fundraisers at the bowling alley there, I might just meet up with Bernadette and bowl a game or two. And I'll stock up on some of that Wick Fowlers before next season rolls around.
BC And The Watchtower
An Interloper came up the driveway and parked at the bighouse. I watched from down here and thought about going up but there's no way out but back by me so I just waited and after a minute or two they rolled down this way and into my driveway. I crunched across the snow and realizing my belt was hanging loose (and that I might look the part of the lonely, ill-kempt, fumbling, demented caretaker) turned away from the aged woman exiting the vehicle and with some difficulty got my belt re-attached in its proper fashion. No benefit that I can see from allowing strangers near your door so I continued closer until she began her pitch with Watchtower in hand, us at the halfway point. She apparently doesn't remember me from the previous visits. It is a known fact that all reprobates look alike and she obviously had me mixed up with the many others she hasn't the ability to convert. I remember her though. She'll ask my name in a minute but she won't call me by it next time. She doesn't really want me. She wants that bighouse conversion. I was going to give it to her but not before we talked a little about the end times. Did I know the end was near? Did I ever. Maybe I would like to read about how it would go down, she spoke while tapping the Watchtower pamphlet. I am very interested in new information I replied with that sincerity that quite a few mistake for its opposite. Was I familiar with (a specific verse from) the book of Matthew? I was not. She did not take the time to recite it but I would have been glad for the words. I love a true believer but this woman has never struck me as having the patience for it.
I like to picture Mr. BC giggling 20 years ago as he on his way to work passed a Jehovah's Witness in his driveway and stopped long enough to chat with briefly, smiling out his rolled down window, before sending them up to me, the closest thing to a lost soul he has the privilege to know. I am not bitter about that day but I always thought it would be funny if I could return the favor so I gave this woman all four of his email addresses, his home phone, his cell phone, his home address, business address, and business phone, while telling her that he had just come into a sum of cash money that so much weighed him down he could barely carry it all, and as it happened, for awhile had had me carry, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dollars rolled into a fat wad and another fat chunk in a half fold. She looked only moderately concerned about this strange confession. Outlaws? Gamblers? Politicians? Who exactly was she dealing with here and what would it take to get her hands on this money? I told her I thought he was likely wanting to unburden himself of this heavy paper that had practically dropped into his lap and to give him various calls, and to tell Mr. BC the caretaker had referred her to him. In the pause that is amounted to by these words now being typed I allow Mr. BC to consider how unlikely or likely is it that I did this last part. It has been my lifelong experience to not be taken seriously by the Watchtower group but should they get a hold of you Mr. BC, you make sure they earn that money and that they call you by name and that you get the Matthew verse out of them. They owe you that much.
An Interloper came up the driveway and parked at the bighouse. I watched from down here and thought about going up but there's no way out but back by me so I just waited and after a minute or two they rolled down this way and into my driveway. I crunched across the snow and realizing my belt was hanging loose (and that I might look the part of the lonely, ill-kempt, fumbling, demented caretaker) turned away from the aged woman exiting the vehicle and with some difficulty got my belt re-attached in its proper fashion. No benefit that I can see from allowing strangers near your door so I continued closer until she began her pitch with Watchtower in hand, us at the halfway point. She apparently doesn't remember me from the previous visits. It is a known fact that all reprobates look alike and she obviously had me mixed up with the many others she hasn't the ability to convert. I remember her though. She'll ask my name in a minute but she won't call me by it next time. She doesn't really want me. She wants that bighouse conversion. I was going to give it to her but not before we talked a little about the end times. Did I know the end was near? Did I ever. Maybe I would like to read about how it would go down, she spoke while tapping the Watchtower pamphlet. I am very interested in new information I replied with that sincerity that quite a few mistake for its opposite. Was I familiar with (a specific verse from) the book of Matthew? I was not. She did not take the time to recite it but I would have been glad for the words. I love a true believer but this woman has never struck me as having the patience for it.
I like to picture Mr. BC giggling 20 years ago as he on his way to work passed a Jehovah's Witness in his driveway and stopped long enough to chat with briefly, smiling out his rolled down window, before sending them up to me, the closest thing to a lost soul he has the privilege to know. I am not bitter about that day but I always thought it would be funny if I could return the favor so I gave this woman all four of his email addresses, his home phone, his cell phone, his home address, business address, and business phone, while telling her that he had just come into a sum of cash money that so much weighed him down he could barely carry it all, and as it happened, for awhile had had me carry, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dollars rolled into a fat wad and another fat chunk in a half fold. She looked only moderately concerned about this strange confession. Outlaws? Gamblers? Politicians? Who exactly was she dealing with here and what would it take to get her hands on this money? I told her I thought he was likely wanting to unburden himself of this heavy paper that had practically dropped into his lap and to give him various calls, and to tell Mr. BC the caretaker had referred her to him. In the pause that is amounted to by these words now being typed I allow Mr. BC to consider how unlikely or likely is it that I did this last part. It has been my lifelong experience to not be taken seriously by the Watchtower group but should they get a hold of you Mr. BC, you make sure they earn that money and that they call you by name and that you get the Matthew verse out of them. They owe you that much.
Checked My Anecdote At The Door
On a shopping spree in Virginia I drove past the bowling alley and took the next right into the strip center parking lot. The Big Lots is a store that sells the world's over stocked merchandise at a discount. The atmosphere in there is part garage sale and part well managed discount merchandise establishment. The goods are often cheap but rarely exactly what you want. I look in now and again to satisfy my desire for that curiously attractive garage sale mystique. Garage sales are another place to get not exactly what you want. You get things other people thought they wanted but obviously didn't, and are willing to part with for a little change and the moderate hassle of setting up a retail operation in their driveways, on weekends. Going to garage sales is a little more work than going to Big Lots, sort of like solving a puzzle in a parallel universe by extracting clues from classified ads and then consulting maps to get to the treasure of a homespun, open air, retail outlet that did not exist the previous week, and to which, according to the ads from the more elite purveyors, you better not show up early.
I just went into the kitchen and got more juice with which to flush my system of this minor common cold that is threatening to invade my well being. But I forgot to bring it back in here with me so I will go back and get it now, excuse me one minute.
Yep, there it was, on the counter where I left it. Cranberry/grape this time and Tropicana OJ last time. Orange juice is going to get very expensive soon so I am trying to drink it while the getting is good. I won't drink it when it gets expensive. When it gets expensive I will compare it to some other liquid I enjoy, like beer, and go for the beer every time. I won't blame the company for the price hike. Supply and demand, frozen crops, these things I somewhat understand but what the hell is up with all these Tropicana varieties now on the shelves? The other shoppers grow weary of me standing so long in front of the juices. Original is the only one for me. I do not want five different choices between amounts of pulp, nor the extra vitamins and minerals added. Freedom of choice my ass. I am shackled by choice. And yes, thank you, I will consider moving to a communist country to see how I like it without so many choices.
After many minutes roaming the aisles at Big Lots it became imperative that I buy something. It would not do to start a shopping spree without buying something. So I picked up some tea bags, but only after worrying myself to death over how fresh they would be. Then a bottle of rubbing alcohol for 80 cents. Didn't even have to think about it. Toothpaste? Need it, bought it, also 80 cents. Would you look at that?--a 10 piece manicure set for a buck fifty. Got me one of those. Has two pairs of nail clippers, emery boards, some cuticle tools which I will be forever afraid to use, and a metal file and some scissors. I was shopping now, picking up some steam.
It was like juggling, badly, trying to carry all that stuff around so when I got in the line to check out I rested the many items (I didn't tell you I bought four boxes of that tea) on a display of light weight sweat shirts. Which, come to think of it, I need, so I wrapped all the loose items in a large green one. The shirt was the priciest item of the day at four dollars but adding up its now utilitarian value as a knapsack I still think quite the bargain.
I waited patiently while the other two shoppers and the cashier engaged in what may not have been the most efficient customer/employee relationship but if I wanted efficiency above all else I could shop online (as if I could ever find a 10 piece manicure set for a dollar-fifty, online.) There is now coming the whole reason for my making this considerable effort to punish you with the minutia of a single morning in my life. The inspirational nugget if you will; the shred of pork fat stuck between my teeth. I am flossing now.
The cashier, all yakety-yakety up to this point, was mute to me. She was not rude but she was not friendly, or not really not friendly but not loquacious, as she had been for the previous 10 minutes I had waited in line. That's fine really, someone getting down to business will not be faulted by me. But as I walked off she started right back up with the next customers in line, a man and wife. The man had some little anecdote handy and if I had known that was required to get some human interaction from this cashier, I would have had one ready too. His was something about the weather. Excuse me, a weather anecdote after the weather turns cold? I had checked my anecdotes at the door, thinking I was entering the building of a well oiled national discount merchandise chain whose business was the business of selling, not listening to my tired old anecdotes, which, given the chance, just a single chance, would have been a humdinger to anybody listening. I mean, they're still laughing down at the post office about that funny thing I once said, I forget what it was, but it was funny funny. But it's true that it took them awhile to warm up to me down at the PO. It was maybe two years before they laughed at me, I mean with me. I got all that stuff at the Big Lots for 14 dollars. It was a pretty good trip. I didn't go in there to make friends.
On a shopping spree in Virginia I drove past the bowling alley and took the next right into the strip center parking lot. The Big Lots is a store that sells the world's over stocked merchandise at a discount. The atmosphere in there is part garage sale and part well managed discount merchandise establishment. The goods are often cheap but rarely exactly what you want. I look in now and again to satisfy my desire for that curiously attractive garage sale mystique. Garage sales are another place to get not exactly what you want. You get things other people thought they wanted but obviously didn't, and are willing to part with for a little change and the moderate hassle of setting up a retail operation in their driveways, on weekends. Going to garage sales is a little more work than going to Big Lots, sort of like solving a puzzle in a parallel universe by extracting clues from classified ads and then consulting maps to get to the treasure of a homespun, open air, retail outlet that did not exist the previous week, and to which, according to the ads from the more elite purveyors, you better not show up early.
I just went into the kitchen and got more juice with which to flush my system of this minor common cold that is threatening to invade my well being. But I forgot to bring it back in here with me so I will go back and get it now, excuse me one minute.
Yep, there it was, on the counter where I left it. Cranberry/grape this time and Tropicana OJ last time. Orange juice is going to get very expensive soon so I am trying to drink it while the getting is good. I won't drink it when it gets expensive. When it gets expensive I will compare it to some other liquid I enjoy, like beer, and go for the beer every time. I won't blame the company for the price hike. Supply and demand, frozen crops, these things I somewhat understand but what the hell is up with all these Tropicana varieties now on the shelves? The other shoppers grow weary of me standing so long in front of the juices. Original is the only one for me. I do not want five different choices between amounts of pulp, nor the extra vitamins and minerals added. Freedom of choice my ass. I am shackled by choice. And yes, thank you, I will consider moving to a communist country to see how I like it without so many choices.
After many minutes roaming the aisles at Big Lots it became imperative that I buy something. It would not do to start a shopping spree without buying something. So I picked up some tea bags, but only after worrying myself to death over how fresh they would be. Then a bottle of rubbing alcohol for 80 cents. Didn't even have to think about it. Toothpaste? Need it, bought it, also 80 cents. Would you look at that?--a 10 piece manicure set for a buck fifty. Got me one of those. Has two pairs of nail clippers, emery boards, some cuticle tools which I will be forever afraid to use, and a metal file and some scissors. I was shopping now, picking up some steam.
It was like juggling, badly, trying to carry all that stuff around so when I got in the line to check out I rested the many items (I didn't tell you I bought four boxes of that tea) on a display of light weight sweat shirts. Which, come to think of it, I need, so I wrapped all the loose items in a large green one. The shirt was the priciest item of the day at four dollars but adding up its now utilitarian value as a knapsack I still think quite the bargain.
I waited patiently while the other two shoppers and the cashier engaged in what may not have been the most efficient customer/employee relationship but if I wanted efficiency above all else I could shop online (as if I could ever find a 10 piece manicure set for a dollar-fifty, online.) There is now coming the whole reason for my making this considerable effort to punish you with the minutia of a single morning in my life. The inspirational nugget if you will; the shred of pork fat stuck between my teeth. I am flossing now.
The cashier, all yakety-yakety up to this point, was mute to me. She was not rude but she was not friendly, or not really not friendly but not loquacious, as she had been for the previous 10 minutes I had waited in line. That's fine really, someone getting down to business will not be faulted by me. But as I walked off she started right back up with the next customers in line, a man and wife. The man had some little anecdote handy and if I had known that was required to get some human interaction from this cashier, I would have had one ready too. His was something about the weather. Excuse me, a weather anecdote after the weather turns cold? I had checked my anecdotes at the door, thinking I was entering the building of a well oiled national discount merchandise chain whose business was the business of selling, not listening to my tired old anecdotes, which, given the chance, just a single chance, would have been a humdinger to anybody listening. I mean, they're still laughing down at the post office about that funny thing I once said, I forget what it was, but it was funny funny. But it's true that it took them awhile to warm up to me down at the PO. It was maybe two years before they laughed at me, I mean with me. I got all that stuff at the Big Lots for 14 dollars. It was a pretty good trip. I didn't go in there to make friends.
My Wooden Snake
There is a wooden, multi-jointed snake on my breakfast table. I got it at a truck stop in Mississippi. One of the cable internet guys was sitting across from me, showing me the bill for 24 dollars. I was writing the check when he said--you a snake lover? I think that is what he actually said but I was writing the check and only caught on that he had mentioned the snake and I just said something like, yeh, hoping that I would get away with it. I don't actually speak a lot, in the course of a day. He went on to say that snakes were the only thing he was really afraid of. I felt bad about this, his fear of snakes, so I blurted out a bald-faced lie about why the snake was there on the table. It felt weird lying to this kid about snakes. He already thought I was a snake lover because I think I had already admitted as much. I wanted to let the kid know that I was also afraid of snakes, but to say so would make me a hypocrite, a snake loving hypocrite. But I don't know, really, what was going on. This was a perfect example of poor communication. Of two people not synching. I think it was partly the kid's fault. His partner was in the other room hooking up the wireless router. That's not what they were paid to do, that's not what the 24 dollars was for but I had told the partner there was an extra cash 40 in it for him if he had me wireless when he left. I'm getting the hang of things. I am a slow learner but I am getting the hang of things. It took the partner about 5 extra minutes to get me wireless. Was it worth 480 dollars an hour to me? Yes it was, is the crazy truth.
There is a wooden, multi-jointed snake on my breakfast table. I got it at a truck stop in Mississippi. One of the cable internet guys was sitting across from me, showing me the bill for 24 dollars. I was writing the check when he said--you a snake lover? I think that is what he actually said but I was writing the check and only caught on that he had mentioned the snake and I just said something like, yeh, hoping that I would get away with it. I don't actually speak a lot, in the course of a day. He went on to say that snakes were the only thing he was really afraid of. I felt bad about this, his fear of snakes, so I blurted out a bald-faced lie about why the snake was there on the table. It felt weird lying to this kid about snakes. He already thought I was a snake lover because I think I had already admitted as much. I wanted to let the kid know that I was also afraid of snakes, but to say so would make me a hypocrite, a snake loving hypocrite. But I don't know, really, what was going on. This was a perfect example of poor communication. Of two people not synching. I think it was partly the kid's fault. His partner was in the other room hooking up the wireless router. That's not what they were paid to do, that's not what the 24 dollars was for but I had told the partner there was an extra cash 40 in it for him if he had me wireless when he left. I'm getting the hang of things. I am a slow learner but I am getting the hang of things. It took the partner about 5 extra minutes to get me wireless. Was it worth 480 dollars an hour to me? Yes it was, is the crazy truth.
Advice To Slim
I signed up last year and had all the necessary background checks to qualify as a volunteer in a local mentoring program for area youth, but in the year since I have not actually participated in the program. Shortly after the final orientation I had to leave the area for several months. And then upon returning I wasn't sure my future here was stable enough to commit to a program that asks for a minimum of one year involvement. When I did become more comfortable with the idea of being here it was due in large part to a woman in NY, who exists for me in blinking fashion, sometimes here, or I there, and sometimes not. It is a relationship that survives by the acceptance of a five hour separation. And that one of us can visit the other often enough to make it seem real. And so I add this--that I must travel away from here on a semi-regular yet not scheduled basis--to the list of reasons why I cannot commit to a local mentoring program.
But the truth is, before I even get to those reasons, it may be that the real reason I am hesitant to get back into mentoring is because I suck at it. Yeah, I did a little mentoring once, sort of free-lance, outside of an actual program. And in my head I try to blur the number of failures into one. But as the years pass it is hard to imagine any description that would in any way define my efforts as mentor as anything but, well, a tad short of ideal, and the number of failures not just one, but several. On Sundays I used to load up a compact car full of teenage and pre-teenage boys and drive them around a city in southern Louisiana, looking for distractions from the difficult scenarios that played out every day on the street on which we all lived.
What brings all this to mind at this point in time is the news that another of the boys has been locked up for first degree homicide. So that now I can look back to a Sunday almost ten years ago, where of five boys in my car, all five have at least been accused of murder, if not actually committing it. On other Sundays the mix would be different and I can proudly say that one of those mixes included a carful where only two of the five have grown up to be suspected murderers. Of what use is this information? What do you do with it? I'm not sure yet of what use it is but what I'm doing with it is getting rid of it. These bits of information can slip in almost unnoticed, a brief email exchange where you ask--oh really, what was he arrested for? and the answer comes back first degree homicide. And then the information sits there and you think you have processed it but you haven't because it turns out that you could never keep up with it, over the years. Every so often you think you have cleared out the old files, those files with tabs that say--kids who cuss; kids who hit; kids who stab; kids who murder, but apparently you not only suck at mentoring, you are not much of a bookkeeper, either; the information is not gone, just hidden, and not even well hidden at that.
I am not really so egomaniacal, or self-critical, to think that my deficiencies led directly to these kids growing up to be murderers, but as we shared a part of our lives together it is hard for me not to think of our lives as being intertwined. And so to whatever small degree I was actually an influence on these bad boys, I seek in at least that measure the answer to what it is I could have done differently. Which is funny, because my mother, may she rest in peace, once asked the same question regarding her raising of me. I told her at the time that I thought she had done a fine job, I really had no complaints, and that I thought there was a limit to how far a parent should go in taking responsibility for the overall outcome of their child. Hey, that's pretty damn good advice, I should take it.
As for these boys--is it true that they would greatly benefit from a relatively stable two parent family, some love, some discipline, a school system that hasn't given up on itself, and them? I would say for sure it is true and "greatly benefit" might even be understatement. Is it also true that seeing the problem, defining it, studying it and speaking out about it is half the battle? No, I don't think so. I think we should quit seeing it and speaking about it and just jump right in and do something, be something, in some way become something that can be described as actively involved. There will be plenty to look at and talk about after the fact. I'm talking to you, Slim, and this isn't just about mentoring. You need to giddyup boy, giddyup.
I signed up last year and had all the necessary background checks to qualify as a volunteer in a local mentoring program for area youth, but in the year since I have not actually participated in the program. Shortly after the final orientation I had to leave the area for several months. And then upon returning I wasn't sure my future here was stable enough to commit to a program that asks for a minimum of one year involvement. When I did become more comfortable with the idea of being here it was due in large part to a woman in NY, who exists for me in blinking fashion, sometimes here, or I there, and sometimes not. It is a relationship that survives by the acceptance of a five hour separation. And that one of us can visit the other often enough to make it seem real. And so I add this--that I must travel away from here on a semi-regular yet not scheduled basis--to the list of reasons why I cannot commit to a local mentoring program.
But the truth is, before I even get to those reasons, it may be that the real reason I am hesitant to get back into mentoring is because I suck at it. Yeah, I did a little mentoring once, sort of free-lance, outside of an actual program. And in my head I try to blur the number of failures into one. But as the years pass it is hard to imagine any description that would in any way define my efforts as mentor as anything but, well, a tad short of ideal, and the number of failures not just one, but several. On Sundays I used to load up a compact car full of teenage and pre-teenage boys and drive them around a city in southern Louisiana, looking for distractions from the difficult scenarios that played out every day on the street on which we all lived.
What brings all this to mind at this point in time is the news that another of the boys has been locked up for first degree homicide. So that now I can look back to a Sunday almost ten years ago, where of five boys in my car, all five have at least been accused of murder, if not actually committing it. On other Sundays the mix would be different and I can proudly say that one of those mixes included a carful where only two of the five have grown up to be suspected murderers. Of what use is this information? What do you do with it? I'm not sure yet of what use it is but what I'm doing with it is getting rid of it. These bits of information can slip in almost unnoticed, a brief email exchange where you ask--oh really, what was he arrested for? and the answer comes back first degree homicide. And then the information sits there and you think you have processed it but you haven't because it turns out that you could never keep up with it, over the years. Every so often you think you have cleared out the old files, those files with tabs that say--kids who cuss; kids who hit; kids who stab; kids who murder, but apparently you not only suck at mentoring, you are not much of a bookkeeper, either; the information is not gone, just hidden, and not even well hidden at that.
I am not really so egomaniacal, or self-critical, to think that my deficiencies led directly to these kids growing up to be murderers, but as we shared a part of our lives together it is hard for me not to think of our lives as being intertwined. And so to whatever small degree I was actually an influence on these bad boys, I seek in at least that measure the answer to what it is I could have done differently. Which is funny, because my mother, may she rest in peace, once asked the same question regarding her raising of me. I told her at the time that I thought she had done a fine job, I really had no complaints, and that I thought there was a limit to how far a parent should go in taking responsibility for the overall outcome of their child. Hey, that's pretty damn good advice, I should take it.
As for these boys--is it true that they would greatly benefit from a relatively stable two parent family, some love, some discipline, a school system that hasn't given up on itself, and them? I would say for sure it is true and "greatly benefit" might even be understatement. Is it also true that seeing the problem, defining it, studying it and speaking out about it is half the battle? No, I don't think so. I think we should quit seeing it and speaking about it and just jump right in and do something, be something, in some way become something that can be described as actively involved. There will be plenty to look at and talk about after the fact. I'm talking to you, Slim, and this isn't just about mentoring. You need to giddyup boy, giddyup.
Ticket Envy
Oh he's a big college professor in New Orleans now but when he was just a critter, a speck, an aphid on the family tree if you will, back in Texas, me and my older brother used to mess with his head a little bit, we did. My nephew doesn't seem any the worse for it now, I mean, I don't think he's worse off. You could take things out of context, like the fact that he has been seen more than a few times in public wearing colorful tights and a mask, imitating perhaps the sidekick of a popular superhero (and clearly in possession of an actual hollow leg where he dumps gallons and gallons of beer), and say, well, I think you guys effed up his head permanently, but you don't understand, that was just him being...it is in the context of...it's a seasonal thing...well, never mind, it's hard to explain. To meet him though you would think--what a fine young man, and such a lovely family, oh that wife of his, he doesn't deserve her you might kid him with a poke in the ribs. His three young children not just smart but handsome and pretty as well. Truly, what an outstanding man, what an outstanding family.
All right you bastard, I got you to read this far, I know you're reading this, now where is my damn playoff ticket. I know you have five of them, I know you took a chance and invested in a team that wasn't likely to be that good and got yourself some season nosebleed seats for that whole damn cute family of yours, and it's worked out for you guys pretty well I would say but enough is enough and somebody's got to sit home Saturday Night and I'm tired of it being me.
Here's what you do. G comes home from school today, proudly holds up his math test with a 99 on it. He's looking up the length of your towering bean pole self, waiting for that most predictable response from his proud father. But you tell him, in no uncertain terms, that 99 will just not cut it this time. The bar is being raised. 99, you scoff, crumpling the test paper into a ball and mashing it into the wood floor. You send him off to his room and in response to his predictable crying jag (and the balloon bubble above his head which says--my father is a whack job) you banish him from Saturday's game. Or look, it's already going to cost me a pretty penny to get a last minute flight from DC to NO, I should really start looking for deals right now, maybe you could call up the school and have one of his teachers break it to him.
I'm just kidding G, you know I wouldn't do you that. You too crazy about your sports for me to even think about sneaking your ticket away from you. But nephew, look, what about Izzy? Come on man, that girl is too young to really appreciate the importance of football. Here's what we could do...
Naw really nephew, I'm cool, I'll just hang here, by myself, try to take some consolation in the 50 inches of plasma Hi-Def. Yeah boy, high definition is really, you know, the bomb, makes everything look better. Even the president last night looked...well, like shit actually, but his skin tone was really...a little sallow actually, but...oh!!!--I think he almost correctly pronounced nuclear the second time it came up on the teleprompter. Like any of that world politics crapola matters. Go Saints.
Oh he's a big college professor in New Orleans now but when he was just a critter, a speck, an aphid on the family tree if you will, back in Texas, me and my older brother used to mess with his head a little bit, we did. My nephew doesn't seem any the worse for it now, I mean, I don't think he's worse off. You could take things out of context, like the fact that he has been seen more than a few times in public wearing colorful tights and a mask, imitating perhaps the sidekick of a popular superhero (and clearly in possession of an actual hollow leg where he dumps gallons and gallons of beer), and say, well, I think you guys effed up his head permanently, but you don't understand, that was just him being...it is in the context of...it's a seasonal thing...well, never mind, it's hard to explain. To meet him though you would think--what a fine young man, and such a lovely family, oh that wife of his, he doesn't deserve her you might kid him with a poke in the ribs. His three young children not just smart but handsome and pretty as well. Truly, what an outstanding man, what an outstanding family.
All right you bastard, I got you to read this far, I know you're reading this, now where is my damn playoff ticket. I know you have five of them, I know you took a chance and invested in a team that wasn't likely to be that good and got yourself some season nosebleed seats for that whole damn cute family of yours, and it's worked out for you guys pretty well I would say but enough is enough and somebody's got to sit home Saturday Night and I'm tired of it being me.
Here's what you do. G comes home from school today, proudly holds up his math test with a 99 on it. He's looking up the length of your towering bean pole self, waiting for that most predictable response from his proud father. But you tell him, in no uncertain terms, that 99 will just not cut it this time. The bar is being raised. 99, you scoff, crumpling the test paper into a ball and mashing it into the wood floor. You send him off to his room and in response to his predictable crying jag (and the balloon bubble above his head which says--my father is a whack job) you banish him from Saturday's game. Or look, it's already going to cost me a pretty penny to get a last minute flight from DC to NO, I should really start looking for deals right now, maybe you could call up the school and have one of his teachers break it to him.
I'm just kidding G, you know I wouldn't do you that. You too crazy about your sports for me to even think about sneaking your ticket away from you. But nephew, look, what about Izzy? Come on man, that girl is too young to really appreciate the importance of football. Here's what we could do...
Naw really nephew, I'm cool, I'll just hang here, by myself, try to take some consolation in the 50 inches of plasma Hi-Def. Yeah boy, high definition is really, you know, the bomb, makes everything look better. Even the president last night looked...well, like shit actually, but his skin tone was really...a little sallow actually, but...oh!!!--I think he almost correctly pronounced nuclear the second time it came up on the teleprompter. Like any of that world politics crapola matters. Go Saints.