Earn Valuable Coupons
Had a couple of tacos across the street. The Spanish talk show on the TV was equaled and then surpassed in it's offensiveness by the two young women who came in shortly after me. They ordered Huevos Rancheros and then the one with her back to me began mimicking in tone the grating quality which was coming from the TV host. Stand clear of the closing doors please. We are picking up speed now. Quickly followed by another stop. I am not listening to where I am, inasmuch as that is possible. I do like to overhear though. Where was I? Oh yeah, I was complaining about overhearing. All I can tell you is that the Spanish speaking host and the English speaking customer seemed upset in concert. If the tickets to this show had not been free I would have asked for a refund. Stand clear of the closing doors please. I got on the first train coming through the Essex street station, going in I'm not sure which direction. Every time we stop there is a lot of chatter about where we are, where we are heading and, if applicable, to which lines you can connect. I probably should get out soon and see what it looks like. The names being announced for many stops now give me absolutely no clue as to where I am but actually I do have a general idea...I was in Queens, Jackson Heights, underneath the elevated track on Roosevelt. I was the only so called Caucasian out there. I saw Indians, Asians, Latinos, a few black people and I'm pretty sure one Eskimo. The air quality was not great. There was a good bit of particulate floating down from the elevated. I stared up at it in wonder before remembering that my eyes are sensitive and prone to collecting and becoming perhaps seriously irritated by heavy particulate. Escaped without injury. I'm not really doing anything too challenging in today's exploration. Am now on an F train (took the M on the way out) and the next stop is the one I started at. I'm going to keep going though and cross the river into Brooklyn, probably get out at Prospect Park for awhile, commune with some of that Nature...yep, that's where I have ended up, in the park, sitting in the dugout of one of the baseball fields, next to a sweaty partially unwrapped piece of Trident chewing gum. Upon entering the park I passed a woman in business attire (except for the brown cotton gloves on her hands), carrying a briefcase, and who to my limited short term observation appeared completely without ironic intent as she gently tip toed down the sidewalk. Today in Prospect Park it is apparently white people day. Bring your baby in a stroller get a free hot dog. First person to complete 5 unnecessary phone calls gets a stuffed alligator. Joggers, cyclists, and Frisbee players receive valuable coupons. First skinny white boy to write and post to his blog from an empty dugout gets a two dollar credit on his MetroCard and I should think, when he gets home, a hot fudge sundae. Hey batter batter, swing.
...more recent posts
Continued Mobile Testing
I added 15 dollars a month to my 29 dollar a month Sprint cell phone plan so that I can post this drivel from anywhere, and not be dependent on a wifi signal. And unlike the wifi dependent ipod touch from which I posted the recent gripping daily updates from New Orleans (over at email from NOLA), this test is happening on the new second hand Palm Treo, which does at least allow me to go back and edit after posting. The ipod attempted but did not really allow that. I just paused to take an incoming call. Bernadette was, thinking me upstairs, inviting me to lunch, but I told her I was at the East River, not playing with another miniature electronic device but rather running important tests, experimenting, prodding the boundaries of modern communication. We are all one now you modest readership, sitting side by side on this curving wooden bench with its pink beige concrete back, linked by whatever it is I deem appropriate. For example there is a condom wrapper between my feet. It is at least possible that beneath one of your shoes is the wet fulsome content of that wrapper.
I added 15 dollars a month to my 29 dollar a month Sprint cell phone plan so that I can post this drivel from anywhere, and not be dependent on a wifi signal. And unlike the wifi dependent ipod touch from which I posted the recent gripping daily updates from New Orleans (over at email from NOLA), this test is happening on the new second hand Palm Treo, which does at least allow me to go back and edit after posting. The ipod attempted but did not really allow that. I just paused to take an incoming call. Bernadette was, thinking me upstairs, inviting me to lunch, but I told her I was at the East River, not playing with another miniature electronic device but rather running important tests, experimenting, prodding the boundaries of modern communication. We are all one now you modest readership, sitting side by side on this curving wooden bench with its pink beige concrete back, linked by whatever it is I deem appropriate. For example there is a condom wrapper between my feet. It is at least possible that beneath one of your shoes is the wet fulsome content of that wrapper.
Butterfly By The Pool
The Enema Museum
A couple of things ran through my mind on the way to the enema museum. The same things that would run through anyone's mind I guess—one: why is there an enema museum, and two, why was I going out of my way to go to there?
I drove from Mt. Pleasant down to the property in North Carolina to see with my own eyes that which the property manager could not see, or for the measly fee I pay her, did not bother to see, that being the adjustment of my neighbor's border road which previously meandered onto my land but now runs straight and true according to the newly surveyed line. Job well done. Idling down the gravel road waving bye-bye to the toddler on my front porch the heat beating down on my wheeled metal box helped me decide not to drive the four hours back to Virginia during the heat of the day (without AC), but to splurge for a motel. I drove about twenty-five miles and checked into a Danville, VA. Sleep-Inn at three in the afternoon. The room was frigid. I checked the AC unit but inexplicably it was turned all the way off. I got under the covers and signed into the motel's wifi service on my miniature device by touching the glass screen with thumb and forefinger together and then swiping them outward to enlarge the print so I could see a virtual button that said—accept. I sent out a couple of emails and glanced at a news reader long enough to see that celebrities continue to goof up and grab headlines while black goo gushes still from a mile beneath the surface, spreading farther and wider and causing some to speculate in all apparent seriousness that the earth is about to become a fireball and we, all the many billions of us balanced precariously on its surface are surely to perish under a black cloud that blots out the sun.
So that last bit I think effectively answers why the next morning I set my GPS to lead me to the enema museum in Lynchburg, VA. The end will have to come eventually, whether to each of us individually or to all as one I can't see that it makes much difference. Whether it is a result of our hubris and greed and aggressive disregard for the mother planet or just some stray meteor as big as the sun crashing into us will in the end just be a footnote for future civilizations to regard and, probably not learn from. Goodbye Bosch, goodbye Kafka, goodbye Hendrix, I hope someone's got you in their time capsules. But I'm not going down with gloom. No, I have a couple thousand off beat tourist attractions on my GPS that I have yet to see and dammit, if the closest one to my current location is the enema museum then so be it. Lead me oh not completely infallible GPS device. I will follow.
I think the reason Bernadette doesn't love my GPS device is threefold: one it once took us way out of our way to find a Starbucks that apparently did not exist and two I think she resents that I so willingly do whatever the GPS tells me to do while on occasion only begrudgingly do what she tells me to do and three, the third reason is, I don't really know why Bernadette doesn't love my GPS. For my part I think it is a good device and the reason I might prefer it to the interaction of a human co-pilot is because we all make mistakes, GPS, humans too, but when the human tells you to turn left three feet from the intersection and you miss the turn because come on, three feet? That's not enough time to react, I mean it would be if I could hit a 100 mph fastball but I can't so...anyway, it can sometimes get heated, between us humans, whereas if the electronic device messes up I just say, oh that's interesting that I just drove five miles out of my way to an enema museum and end up in warehouse parking lot, across the street from a paint store and a Red Lobster restaurant.
Now the next logical thing that may come to mind, about how men won't ask for directions...I think for many of us every location we are trying to find but can't, is like an enema museum. It's not that we are worried about appearing unmanly for being lost it is just that we are embarrassed to go, say for example into a Red Lobster restaurant and ask, um, excuse me ma'am or sir but this morning without any sort of coercion whatsoever I decided to go out of my way to see the local enema museum and my GPS led me to that parking lot over there and as you may be aware, there is no enema museum over there. Did they move it? Or, are you aware at all of any kind of museum within a block of here because maybe the enema part is a misprint?
Just for a second while we're on the subject of navigation devices, or hell, devices of any kind, I would I think be remiss not to bring up one of the greatest device lovers I know, Mr. BC. Does he have an iPad? Sheeeit, he's got three of them. Hell, he uses one of 'em and a 10 dollar app to navigate narrow channels in his boat. He's a geek BC is. I mean that in the modern (almost) laudatory sense of the word, as in a lover of all things technological or gadget-like. Pretty much all men are geeks in some way, and women too, they can obviously be geeks, I just hope we can be clear that I'm not talking about people who bite the heads off chickens. None of the people I know, nor I, have ever bitten the head off a chicken. I saw a guy in NY, back in the very early eighties, bite heads off little white mice, but that was performance art (which may or may not be in someone's time capsule, because remember, we're all going to die soon, the apocalypse is now, and what do future life forms—let's just hope white mice don't take over the planet—need to know about us?), of course I guess all chicken decapitators are performance artists of one kind or another. I want to move on here, because I feel like I'm belaboring a non point, but please let's be clear, for the record, that, to the best of my knowledge, Mr. BC has never bitten the head off a chicken.
What do you do when you fail? Do you shake your head, bemoan your bad luck and set sail for home waters, tell the Queen, sorry, I couldn't find any gold or other good stuff. No man. You move down the list of off beat tourist attractions and keep moving. You move way off your northern course and head west (which, in general, in Virginia, if you are east of the mountain range, is a good way to see pretty country). You head for Glasgow, the Town that Time Forgot. Plus, as an offbeat tourist attraction, it would be nearly impossible for an entire town not to exist in some fashion. There is no way I could miss it.
Jumping ahead, yeah Glasgow exists, and yeah, it kind of small and old and forgotten looking (there is a Moose Lodge) but I'm sorry, I had to keep on driving because growing up in Texas and having driven over a fair amount of it, well towns like Glasgow would take up your whole device hard drive if you listed every one. It is however near that other nice attraction, which I have once been too, and honestly cannot right now think of its name (I am distracted because my cat is unfairly attacking my left arm), but it is a nice piece of natural beauty and for some reason I was thinking would be a good place to be when the world exploded. I mean I remember thinking that in the past, before I knew the world was about to explode any second now. I could head there right after I hit another nearby attraction—King Kong Crushing Airplane.
Now this was fun because the GPS was taking me down these tiny roads to finally hook up to what is a two lane highway running, not really contiguously, all through Virginia, Lee Highway. I took the right and was about to continue on six miles to see Kong when I saw up ahead an elephant standing on its hind feet. The elephant was artificial. An advertisement for the small zoo, which I'm not kidding, had a sign out front that said—Have your Picture taken with Baby Tiger. I cannot adequately describe how much I wanted to have my picture taken with a baby tiger but whereas going off half cocked to an enema museum is the kind of thing a man can do alone, going into a roadside zoo to have your picture taken with a baby tiger, isn't. As consolation I took a picture of the elephant and kept on moving.
About a mile up the road I saw this decrepit looking junk yard behind a high wall with a gated entrance, only the junk was not cars or household scrap but artificial animals, not unlike the elephant I had seen by the zoo. I pulled into the gates and parked on the grass next to a giraffe with it's head lying separately next it, and a very realistic looking alligator, and between the two a dinosaur lying on its back. Tall grass was growing up around all of it. I asked a Mexican man who appeared to be working around the yard if I could snap some pictures and he nodded. And would you lookey there. It was King Kong, faded, in need of some fresh paint at least, and he was crushing (well, not really crushing) an airplane. Oh sure, after I left I kept going the several miles just to verify that there would not be a King Kong Crushing Airplane at the GPS coordinate and of course, there wasn't.
To verify the Kongless coordinate I had passed the Interstate and just like that all magical sensation had evaporated. The trip was over but I was still a hundred miles from home. I zoomed down the Interstate remembering the recent past with fondness. I could go back I guess, with Bernadette who is due for a visit, maybe they would even let us pet the baby tiger and we could go to the other place, where I've imagined for many years now as one of the places to spend an apocalypse. No, now I remember, it wasn't a place to go during the apocalypse, it was a place where I felt certain there existed an actual vortex to another world, that was it. So, maybe we could do that next week. I was checking my email a minute ago and in the process saw a headline that said the subsurface methane bubble world explosion theory that suggested we were all within minutes of foreseeable extinction has been debunked. I hope that doesn't lessen the urgency I was feeling to see all the rest of my GPS's offbeat tourist attractions.
A couple of things ran through my mind on the way to the enema museum. The same things that would run through anyone's mind I guess—one: why is there an enema museum, and two, why was I going out of my way to go to there?
I drove from Mt. Pleasant down to the property in North Carolina to see with my own eyes that which the property manager could not see, or for the measly fee I pay her, did not bother to see, that being the adjustment of my neighbor's border road which previously meandered onto my land but now runs straight and true according to the newly surveyed line. Job well done. Idling down the gravel road waving bye-bye to the toddler on my front porch the heat beating down on my wheeled metal box helped me decide not to drive the four hours back to Virginia during the heat of the day (without AC), but to splurge for a motel. I drove about twenty-five miles and checked into a Danville, VA. Sleep-Inn at three in the afternoon. The room was frigid. I checked the AC unit but inexplicably it was turned all the way off. I got under the covers and signed into the motel's wifi service on my miniature device by touching the glass screen with thumb and forefinger together and then swiping them outward to enlarge the print so I could see a virtual button that said—accept. I sent out a couple of emails and glanced at a news reader long enough to see that celebrities continue to goof up and grab headlines while black goo gushes still from a mile beneath the surface, spreading farther and wider and causing some to speculate in all apparent seriousness that the earth is about to become a fireball and we, all the many billions of us balanced precariously on its surface are surely to perish under a black cloud that blots out the sun.
So that last bit I think effectively answers why the next morning I set my GPS to lead me to the enema museum in Lynchburg, VA. The end will have to come eventually, whether to each of us individually or to all as one I can't see that it makes much difference. Whether it is a result of our hubris and greed and aggressive disregard for the mother planet or just some stray meteor as big as the sun crashing into us will in the end just be a footnote for future civilizations to regard and, probably not learn from. Goodbye Bosch, goodbye Kafka, goodbye Hendrix, I hope someone's got you in their time capsules. But I'm not going down with gloom. No, I have a couple thousand off beat tourist attractions on my GPS that I have yet to see and dammit, if the closest one to my current location is the enema museum then so be it. Lead me oh not completely infallible GPS device. I will follow.
I think the reason Bernadette doesn't love my GPS device is threefold: one it once took us way out of our way to find a Starbucks that apparently did not exist and two I think she resents that I so willingly do whatever the GPS tells me to do while on occasion only begrudgingly do what she tells me to do and three, the third reason is, I don't really know why Bernadette doesn't love my GPS. For my part I think it is a good device and the reason I might prefer it to the interaction of a human co-pilot is because we all make mistakes, GPS, humans too, but when the human tells you to turn left three feet from the intersection and you miss the turn because come on, three feet? That's not enough time to react, I mean it would be if I could hit a 100 mph fastball but I can't so...anyway, it can sometimes get heated, between us humans, whereas if the electronic device messes up I just say, oh that's interesting that I just drove five miles out of my way to an enema museum and end up in warehouse parking lot, across the street from a paint store and a Red Lobster restaurant.
Now the next logical thing that may come to mind, about how men won't ask for directions...I think for many of us every location we are trying to find but can't, is like an enema museum. It's not that we are worried about appearing unmanly for being lost it is just that we are embarrassed to go, say for example into a Red Lobster restaurant and ask, um, excuse me ma'am or sir but this morning without any sort of coercion whatsoever I decided to go out of my way to see the local enema museum and my GPS led me to that parking lot over there and as you may be aware, there is no enema museum over there. Did they move it? Or, are you aware at all of any kind of museum within a block of here because maybe the enema part is a misprint?
Just for a second while we're on the subject of navigation devices, or hell, devices of any kind, I would I think be remiss not to bring up one of the greatest device lovers I know, Mr. BC. Does he have an iPad? Sheeeit, he's got three of them. Hell, he uses one of 'em and a 10 dollar app to navigate narrow channels in his boat. He's a geek BC is. I mean that in the modern (almost) laudatory sense of the word, as in a lover of all things technological or gadget-like. Pretty much all men are geeks in some way, and women too, they can obviously be geeks, I just hope we can be clear that I'm not talking about people who bite the heads off chickens. None of the people I know, nor I, have ever bitten the head off a chicken. I saw a guy in NY, back in the very early eighties, bite heads off little white mice, but that was performance art (which may or may not be in someone's time capsule, because remember, we're all going to die soon, the apocalypse is now, and what do future life forms—let's just hope white mice don't take over the planet—need to know about us?), of course I guess all chicken decapitators are performance artists of one kind or another. I want to move on here, because I feel like I'm belaboring a non point, but please let's be clear, for the record, that, to the best of my knowledge, Mr. BC has never bitten the head off a chicken.
What do you do when you fail? Do you shake your head, bemoan your bad luck and set sail for home waters, tell the Queen, sorry, I couldn't find any gold or other good stuff. No man. You move down the list of off beat tourist attractions and keep moving. You move way off your northern course and head west (which, in general, in Virginia, if you are east of the mountain range, is a good way to see pretty country). You head for Glasgow, the Town that Time Forgot. Plus, as an offbeat tourist attraction, it would be nearly impossible for an entire town not to exist in some fashion. There is no way I could miss it.
Jumping ahead, yeah Glasgow exists, and yeah, it kind of small and old and forgotten looking (there is a Moose Lodge) but I'm sorry, I had to keep on driving because growing up in Texas and having driven over a fair amount of it, well towns like Glasgow would take up your whole device hard drive if you listed every one. It is however near that other nice attraction, which I have once been too, and honestly cannot right now think of its name (I am distracted because my cat is unfairly attacking my left arm), but it is a nice piece of natural beauty and for some reason I was thinking would be a good place to be when the world exploded. I mean I remember thinking that in the past, before I knew the world was about to explode any second now. I could head there right after I hit another nearby attraction—King Kong Crushing Airplane.
Now this was fun because the GPS was taking me down these tiny roads to finally hook up to what is a two lane highway running, not really contiguously, all through Virginia, Lee Highway. I took the right and was about to continue on six miles to see Kong when I saw up ahead an elephant standing on its hind feet. The elephant was artificial. An advertisement for the small zoo, which I'm not kidding, had a sign out front that said—Have your Picture taken with Baby Tiger. I cannot adequately describe how much I wanted to have my picture taken with a baby tiger but whereas going off half cocked to an enema museum is the kind of thing a man can do alone, going into a roadside zoo to have your picture taken with a baby tiger, isn't. As consolation I took a picture of the elephant and kept on moving.
About a mile up the road I saw this decrepit looking junk yard behind a high wall with a gated entrance, only the junk was not cars or household scrap but artificial animals, not unlike the elephant I had seen by the zoo. I pulled into the gates and parked on the grass next to a giraffe with it's head lying separately next it, and a very realistic looking alligator, and between the two a dinosaur lying on its back. Tall grass was growing up around all of it. I asked a Mexican man who appeared to be working around the yard if I could snap some pictures and he nodded. And would you lookey there. It was King Kong, faded, in need of some fresh paint at least, and he was crushing (well, not really crushing) an airplane. Oh sure, after I left I kept going the several miles just to verify that there would not be a King Kong Crushing Airplane at the GPS coordinate and of course, there wasn't.
To verify the Kongless coordinate I had passed the Interstate and just like that all magical sensation had evaporated. The trip was over but I was still a hundred miles from home. I zoomed down the Interstate remembering the recent past with fondness. I could go back I guess, with Bernadette who is due for a visit, maybe they would even let us pet the baby tiger and we could go to the other place, where I've imagined for many years now as one of the places to spend an apocalypse. No, now I remember, it wasn't a place to go during the apocalypse, it was a place where I felt certain there existed an actual vortex to another world, that was it. So, maybe we could do that next week. I was checking my email a minute ago and in the process saw a headline that said the subsurface methane bubble world explosion theory that suggested we were all within minutes of foreseeable extinction has been debunked. I hope that doesn't lessen the urgency I was feeling to see all the rest of my GPS's offbeat tourist attractions.
Dinosaur, Truck, Foamhenge Sign
Fried Chicken For Bossman
Oh it's hot believe it. Hotter than frog gizzards on a George Foreman Grill. Taking a water break boss. Parking vehicle in the shade boss. Checking pool viscosity here soon boss. Hey boss, took those gates down out front this morning. For shit boss, going to the burn pile. A part of history that is history boss. We lookin ahead now, down that road of gateless entries. Nothing between us and mayhem but that rusty-shotgun wielding crusty ole bean pole of a caretaker. Katy bar the door. My name's not Katy.
Yardman was bragging about his fried chicken yesterday and I said prove it, then cut him up a chicken and he did. Wish he would of bragged about potato salad and some big fat home grown tomatoes too. I would salt those tomatoes down like they were slugs suffering inexplicable cruelty and I would eat them and the juice and the seeds and that slimy snot-like septum stuff would be all over my chin and down my neck and on my shirt front. There is nothing precisely so sad as a man dreaming about fat warm salty tomatoes on a hot summer day while he eats unaccompanied cold chicken with extra salt. And the sadness can be unrelenting as he suffers thereafter the smell of vegetable oil such that it seems to clog his nostrils and block out future possibilities of goodness. The man begins to lose all hope for a world not pervaded by the stale smell of vegetable oil. What kind of world will that be. Not a good one he answers.
I did too eat those kid's potato chips yesterday, like I said I would, guiltlessly. Towards the end of their stay, while their father was cooking chicken, and their mother appeared to be suffering heat stroke, I picked up the second half of the bag and said come gather round children, it's Chip Party USA time. And we feasted on the chips leftover from my earlier ravaging of the bag. The children lined up single file, sort of, and when it was their turn dug their little hands into the bag and stuffed their faces, broken potato beige pieces adhering to their brown sweaty cheeks. They say I throw the best chip parties this side of Old Rag.
The youngest is walking now but not talking. The next one up, the one I used to call hard head, has an imaginary friend and a speech impediment, which is a misnomer, speech impediment is because he talks a blue streak, enthusiastically, doesn't seem impeded one bit, and truly the fact that I don't understand much of what he says makes him no less interesting a conversationalist. That he says hey Jim, hey Jim, to get my attention doesn't hurt either. Even now I'm wondering about his imaginary friend Robbie. I wonder what Robbie is doing right now. The birthday boy was sitting next to me, on the wicker couch on the back porch overlooking the pool, and reached over to get his chips whenever my hand was not in the bag. The oldest boy, the Yardman's stepson, son of a local boxer recovering nicely from last year's stabbing, was shy in his asking, could I have some chips? Hell, they were his chips really, but I didn't remind him of that, I just said, chips for everybody, all day long, I throw the best chip parties in the county. I could tell the Yardman's wife was ready to leave and in her perfect world would not be waiting on her husband to finish cooking me, his bossman, fried chicken.
Oh it's hot believe it. Hotter than frog gizzards on a George Foreman Grill. Taking a water break boss. Parking vehicle in the shade boss. Checking pool viscosity here soon boss. Hey boss, took those gates down out front this morning. For shit boss, going to the burn pile. A part of history that is history boss. We lookin ahead now, down that road of gateless entries. Nothing between us and mayhem but that rusty-shotgun wielding crusty ole bean pole of a caretaker. Katy bar the door. My name's not Katy.
Yardman was bragging about his fried chicken yesterday and I said prove it, then cut him up a chicken and he did. Wish he would of bragged about potato salad and some big fat home grown tomatoes too. I would salt those tomatoes down like they were slugs suffering inexplicable cruelty and I would eat them and the juice and the seeds and that slimy snot-like septum stuff would be all over my chin and down my neck and on my shirt front. There is nothing precisely so sad as a man dreaming about fat warm salty tomatoes on a hot summer day while he eats unaccompanied cold chicken with extra salt. And the sadness can be unrelenting as he suffers thereafter the smell of vegetable oil such that it seems to clog his nostrils and block out future possibilities of goodness. The man begins to lose all hope for a world not pervaded by the stale smell of vegetable oil. What kind of world will that be. Not a good one he answers.
I did too eat those kid's potato chips yesterday, like I said I would, guiltlessly. Towards the end of their stay, while their father was cooking chicken, and their mother appeared to be suffering heat stroke, I picked up the second half of the bag and said come gather round children, it's Chip Party USA time. And we feasted on the chips leftover from my earlier ravaging of the bag. The children lined up single file, sort of, and when it was their turn dug their little hands into the bag and stuffed their faces, broken potato beige pieces adhering to their brown sweaty cheeks. They say I throw the best chip parties this side of Old Rag.
The youngest is walking now but not talking. The next one up, the one I used to call hard head, has an imaginary friend and a speech impediment, which is a misnomer, speech impediment is because he talks a blue streak, enthusiastically, doesn't seem impeded one bit, and truly the fact that I don't understand much of what he says makes him no less interesting a conversationalist. That he says hey Jim, hey Jim, to get my attention doesn't hurt either. Even now I'm wondering about his imaginary friend Robbie. I wonder what Robbie is doing right now. The birthday boy was sitting next to me, on the wicker couch on the back porch overlooking the pool, and reached over to get his chips whenever my hand was not in the bag. The oldest boy, the Yardman's stepson, son of a local boxer recovering nicely from last year's stabbing, was shy in his asking, could I have some chips? Hell, they were his chips really, but I didn't remind him of that, I just said, chips for everybody, all day long, I throw the best chip parties in the county. I could tell the Yardman's wife was ready to leave and in her perfect world would not be waiting on her husband to finish cooking me, his bossman, fried chicken.
Small Statue In NY
The Guiltless Chip Eater
Not that I'm name dropping, not yet anyhow, but raindrops as big as cow patties came slapping down against my windshield. I was driving to the dump. I hand deliver my garbage here in Rappahannock. Raindrops as big as cow patties, yes they were, and when they hit the black asphalt they sizzled like bacon in a cast iron skillet. That's how hot it was. Been fearful hot here for a number of days. It's so hot I won't even attempt the short hike from my air conditioned house up that driveway to the swimming pool. Oh you could float a Sunday away when its this hot but I'm staying inside so's my hair don't curl. Not that that's a very good reason but I'd come up with another if you pressed me. I got a fella that cuts my grass and he was going to come over and swim, with his boys, the one of thems been operated on by the foremost children's brain surgeon in this country, over at Johns Hopkins, had a birthday yesterday down in Front Royal that I went to, a kid without a lick of musical sense shouted above all of us during the singing, which was in one way a blessing and in another way just ill-mannered. The birthday boy didn't seem to mind, he just smiled like a boy with a table full of presents to open. Myself I don't care much for an ill-mannered child and I'm old enough now to where it's not considered self-loathing. They was swarming down at the fruit stand, to get to the point, seems Roy got his name in the paper, I didn't read it myself, nor do I intend to just in case it is bad news, of which I do not need no more, but he had his hair combed and one of his good shirts on and seemed in high spirit so I expect it was nothing too awful they wrote about him. Good for him. But I'm not here bragging like I know someone got his name in the paper. I'm just writing to tell you that the frost got his pie cheeries and there ain't gonna be none down here. Forget about it. God bless them ones you enjoying up there, but forget about it down here, they froze up during that late frost. Hell in a handbasket. Oh, there's the driveway alarm, kidding around now you know I ain't got one like Roy, but I can hear gravel under tires easy enough if I'm listening. I can see right off it ain't that one I told not to come back but I'm not so sure it's the birthday boy either. I'm feeling a bit surly, what with the recent news about cheeries, and having to go out in that heat for nothing more that bad news and a trip to the dump that could of waited, not to mention those raindrops as big as cow patties, and the effect they may have had on my electrical system, what with the new hole just showed up in one of my headlights, the one that wasn't already cracked too. Oh yeah no, when it rains like cow poop falling from the sky you know it's raining hard as hell, only it didn't rain that way for but thirty seconds. And that is just enough to make a hopeful man cry in his buttermilk. Oh it was the twin, the one that didn't call to warn me about a visit, coming to warn me about his brother's visit, who did call me to warn me about his visit, and ask did I need something from the civilized world. And oh hell shitfire there he comes now and I sure did want a pizza. I guess I'll go up and get all the beer I can out of the two of them, and hope that somebody brought chips or something for the kids. Their chips I will eat guiltlessly.
Not that I'm name dropping, not yet anyhow, but raindrops as big as cow patties came slapping down against my windshield. I was driving to the dump. I hand deliver my garbage here in Rappahannock. Raindrops as big as cow patties, yes they were, and when they hit the black asphalt they sizzled like bacon in a cast iron skillet. That's how hot it was. Been fearful hot here for a number of days. It's so hot I won't even attempt the short hike from my air conditioned house up that driveway to the swimming pool. Oh you could float a Sunday away when its this hot but I'm staying inside so's my hair don't curl. Not that that's a very good reason but I'd come up with another if you pressed me. I got a fella that cuts my grass and he was going to come over and swim, with his boys, the one of thems been operated on by the foremost children's brain surgeon in this country, over at Johns Hopkins, had a birthday yesterday down in Front Royal that I went to, a kid without a lick of musical sense shouted above all of us during the singing, which was in one way a blessing and in another way just ill-mannered. The birthday boy didn't seem to mind, he just smiled like a boy with a table full of presents to open. Myself I don't care much for an ill-mannered child and I'm old enough now to where it's not considered self-loathing. They was swarming down at the fruit stand, to get to the point, seems Roy got his name in the paper, I didn't read it myself, nor do I intend to just in case it is bad news, of which I do not need no more, but he had his hair combed and one of his good shirts on and seemed in high spirit so I expect it was nothing too awful they wrote about him. Good for him. But I'm not here bragging like I know someone got his name in the paper. I'm just writing to tell you that the frost got his pie cheeries and there ain't gonna be none down here. Forget about it. God bless them ones you enjoying up there, but forget about it down here, they froze up during that late frost. Hell in a handbasket. Oh, there's the driveway alarm, kidding around now you know I ain't got one like Roy, but I can hear gravel under tires easy enough if I'm listening. I can see right off it ain't that one I told not to come back but I'm not so sure it's the birthday boy either. I'm feeling a bit surly, what with the recent news about cheeries, and having to go out in that heat for nothing more that bad news and a trip to the dump that could of waited, not to mention those raindrops as big as cow patties, and the effect they may have had on my electrical system, what with the new hole just showed up in one of my headlights, the one that wasn't already cracked too. Oh yeah no, when it rains like cow poop falling from the sky you know it's raining hard as hell, only it didn't rain that way for but thirty seconds. And that is just enough to make a hopeful man cry in his buttermilk. Oh it was the twin, the one that didn't call to warn me about a visit, coming to warn me about his brother's visit, who did call me to warn me about his visit, and ask did I need something from the civilized world. And oh hell shitfire there he comes now and I sure did want a pizza. I guess I'll go up and get all the beer I can out of the two of them, and hope that somebody brought chips or something for the kids. Their chips I will eat guiltlessly.
Flyover
Flyover
A plane flew overhead yesterday while outside on the lounger I read the first installment of the Swede's trilogy so that a month from now I can go see the movie, or by then I may have to download it, or just wait for the official DVD release. The plane overhead always makes me think of Mr. BC and his flying lessons. I am always pretty sure the planes overhead are flown by Mr. BC. The plane banked left and I went inside to get my camera. If possible I try to take pictures of Mr. BC when he flies overhead. Way to fly in a straight line I yell up to him. Way to keep that thing up in the air. You flying sonofabitch I yell affecting the salty familiarity of a seasoned war veteran reliving the past, remembering it all but making stuff up when necessary.
A plane flew overhead yesterday while outside on the lounger I read the first installment of the Swede's trilogy so that a month from now I can go see the movie, or by then I may have to download it, or just wait for the official DVD release. The plane overhead always makes me think of Mr. BC and his flying lessons. I am always pretty sure the planes overhead are flown by Mr. BC. The plane banked left and I went inside to get my camera. If possible I try to take pictures of Mr. BC when he flies overhead. Way to fly in a straight line I yell up to him. Way to keep that thing up in the air. You flying sonofabitch I yell affecting the salty familiarity of a seasoned war veteran reliving the past, remembering it all but making stuff up when necessary.