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....
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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.
How Shiny Is Too Shiny?
I'm just going to stay low and do nothing and watch the squirrels who can't fly fall slowly and drop dead. I can't tell if those boys out there shooting in my woods are boys I gave hunting rights to or if they is just some boys I don't know, with guns. I have to weigh what it is I really care about and much as I look I can't seem to find a single squirrel on that scale. I don't even know who it is I would be paying lip service to if I said something good about squirrels, or acted in some way sensitive to their immediate plight, which right this minute is them coming to terms with small gauge shotguns. From the sound of it though the squirrels are giving the boys a run for their money.
I thought I was just going to spruce up the sorry ass looking wood floors here in the Fence Post house but instead ended up renting a drum sander and sanding them all the way down to bare wood. And staining them and sealing them and now they are done and look nice.
Bernadette came down for a few days and worked with me but now she's gone. We stopped for barbecue between Hillsboro and Chapel Hill, yesterday on the way to the airport. It was delicious. The waitresses were kind of all business bossy though, in a way that did not seem at all affected. No one called me "hon" I guess is what I'm saying. I'm not saying they weren't friendly enough or that they weren't good at their jobs, because they were fine at it. It's just, well, no one called me hon. We had ribs, and flounder, and hush puppies, and cole slaw, and fried okra, and sweet potato pie.
As I stood behind a teenage girl counting her change several times in front of a very patient, almost encouraging cashier, one of the waitresses noticed Bernadette's red patent leather clogs and called the other waitress over, who admitted to having the shiny blue ones. The first waitress asked didn't Bernadette mind the shininess but the other waitress, the one with a pair of shiny blue ones at home, said that shiny was good. Bernadette just played it safe and said how comfortable they were, especially considering that they did not bend whatsoever. In the parking lot afterwards, we giggled because we thought it was funny that the one waitress was curious about the shininess of her shoes but did not have a single opinion about the bright orange and black camouflage jacket Bernadette was wearing.
I'm not really doing a damn thing today. If I do anything it might be bringing in the shop vac and sticking the flexible hose into the floor vent and fishing around for that rutabaga Bernadette dropped down there night before last. I am remembering how she fashioned her hands to describe the size of it when she explained that she had dropped a rutabaga (about so big) into the heating duct. Later, after she dropped a couple more things down there, we put a piece of wood over the opening. But I'll tell you one thing--the mashed and buttered rutabagas were good as all get out.
I'm just going to stay low and do nothing and watch the squirrels who can't fly fall slowly and drop dead. I can't tell if those boys out there shooting in my woods are boys I gave hunting rights to or if they is just some boys I don't know, with guns. I have to weigh what it is I really care about and much as I look I can't seem to find a single squirrel on that scale. I don't even know who it is I would be paying lip service to if I said something good about squirrels, or acted in some way sensitive to their immediate plight, which right this minute is them coming to terms with small gauge shotguns. From the sound of it though the squirrels are giving the boys a run for their money.
I thought I was just going to spruce up the sorry ass looking wood floors here in the Fence Post house but instead ended up renting a drum sander and sanding them all the way down to bare wood. And staining them and sealing them and now they are done and look nice.
Bernadette came down for a few days and worked with me but now she's gone. We stopped for barbecue between Hillsboro and Chapel Hill, yesterday on the way to the airport. It was delicious. The waitresses were kind of all business bossy though, in a way that did not seem at all affected. No one called me "hon" I guess is what I'm saying. I'm not saying they weren't friendly enough or that they weren't good at their jobs, because they were fine at it. It's just, well, no one called me hon. We had ribs, and flounder, and hush puppies, and cole slaw, and fried okra, and sweet potato pie.
As I stood behind a teenage girl counting her change several times in front of a very patient, almost encouraging cashier, one of the waitresses noticed Bernadette's red patent leather clogs and called the other waitress over, who admitted to having the shiny blue ones. The first waitress asked didn't Bernadette mind the shininess but the other waitress, the one with a pair of shiny blue ones at home, said that shiny was good. Bernadette just played it safe and said how comfortable they were, especially considering that they did not bend whatsoever. In the parking lot afterwards, we giggled because we thought it was funny that the one waitress was curious about the shininess of her shoes but did not have a single opinion about the bright orange and black camouflage jacket Bernadette was wearing.
I'm not really doing a damn thing today. If I do anything it might be bringing in the shop vac and sticking the flexible hose into the floor vent and fishing around for that rutabaga Bernadette dropped down there night before last. I am remembering how she fashioned her hands to describe the size of it when she explained that she had dropped a rutabaga (about so big) into the heating duct. Later, after she dropped a couple more things down there, we put a piece of wood over the opening. But I'll tell you one thing--the mashed and buttered rutabagas were good as all get out.
