Monday, Monday

I’m at the computer (of course; how else could I be typing this?) waiting for Godot … I mean, waiting for 10 AM: that’s when I’ll leave for my medical appointment with Linda. Stress management, they call it. To pass the time, I’m tinkering with an icon I drew for a little computer program I created yesterday.

I feel crappy this morning. I feel anxious, jittery. I feel depressed, somber. I don’t feel like this every day, thank God. Maybe the weather has an effect on my psyche; rain is on the way. Or maybe it’s a Monday thing; remember what The Mamas and The Papas said about Mondays:

Every other day, every other day,
Every other day of the week is fine, yeah
But whenever Monday comes, but whenever Monday comes
You can find me cryin' all of the time

I really don’t want to go to see Linda. I don’t want to do anything. It’s getting hard to do anything. The mere thought of doing anything fills me with a dreadful inertia.

My cousin killed himself, and I understand why. You can get to a point in your life when you don’t feel like doing anything. You can’t think of anything that would be fun to do. Nothing brings pleasure. Every day brings ennui. Every day becomes something to get through, something to survive. Life is an ordeal.

Except it’s not endless. It will end. It will end at some random time: when that aneurism in your brain pops, or that blood clot lets go and hits your heart, or after enduring many weeks of agony from a cancer inside you. All those possibilities and many more lie hidden in your future, and one of them is going to get you. The clock is ticking. You’re running out of runway.

Or you can take matters into your own hands. Why endure years of unbearable ennui, a declining quality of life, and that ultimate descent into despair, pain, and death? That was on my cousin’s mind. I read between his words enough to know it was on his mind. On a Monday morning, I feel a little of what he must have felt. But don’t we all? Is there anyone whose life is perpetual good times?

Crappy days are a part of being human. In an episode of the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy confronts a teenage boy who is about to take his own life. She tells him:

“Believe it or not, I understand about the pain… My life happens to, on occasion, suck beyond the telling of it. Sometimes more than I can handle. And it’s not just mine. Every single person … is ignoring your pain because they’re too busy with their own. The beautiful ones, the popular ones, the guys that pick on you. Everyone …”

I’m not my cousin. I have a philosophy. You can read about it here. It should be read at night, at o’dark hundred hours, when quiet solitude is upon you and the encompassing darkness is broken only by the glow of a computer screen.

An Alarming Blog

One of CyberDave’s recent blogs recounted his battles with an alarm clock he used when he was a lad delivering the morning paper. When I was a lad I, too, delivered the morning paper. Didn’t I blog about that? Sure I did: read How I Learned To Drive. And I, too, had an alarm clock. It was a Big Ben windup clock. It was made in the day when clocks went tick-tock-tick-tock and alarms went brrrriiiinnnng! And its alarm was loud and robust. It was exactly what was needed to get a 14 year old lad up and going to work at 4 AM every morning.

But I adapted to it. I learned to shut off that alarm without waking up. Oh, yeah – I wanted to sleep. So to wake myself I had to place the alarm clock directly under the center of my bed. Then, I could no longer reach over and shut it off in my sleep. When the alarm went off, I had to get out of bed and crawl under the bed to reach the alarm clock. Eventually, I adapted to that, too. I learned to get out of bed, crawl under the bed, shut off the alarm, and get back in bed – all without waking up. I don’t recall my brother cursing me from across the room. Of course, he may have – I was asleep, though.

Eventually, I went off to college. One summer I got a job in Bladensburg, Maryland. I found a cheap place to stay in College Park, on the campus of the University of Maryland. The fraternity houses were mostly empty during the summer and rooms could be rented cheaply: just eight dollars a week. There was no electricity and no hot water, but that was ok. I was trying to save every penny for college tuition.

I said the frat houses were “mostly empty.” There were some frat guys in the house taking summer classes, and I was warned not to leave anything lying around in the open or they would steal it. So I kept everything locked up in a steamer trunk. Everything except for one item: my alarm clock. It was a cheap plastic clock for which I had paid the retail price of one dollar. The alarm sounded like plastic gears grinding together. I left it sitting out next to my trunk. Apparently, the idea of owning a one dollar plastic clock was too enticing for someone, and one day it was stolen. The theft was a minor annoyance. Mostly, it spoke volumes to me about the character of some frat boys on that campus. I mean, if you’re going to throw away your integrity by turning yourself into a thief, is a one dollar plastic clock your price? Really? To know your integrity is worth so little seems a sad thing to know about oneself.

Recently, I needed an “hour-meter”. That’s a gadget that, when electricity is supplied, begins running and counting time, and when electricity is removed it retains the time until it’s powered up again. They’re often used by industry. (And back in the day, when I took flying lessons in a single-engine Cessna, there was a Hobbs meter on the instrument panel to record how many hours were on the engine.) I decided the cheap way to count hours would be to attach an electric clock to the circuit I wanted to monitor. It only counts to 12 hours, so I would have to log the time periodically, but that was ok. I went to the store looking to buy an electric clock that could run on household AC. I guess I’m a fossil because it seems no one makes anything like that any longer. All the clocks I found were battery-powered, micro-chippy affairs. And when unpowered they lost whatever time they had counted.

The days when clocks went tick-tock and alarms went brrrriiiinnnng! are in the dead past now, along with rotary dial phones, TVs with 12 channels, and 15-cent hamburgers.

Winter Morn

I got up at 3:55 this winter morning, after lying awake for an hour. It’s going to be a cloudy day. And cold. But at least it isn’t raining. Or snowing. No, there’s no chance of that until … tomorrow! The National Weather Service has a little icon for that kind of misery. I’ll keep my fingers crossed. Maybe it won’t happen. No, I’ll be positive. There’ll be no snow tomorrow. Not where I live. Meanwhile, here’s a little virtual cheer to dispel the gloom.

My amigo CyberDave is online at this dark hour. His insomnia is in sync with mine. He wants to send me a video he took with his camera but it’s too large for email to handle. “Post it on Youtube,” I say. He replies he doesn’t have an account at Youtube. “So, create an account.” And he does. And then he uploads his video and voilà, a new world of possibilities opens before his eyes, he reports. It’s amazing, to me, that I can take my little camera that cost all of $99 and I can shoot a video and upload it to Youtube and incorporate it into a blog for all the world (potentially) to see. If only I had something to tell the world. Oh well, never let it be said that having nothing to say stopped me from saying something. Millions of people have nothing to say and they still say it online. I can match their inconsequential drivel with my inconsequential drivel any day.

Gosh, now the TV weather people are talking about “tomorrow’s snow”. They’re so negative! But I think I’ll take a shower and drive to the grocery store, just in case. But like the Terminator – or a bad penny – I’ll be back.

Hello From Heaven!

A few years ago I read a book called Hello From Heaven! Many books have been published about near-death experiences (NDEs) and out-of-body experiences (OBEs), but Hello From Heaven! is about people who feel strongly that they were contacted by departed loved ones. The authors of the book call these contacts after-death communications (ADCs). According to the book, millions of Americans claim to have been contacted by a departed friend or relative. (The book’s authors have a website at www.after-death.com. There’s a music player near the bottom of the page … if you don’t like the music you can turn it off.)

The book covers the topic of ADCs thoroughly and is chock-full of anecdotes. There are various kinds of ADCs: sensing a presence, hearing a voice, feeling a touch, smelling a fragrance, partial and full appearances, and others. It may surprise some people that millions of Americans claim to have experienced an ADC. Though it surprises me, I do believe it. After all, I count myself among those millions.

My mom, who lived alone, passed away in June, 2003, and this was the first night after the funeral. Several out-of-town family members, including me, were staying at her house. The downstairs bedrooms were occupied so I chose an unfinished upstairs guest room for dressing and sleeping. During the night, I suddenly awoke in utter darkness. In my mind’s eye I saw my mother lying in the casket. I had a strong feeling there was someone else in the room. I turned on the lamp beside the bed and looked around, but there was no one else in the room. I turned off the lamp and went back to sleep. I didn’t give the matter further thought.

The next night, I again awakened in darkness. I lay in bed, waiting to fall back asleep, when the lamp beside the bed began flashing on and off: flash – flash – flash … pause … flash – flash – flash … pause … I reached over and turned the lamp on and then turned it back off. That fixed the flashing and the lamp stayed off. “That was strange,” I thought. I couldn’t explain it except as some kind of electrical defect in the lamp.  Again, I didn’t give it further thought, and I soon went back to sleep.

The next day the other house guests left and returned to their homes, leaving me alone in the house. Since the downstairs bedrooms were now empty, I chose to spend the night in one. I half expected something strange to happen during the night but nothing happened. The next morning I awoke and went to the kitchen and made some tea. I took the tea to the living room and sat down in front of the TV. I was about to turn it on when I heard a loud Bang! from the kitchen. I thought, “What the hell?” I went to the kitchen and looked all around it but found nothing out of place. It wasn’t until a little later that I realized what caused the bang.

The kitchen cabinets were the original 1940’s era sheet-metal cabinets. One cabinet had a broken latch and the door wouldn’t stay shut. In fact, the door was always open a few inches as though it had found its natural parking spot. If you pushed the door closed and let it go, it would glide back open a few inches to its usual spot. What I had realized was that the loud bang I heard was exactly the sound that would be made if you put your hand on the cabinet door and forcefully slammed it shut. It was an unmistakable sound. The cabinet door had been slammed shut, but I was the only person in the house and I was twenty feet away. I think my mom was saying goodbye in the only way available to her. She had to try three times before I took notice.

The Jazz Singer

I just watched a movie called The Jazz Singer. I watched the original version that was filmed in 1927 (there have been three remakes including one for television). It was the first full-length movie with sound – the first feature-length talkie. Most of the film was silent with dialog on title cards, just as with silent movies, but parts of it – mostly the musical numbers – had sound. The movie was made before the advent of sound-on-film technology, and the sound technology used was the Vitaphone process. With Vitaphone, each sound sequence had its own reel with a 12- to 16-inch phonograph record to be played as the film was projected. The record was played at 33-1/3 rpm with a playing time that matched the 11-minute maximum running time of the reel. Unlike most phonograph discs, the needle on Vitaphone records moved from the inside of the disc to the outside.

The movie was set in the year 1927, and it was interesting to see some of the customs of that day. For instance, in one scene showing a singer performing in a cabaret, there were small mallets lying on the tables. During the singer’s performance I couldn’t help thinking, “What’s up with all the little hammers?” At the end of the performance, the men in the room applauded while the women picked up the mallets and knocked on the tabletops with them.

The history of the movie begins on April 25, 1917, when New York City native Samson Raphaelson attended a performance of the musical Robinson Crusoe, Jr. in Champaign, Illinois. He found the performance by the star of that musical so emotionally intense that it inspired him to write a short story about the star’s real life. It was called The Day of Atonement and was published in 1922. Later he adapted the story into a stage play, The Jazz Singer, which premiered on Broadway in 1925 and became a hit. The play starred George Jessel in the lead role. In 1926 Warner Bros. acquired the movie rights and signed Jessel to a contract. For various reasons, plans to make the movie with Jessel fell through and Warner had to find another actor who could sing. They signed a superstar of the day to play the lead role. His name was Al Jolson.

And who was the star of Robinson Crusoe, Jr. whose performance inspired a short story about his life that became a play that became the movie The Jazz Singer starring Al Jolson? That actor was none other than Al Jolson.

Needle Me No More

I woke up around 4 AM this Friday morning. I laid in bed until almost 5 AM, then got up and made a large mug of lemonade and sat down at the ‘puter. My amigo CyberDave was already online, having gotten out of bed at almost the same time as I. We began an online chat (as we are wont to do) and the conversation meandered around to his job. He works for an Aussie-owned company and they are extremely safety-conscious. And that triggered a memory for me.

It was a long time ago, but one day at work the boss overturned a large and heavy piece of equipment onto my right foot. It hurt like hell. I was concerned there might be broken bones in my foot. A fellow employee drove me to a little “doc-in-the-box” clinic where I was extensively questioned about my ability to pay for services they might provide. When I say extensive, I mean it got to the point that my fellow employee had enough and stood up and said, “Look, he’s got health insurance, a checking account, credit cards, cash in his pocket, and there’s a bank ATM just across the street. He can pay you! Now will you take a look at his foot?!”

So they X-rayed my right foot. The doc came into the room with a curious expression on his face and asked me if I had experienced pain in my foot before the accident at work. I said I hadn’t. Then he handed me two X-ray films.

One X-ray showed my foot from above and the other showed it from the side. Both X-rays clearly showed a sewing needle inside my foot. I could see the eye of the needle. The needle’s point was missing and it was broken about 1/4 inch from the sharp end. So, there was a piece of needle that was about 1/4 inch long, and another piece that was about an inch and a half long. It was embedded in the bottom of my foot. The image was crystal clear. I asked if I could have the X-ray films but they wouldn’t give them to me.

How did the needle come to be there? I don’t know, but I imagine I stepped on it when I was a child. It was probably one of those little childhood accidents that are quickly forgotten. Once in my foot, it stayed there, surviving being stood on, walked on, jogged on, run on, and jumped on. I guess it will be there until the day I die. Which brings me to what I want to say.

In the event of my death, and if the authorities are having trouble identifying me, tell them not to bother with dental X-rays; they can simply X-ray my right foot and look for a sewing needle. If it’s there, then it’s me. How many people have a sewing needle in their right foot? Probably not a lot.

Sundown

The western sky was a colorful blend of setting sun and clouds tonight. I stepped onto my front porch and snapped these photos. Strangely, when I look at the sky I don’t notice the power, telephone, and cable TV wires; I just see the sky and clouds and colors.

Looking west:

Looking south:

In just minutes the sky has gotten darker.

Of course, the real thing was much prettier and grander than these photos can show.

It was a nice day today … the warmest day of the week. The temperature got all the way up to 58° F this afternoon. I went out and didn’t need to wear a coat. Some people wore T-shirts. But by Friday the highs will be back into the 30s again. So I guess this is what they call the “January thaw.” It happens every January: in the midst of a freezing winter, there is a week of abnormally warm temperatures. Not to be confused with “Indian summer” which is a period of sunny, warm weather, usually in November, after the leaves have turned or fallen.

In six weeks it will be the first week of March. It will still be cold, but I look forward to longer and milder days.

Mongolian Beef

Tonight, a wok dinner:

Beef cooked with peanut oil, sesame oil, soy sauce, dry sherry, chopped garlic, salt, red pepper flakes, and green onions.

Football Talk

Last weekend was Wild Card Weekend; this weekend is Divisional Playoffs Weekend; next weekend will be Conference Championships Weekend. You know where I’m going with this, right? Super Bowl Sunday is only three weeks away.

Sit down at a bar – and it doesn’t even have to be a sports bar – and you’ll hear guys talking about football this time of year. You don’t have to like football or know anything about football, but wouldn’t it be nice to know what is happening? The regular season is over, so what’s going on with all these games they’re playing now?

The National Football League (NFL) has two conferences called the National Football Conference (NFC) and the American Football Conference (AFC). Each conference has four divisions: North, South, East, and West. Each division has four teams, for a total of 16 teams in each conference.

The regular football season is 17 weeks long. Each team plays 16 games and has one “bye” week in which they don’t play.

At the end of the regular season, six teams from each conference – twelve teams in all – play in the NFL playoffs. These six teams are the four division champions plus two “wild card” teams. The wild card teams are the two best teams to not be division champions. The division champions are seeded #1 through #4, based on their regular season won-lost-tied records, and the wild card teams are seeded #5 and #6 based on their records.

In the Wild Card Playoffs, the #3 and #6 seeded teams face each other, and the #4 and #5 seeded teams face each other. The #1 and #2 teams receive a bye, meaning they don’t play and they advance automatically to the Divisional Playoffs.

Translating this to the real world: last weekend’s Wild Card Playoffs involved eight teams playing in four games. The New York Jets (AFC East) beat the Indianapolis Colts (AFC South); the Baltimore Ravens (AFC North) beat the Kansas City Chiefs (AFC West); the Seattle Seahawks (NFC West) beat the New Orleans Saints (NFC South); the Green Bay Packers (NFC North) beat the Philadelphia Eagles (NFC East). The four winning teams are said to have “clinched the Wild Card (Round).” They advanced to this weekend’s Divisional Playoffs.

Remember, there were four teams with byes (two from each conference) and there were four teams from the Wild Card Playoffs. So there were four games this weekend.

In the Divisional Playoffs, the four division winners that received a bye play the winners of the Wild Card playoffs. In each conference, the #1 seeded team plays the lowest surviving seed. So, the #1 seed plays either the #4, or #5, or #6 seeded team. The #2 seed plays the remaining team: either the #3, or #4, or #5 seeded team. In each playoff game, the higher seeded team gets the home field advantage.

Translating this to the real world: in this weekend’s Divisional Playoffs the Chicago Bears beat the Seattle Seahawks and the Green Bay Packers beat the top-seeded Atlanta Falcons to advance to next Sunday’s (Jan. 23) NFC Conference Championship game. The New York Jets beat the top-seeded New England Patriots and the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Baltimore Ravens to advance to the AFC Conference Championship game. These Conference Championship games are also called “title” games. The winners will win the AFC title and the NFC title.

In the Super Bowl, the winner of the AFC title faces the winner of the NFC title to determine the best team in the NFL.

If you plan on going to your neighborhood bar, I suggest you print this page and take it with you. Keep it out of sight. It will be your cheat sheet. When no one is looking your way, a well-timed surreptitious glance will allow you to decode some of the football talk. And if you’re feeling bold, you might even participate in the bar talk. You could try, “What’s with these top-seeded teams getting beaten by supposedly weaker teams?” Or, “Given the upsets, do seed rankings really have meaning?"

Good luck.

Beef and Broccoli

I’m back from the store and just finished dinner and cleaned up the dishes and the wok. I had beef and broccoli stir-fry and a glass of Pinot noir. (The bottle states “Product of Italy,” so why isn’t it Pinot nero?)

Stir-fry broccoli in peanut oil. Remove broccoli to platter. Stir-fry beef in peanut oil. Add dry sherry, soy sauce, sugar, salt, pepper and stir. Add broccoli and stir. Add cornstarch mixed with cold water and stir until liquid is thickened. Serve immediately. Tasty!

Excuse me … I’m going to get another glass of wine.

Cabbage Soup

I made cabbage soup for lunch and it was delicious. I used this recipe I found at allrecipes.com. There was no “cabbage smell” during cooking. I used red cabbage, and I used a whole onion (it was smallish) instead of half. The recipe calls for 4 teaspoons of chicken bouillon; I assumed they meant 4 teaspoons of powdered, instant bouillon, and that’s what I used. Also, I would recommend: instead of adding salt during the cooking process, wait until the cooking is finished and taste it. If it isn’t salty enough to suit you, add half the salt the recipe calls for, stir it in, and taste it again. You can’t take salt out, but you can always add more.

Right now I have to go to the store. I have everything I need for dinner except dry sherry and cornstarch, but no doubt I’ll come away with more than two items.

Roots

How did I come to be here?

I know more about my mother’s family than my father’s family, so I’ll start there. My mother was Alice, the only child of Robert Lloyd Spiers and Sarah Lois Morris. Her father was the son of Robert Charles Spiers and Mary Alice Inman, my great-grandparents. I have a portrait of them. Before film and photographic paper were invented, they had a daguerreotype made. Years later but still long ago, it was photographed and printed on heavy stock that was then hand-painted to create a large portrait.  Robert lived from 1855 to 1906. His wife, Mary Alice, lived from 1860 to 1892. I would like to have known them. Both of them were born before the Civil War. The Civil War and slavery seem like ancient history, and yet my mother’s grandparents were born before the Civil War.

Mary Alice was the child of Francis William Inman and Mary Ann Louisa Mangum, my great-great-grandparents. Remember Mary Ann because I’m going to come back to her.

Francis William Inman, who lived from 1818 to 1873, was the son of Isham Inman and Nancy King. Isham was the son of Isiam Inman and Nancy Gibbons. Isiam was the child of John Inman and Sarah Anne Dawson, my g-g-g-g-g-grandparents.

Stay with me. Sarah Dawson was the daughter of Martin Dawson, and Martin was the son of Henry Dawson and Martha Martin. Henry was the son of William Dawson, who was born in England in 1599 and came to Virginia on the ship Discovery in 1621. I’ve seen the ship’s manifest. It brought cargo and about 20 passengers to the New World.

Now, it has nothing to do with me, but just as a side note, the captain of the Discovery was a man named Thomas Jones. On his previous voyage to the New World in 1620 he was captain of the Mayflower. Prior to that he was captain of the Falcon and, apparently, he was also a pirate. From the book The Mayflower And Her Log by Azel Ames:

He was under arrest for piracy, but the Earl of Warwick procured his release so that he could captain the MayFlower.

(Coincidentally, my amigo CyberDave has commented that the Earl of Warwick was an ancestor on his mother’s side of the family. His sister’s middle name is Warwick – a family tradition.)

I said I would come back to Mary Ann Louisa Mangum, my great-great-grandmother. Her great-grandmother was Rebecca Cotton who lived from 1756 to 1828. Tracing Rebecca’s ancestors finds her family name derived from De Cotentin. William De Cotentin lived in Normandy, France, from 1042 to 1105. Further back, there was an ancestor named Evon Ivan Cellomontensis, who lived in Normandy from 1026 to 1059. Evon lived in a village called Cotentin. His son adopted the last name De Cotentin (meaning “of Cotentin”). When some of his descendants moved to England, their family name changed to Cotten and then to Cotton.

Tracing Evon’s ancestors back another 12 generations, the family name changed several times and the last ancestor I found was named Waudbert De Lommois, who was born in France in 695 and died in 762. Supposedly.

If all that is true, it seems I’m from northern France by way of England. At least, a little part of me is. I find that mildly interesting but I take it with a large grain of salt. I think the important point here is that if 22 year old William Dawson hadn’t boarded the Discovery in 1621 and sailed to the New World, the present day could very well have found me singing God Save the Queen, drinking lukewarm beer, and – oh Lord – watching soccer on the telly.

Triple Play Redux

According to the clock it’s 5 AM. I took melatonin at 7 PM but it didn’t help; I never got sleepy. I’m still wide awake. I’m trying to decide if I should go to bed. I wonder if I would fall asleep at this early morning hour. I doubt it. A couple hours ago I poured myself a shot of brandy. Since then I’ve had four shots and I’m still wide awake – and, you’ll notice, still able to type grammatically correct sentences. This brings to mind a blog I posted back in 1999 when I lived in Roanoke, Virginia. Or did I live at the Applebee’s in Roanoke? Whatever. I’ll post that page. It was titled “Triple Play”.

I ate lunch and dinner at Applebee's today. Now I'm back in at 11 pm for a beer. Three visits in one day. Who says I don't have a life? I do have a life. I just rent it from Applebee's.
Most people go to Applebee's during the day. But the late night atmosphere is different, especially on a Saturday. The place is almost empty tonight. A regular who goes by the moniker "Skeeter" sits at one end of the bar eating dinner. I sit at the other end. Bridgette is bartending. When Bridgette is on a roll, she's a force of nature. Tonight she's a little more mellow. Bridgette and I banter a little, although the banter is 90 percent hers and 10 percent mine. ("What do you call a dog with no legs?" "Don't know, what?" "Doesn't matter, he won't come.")

Around midnight Carolyn comes in. Carolyn is a waitress here – an eye-catching woman of 24. She has a pretty face and a figure that, even in the unflattering Applebee uniform, is dynamite. But tonight she's off-duty, wearing her "civvies", tight fitting jeans and an equally tight, figure-revealing top. Ow! When she walks down the street, I bet her name suddenly becomes "Hey Baby!" Or maybe "Yo, Yo, Baby, Whassup, Whassup!" Depends on the street. Sometimes I try to speak to her, but she doesn't slow down enough for more than a "Hi Carolyn". Maybe she's shy. Maybe she thinks I'm hitting on her and she doesn't like it. Maybe she doesn't want to waste time talking to "some old dude" at the bar who isn't her customer anyway. Who knows.

Terry goes off the clock. She puts on her civvies, comes over and sits down beside me. Terry is 32 and married. And though she's dressed simply - shirt and shorts - she looks terrific. Terry is pretty and sexy, and her workouts at the gym are enhancing everything. We talk, and for a while I can almost imagine that this young, attractive woman is sitting there because she enjoys my company. I can almost imagine it, but not quite. Because I know why she's sitting there. She's killing time until Bridgette goes off the clock, and there's no one else to talk to. Reality check. But I don't care why she's here, I enjoy her company just as much.

Soon enough it's quarter to two. The restaurant's been closed for 45 minutes. Bridgette is off the clock now and has changed her clothes. She and Terry are ready to leave. Time for me to go home.

And I do. I go home. And so at 3:30 on a Sunday morning I sit in an utterly dark room, lit only by the phosphor glow of a computer screen, headphones on, music playing, a beer beside me, trying to capture a moment before it fades forever.
You guys, be good. And g'night, all.

That’s it. That was the blog I posted that day. But for completeness, I’m posting part of the next evening’s blog which was titled “Week End”. Here it is:

Sunday night. The dregs of the week. The burnt-down stub of a week gone up in smoke. I walk into Applebee's at 9:30 pm and find the bar empty. A few people sit at scattered tables, but not a soul sits at the bar this Sunday evening. Terry is tending bar ( I knew she would be).

"You're my only regular customer tonight," Terry says. Even when she has no customers at the bar, Terry stays busy. She mixes drinks, makes frozen drinks, milkshakes, and mudslides for customers at the tables. It seems like the Island Oasis and the blender are constantly churning. She cleans, she estimates and counts (bar inventory), she answers the phone, she punches in to-go orders. She's like the freakin' Eveready bunny -- she just keeps going and going.

I order food, and Terry and I talk.

"Where did you and Bridgette go last night?"

"Nowhere. We talked a while, then I went home and she went home."

"I thought you and she had plans. I thought you were waiting for her."

"No. I just wanted a beer before I went home."

Soon it's 11 pm and the Muzak system is playing Semisonic’s Closing Time.

One last call for alcohol

So finish your whiskey or beer

...

You don't have to go home

But you can't stay here

...

So gather up your jackets

Move it to the exits

I hope you have found a friend

Coincidence? Day's end, week's end, closing time. It's 11:15 when I leave. As I walk out the door I look back. Terry is bent over, sweeping around the bar and under the barstools.

Tonight, my readers get a two-fer. Only a few hours ago I blogged about Jessie J, and thanks to insomnia I’ve already posted a new blog.

One more brandy and I’m going to bed for sure.

Jessie J

I keep running across good British singers. This is 22 year old Jessie J, a singer and songwriter who has penned hits for Justin Timberlake, Alicia Keys, Rihanna, Chris Brown, Miley Cyrus, and others (she co-wrote Party In The USA  with Dr. Luke and Claude Kelly). Her music has influences from R&B, soul, hip hop, dance, and electronica genres. Jessie has an irregular heartbeat and suffered a minor stroke at the age of 18. She cites this reason as to why she does not smoke, drink alcohol, or use drugs. In the video below she sings Price Tag. I like the lyrics and Jessie’s talent is obvious. Afterward, go to Jessie’s official website and watch “Dare Jessie J Episode 3” before it disappears. She chases the Hollywood sign around LA, and I loved watching her James Brown impression at his Hollywood star. You can tell she loves life.

Arizona

I was watching the news which, of course, has been all about the Arizona shooting. I’ve been to Arizona. I’ve stood at the edge of the Grand Canyon, passed through Tombstone, stopped for dinner in Winslow – where I first heard that great Eagles song Take It Easy. But somebody in Arizona didn’t want to take it easy. I feel sorry for those people who were shot and for their families.

The little 9 year old girl, Christina Green, was born on a violent day: September 11, 2001 (9/11). She died on a violent day. Her short life was lived between two tragic bookends.

Gabrielle Giffords was a most unlikely target. She was a moderate Democrat, well-liked, who had publicly asked several times for the overheated political rhetoric we hear so often to be toned down.

And the guy who did the shooting – kicked out of school for being a danger to his classmates and teachers, refused admission to the Army (too dangerous to have a gun?) – by what logic is he entitled to buy a gun? I’m a big believer that crazy people shouldn’t be armed. But I may be in a minority position on the subject.

It’s a miracle that Gabrielle Giffords survived that gunshot to her head. Let us hope there is one more miracle in her future.

Ice Storm

The NWS says a winter storm is on the way and my city might get an ice storm: freezing rain possibly mixed with snow. I recall an ice storm that hit this part of the state. It wasn’t the most recent ice storm to hit the city, nor was it the worst ice storm to hit the city. But when you say the words “ice storm,” this is the storm that comes to my mind first.

I was living in Roanoke at the time. One Friday after a snowfall, I got in my Jeep and left Roanoke on highway 460. I was driving 175 miles east to visit my mother for Christmas. She was about 80 years old and lived in her home with a man in his 30s who had recently separated from his wife. (This man, Danny, and his wife had once been tenants in a house Mom had owned. Much later, when they separated, he asked my mother if he could room in her house until he could afford a place to live. So Mom let him sleep on the sofa in a little room at the end of the house, and in return he drove Mom to the store and to the doctor when she needed to go. Mom didn’t drive, and Danny needed a place to live, so for a while it was a convenient arrangement.)

In that part of Virginia, US 460 is a 4 lane highway divided by a grassy and often tree-filled median. The road that day was covered with snow and as I drove farther east I could see the effects of the ice storm. Tree limbs along the road glistened with ice in the afternoon sunlight. Farther east the ice became thicker on the limbs, until finally the shoulder of the road started becoming littered with broken limbs. Many limbs were big enough to extend onto the road surface. I knew ice coated the highway under the snow, but my Jeep wasn’t experiencing any steering issues. I figured I was safe as long as I drove straight and made no quick movements of the steering wheel.

I was five miles from the small Virginia town of Farmville and I was following about 100 feet behind a white sedan. We were going 55 mph and traffic was extremely light; there were no cars visible on the road either ahead of or behind our two vehicles. A tree limb had become weighed down with ice and had broken and fallen into the right lane of 460 east. The driver of the white sedan gently glided his vehicle into the empty left lane, as did I with the Jeep. But when he attempted to return to the right lane, his rear wheels lost traction. The sedan’s rear end went to the left, then it went to the right, then it went to the left again, and this time it kept going until the sedan was going backwards down the highway. The sedan shot off the left side of the highway and hit a snow-covered hill in the median and flipped up into the air, end over end, and came down on its roof. All this occurred in a matter of seconds right in front of me.  Despite the ice and snow on the highway, I was able to stop the Jeep before it got to the point on the road where the sedan was resting.

As I slowed to a stop and pulled the Jeep off the highway, I watched the driver of the sedan crawl out of the car through a side window. I put my window down as he walked up to my Jeep.

“Wow, that was amazing!” he said.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’m ok. I think I’ll walk up into the woods and lie down.” And he walked away.

I dialed 911 on my mobile and reported the accident. After I determined there was nothing more I could do to help and other drivers had gotten there and were also checking to see if they could help, I drove on.

When I reached my mother’s house and entered, it was dark. Power lines were down and the electricity was off all over the city and beyond. To run the central heat required electricity, so Danny had fired up a small kerosene heater and he and Mom were sitting near it. Except for a small space around the heater, the house was cold. There was no hot water. There was no power to run the stove, so we couldn’t cook. Mom had bought a pre-cooked Christmas dinner – enough food to feed several people – but there was no way to heat it.

I called several motels in the area but, of course, all of them were full. That night I slept with my clothes and my coat on – and lots of blankets. The next morning I called my brother Ken, who lived near Charlottesville, and asked him if he had electricity. He did.

“We don’t; the power is off here,” I told him. “There’s no heat, no hot water, no way to cook food. Can I bring Mom up there to stay with you until the power comes back on? We have a pre-cooked Christmas dinner that we can bring, too. There’s enough food for all four of us. We’ll have dinner and afterward I’ll leave and head back to Roanoke, so you won’t have to put me up for the night. But Mom needs to be there until the electricity comes back on here.”

My brother said he would talk it over with his wife and get back to me. Then he hung up. A short while later, he called back and gave me the ok to bring Mom to his house. So I did. I spent a few hours there and after dinner I drove on to Roanoke, as I had promised, arriving home after dark.

I guess you can say that ice storms can be damn inconvenient. They can cause disaster and misery. And sometimes, they bring people together.

Simple Food

I am getting to be such a good cook! I can cook a half dozen dishes now, providing they are simple. ;-) Honestly, I’ve never been good at cooking. But I’m getting better.

I cook great spinach. The great thing about my spinach is when I’m done with it, it doesn’t taste like spinach at all! That’s good for me because I don’t like spinach. I like turnip greens; I like collard greens; I like kale. Spinach – not so much. I do prepare spinach and eat it, but I combine it with extra virgin olive oil, onions, Worcestershire, soy sauce, Texas Pete and red pepper flakes. When I get through with it, it tastes really good, not at all like the stuff God makes.

My stir-fries are pretty good, too. There are many stir-fry recipes, but lately I’ve been using yellow squash, onion, red and green bell peppers, and again with the sauces: Worcestershire, soy, Texas Pete, red pepper flakes … plus beef or chicken strips.

Sometimes I prepare both: a stir fry and special spinach. I just wilt the spinach in the juice that remains from the stir-fry. I recommend these recipes for people who don’t know how to cook. They’re really easy and very tasty. All you need is a wok. I use an electric wok with a non-stick coating and a wooden spoon for stirring, but if I had a gas stove I’d use a regular wok.

I love Spanish rice – also called Mexican rice – though I don’t cook it anymore because I’m on a low-carb diet. Rice, bacon, tomatoes, onion, bell pepper, and cheese add up to out-of-this-world goodness. Spanish rice is very easy to make.

The first dish I learned to cook was the famous green bean casserole. The recipe was invented by Dorcas Reilly while working in the home economics department of the Campbell soup company. The original recipe card is in the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio. I learned to cook it in Burlington, North Carolina, from my downstairs neighbor Dawn.

There are many variations on the original recipe. It’s really more of a side dish, and people cook it mostly at Thanksgiving. I haven’t tasted a green bean casserole for years so I made one today. Maybe the taste will “take me back” to those days.

I marinated the green beans in chicken broth while the oven was heating. I added milk, soy sauce, and freshly ground black pepper to the condensed cream of mushroom soup. I also added a 4 oz. can of mushrooms to the green beans. To make a more complete meal, I spooned the casserole over grilled chicken breast strips. It worked out well.

Besides simple stir-fries and casseroles, the third thing that anyone can make, even if they can’t cook, is a salad. There are all kinds of salads, and if you have a knife and a cutting board and the ability to chop up a vegetable, you can make a salad. Lately I’ve been making chili salads. I make simple chili salads with hearts of romaine, warm beef-and-bean chili, hot sauce, red pepper flakes, grated cheese, and sour cream. There are many recipes for chili salad including vegetarian and vegan recipes.

Bon appétit!

Lake Hickory Incident

I once spent – ‘survived’ might be a better word – a winter in a summer cottage on Lake Hickory in Catawba County, North Carolina, at a place called Gunpowder Creek. This cottage had the thinnest of outside walls, no insulation, and was most definitely not airtight. The house was built on land that sloped down to the lake. The underside of the house – what you might call the ‘crawlspace’ – was completely open to the outside environment.  The floor was made of planks spaced widely apart and when the wind blew the air pressure under the house lifted the carpet off the floor. For heat I had a small electric space heater. No insulation and the exposure to outside air made life interesting. A glass of water left on a table overnight would be frozen by morning. Faucets on the kitchen sink would freeze overnight and by morning couldn’t be turned. Faucets in the metal shower stall also froze overnight. (If you’ve never gotten naked in a 20° F room and then stepped into an icy-cold, sheet-metal shower stall and tried to turn the faucets but got only a trickle of water because the faucets had frozen, and you had to wait until that trickle of water melted the ice inside the faucets so you could bathe – you’ve missed nothing.) At night I slept on a sofa under an electric blanket set on ‘10’ – the maximum setting – with several more blankets piled on top of it. It was enough to keep me comfortable – “comfortable” being a relative term here. I had no TV for entertainment. Fortunately, I had something better than TV. I had an old AM radio and every night I listened to the Larry Glick show that was broadcast by 50,000 watt clear-channel station WBZ in Boston. (If you never listened to Larry Glick, you missed a really great radio show. And if you did listen, you were likely either a 3rd shift worker or an insomniac.) And I listened to unforgettable music: Maria Muldaur singing Midnight At The Oasis, Paul McCartney singing Band On The Run, Mike Oldfield’s haunting Tubular Bells.

There were several cottages around the lake, but this anecdote is about one particular cottage. It, too, was on land that sloped to the lake, so one side of the house was at ground-level while the opposite (lake) side of the house was ten or twelve feet above the ground and supported on posts. The fellow that built the cottage chose to place the bathroom on the lake side of the house. The bathroom was constructed almost as an afterthought. It was not inside the house; it was a separate room outside the house and well above the ground, supported on “stilts”.

One summer night the owner of the cottage threw a party. During the festivities, a large, overweight woman went to the bathroom. After a long time passed and she didn’t return to the party, people in the house grew concerned. They called her name but she didn’t answer. They knocked on the bathroom door but there was no response. Finally they opened the door and discovered they were looking out into the night. There was no longer a bathroom on the other side of the door. The bathroom had fallen away from the house and toppled over on its stilts like a falling tree.

No one died, as far as I know, but there was ample embarrassment and probably a new respect, by the cottage owner, for those pesky building codes.

Hill of Beans

In my last post I mentioned that after college I lived for a while in an apartment building in Burlington, North Carolina. I lived on the second floor and another single man lived across the hall from me. He appeared to be around 30 or 35 years old, and he made his living as a contract engineer. His job sent him from city to city. He would work at a company for a year or two until his contract job was completed and then he would move on to another job in another city or state.

I didn’t really know him. He was a quiet fellow and kept mostly to himself. He never said much, but he always seemed happy; he always had a little smile on his face, as if he was slightly amused at the world, as if he was “in on” some fantastic secret that no one else knew. Sometimes he would bring a woman home to spend the night, but it was always a different woman. Once I asked him about one of his overnight guests and he replied that she was “just some floozy” he had picked up.

Eventually his contract in Burlington was finished and he moved out of his apartment. I came home from work one evening and he had his door open. He was giving his apartment a final cleaning. I looked in and saw him standing in the middle of his kitchen with a broom. He was sweeping the ceiling.

This was a remarkable sight to me. I had never seen anyone sweep their ceiling. Curious, I entered his apartment and looked at the kitchen ceiling. It was covered with brown spots.

“What are those brown spots on the ceiling?” I asked.

“Beans,” he replied. I looked again and then I recognized them: yes, they were dried beans. Then he explained.

One night he had come home late and slightly intoxicated. Feeling a need to put food in his stomach, he put water into a saucepan on the gas stove and placed a large can of pork and beans in the saucepan – unopened. Then he lit the gas burner and went into his living room to lie on the sofa while the water got hot and heated the beans in the can. And he fell sound asleep.

Time passed, and the water in the saucepan boiled away. The liquid inside the can of beans began turning to steam and building up to an enormous pressure. Finally, the can could no longer withstand the steam pressure. The sound of the explosion woke him up.

What had happened in the kitchen was this: the top blew out of the can and the beans shot straight up to hit the ceiling as if fired from a scattergun. Sitting over the burner had been a heavy, round cast iron grate on which the saucepan had been sitting. He showed me the remnants of the grate: it was now in three pieces.

Being a practical man, he had left the beans on the ceiling. They weren’t in his way and besides, “out of sight, out of mind”. If he cleaned them off the ceiling and then had the misfortune of dying before he moved out, he would have cleaned up the mess for nothing. But now that he was moving out he wanted to get his deposit back, and it wouldn’t do to have dried beans plastering the kitchen ceiling.

I said goodbye and good luck, and I left his apartment. The last time I saw him he was at work with his broom, sweeping the kitchen ceiling.

Dawn

When I got out of college, I got a job in Burlington, North Carolina. I lived in a trailer park for a couple of years. (I was flat broke when I got out of college and had to borrow $200 from my mother to live until my first paycheck.) One Friday, the owner of the trailer park knocked on my door. He told me I had to be out by Monday because he was converting my small trailer into an office. I had to scramble to find a new place to live.

I moved into an apartment building. The building had four apartments: two upstairs and two downstairs. I lived in an upstairs apartment. Across from me lived a contract engineer. He was in his 30s and lived by himself. Below him was Dawn’s apartment.

Dawn was an attractive woman in her early twenties. She had a very calm way about her. I’d call her very easy-going. I was in my early twenties. We were neighbors and acquaintances and that’s all.

One dreary and rainy Saturday morning, Dawn phoned me and suggested that we drive to the mountains. I had nothing planned so I said, “Let’s do it.” We got into my car and headed through the gloom and the rain toward the mountains of western North Carolina.

As my car climbed the mountain roads, going higher and higher, we broke through the clouds and found ourselves in sunshine. The view was spectacular. Below us was a sea of unbroken clouds, while here we were in sunlight and blue sky, and the day was suddenly beautiful. We drove that mountain road from town to town, stopping at roadside antique and curio shops designed to snag a few tourist dollars. I recall Dawn purchasing a little life-size wooden rabbit; she took it back to her apartment and painted it. What else she bought, I no longer remember. We spent the day in the sunshine, driving around and exploring and seeing places we had never seen and would never see again. It was so much fun. As the sun was setting we drove back down to the flatlands and headed east toward Burlington.

I liked Dawn; she was a nice person and she was pretty. I never thought of her as someone to romance and she never thought of me that way. We were just friends. However, if I could live those days over, I would put more energy into trying to develop something more than just friendship. I think a wiser man than me came along and got himself a terrific partner.

The Visit

Today I’m posting a couple of diary entries from 2003. At the time, I was preparing for a winter visit by my cousin Ron and his wife Betty who were driving up from Florida to Virginia. You can see how I cater to my visitors. I bend over backward to make sure my guests are comfy. How many people do that? By the way, I’m a slightly better cook now.

---

December 8th, 2003

Time is short now. It’s Monday already, and cuz’n Ron and his wife Betty will be driving up from Florida on Wednesday, so I’ve hustled today to get things done. Washed the bathroom and kitchen, vacuumed, put stuff away. My house still looks like the place the Beverly Hillbillies moved from.

I’ve got a special treat for cuz’n Ron and Betty. I’m gonna plug the fuse back into the electric water heater circuit. Because I know how married women get ... spoiled. And the guys who live with them for any length of time ... spoiled. Just a hint that they might bathe in cold water and it’s whine, whine, whine. Heck, when those married guys were 15 they would go camping and bathe in a mountain stream, which is basically melted snow, and they’d hop around and holler and have a good time. But now, the mere suggestion that the shower nozzle emits ice water and it’s ... you guessed it ... whine, whine, whine. People are getting soft. So I plugged the fuse back into the water heater circuit. I’m trying to keep people happy here.

December 9th, 2003

My concern today is food, because I know Ron and Betty aren’t going to want to drive 800 miles to visit me and then spend their time buying groceries and cooking meals. Of course, I could give them a choice - buy groceries and cook food ... or ... don’t eat for five days, take your pick. But I will admit that five days is a bit of a stretch. When I do it I run out of energy after three days. Of course I, being a single guy, just scrounge food wherever. Usually, my kitchen holds enough food for maybe two meals, one of those meals being peanut butter.

I don’t cook. Never have. But I can “cook” simple things ... meals so simple that what you’re really doing is more like “heating up” than “cooking”. So tonight I decided to prepare their first meal in advance. Beans. Yes sir. Betcha that was a big surprise. But these won’t be any ordinary beans, no sir. These beans are gonna be sweet-n’-sour beans. These beans are gonna be tasty beans. These beans are gonna be great beans.

I had a little trouble finding enough bacon grease for the beans. There’s only so much grease in a pound of bacon. I hope it’s enough.

I recall I served Spanish rice with the sweet-and-sour beans. Ron and Betty said they loved the rice and beans. In fact, they loved them so much that Betty insisted on cooking the rest of the meals during their visit. I guess she was trying to pay me back for the delicious meal I prepared because she wouldn’t let me near the kitchen. She insisted on preparing all the meals … even going to the store to buy groceries. Which is a shame because they never got a chance to enjoy my follow-up meal: peanut butter and olive sandwiches.

Morning

I wake up in the dark. It isn’t the dark of night, it’s the dark of very early morning. I look at my clock radio. From where I’m lying I can see the hours but not the minutes. It’s 7 something. I woke up an hour ago – it was 6 something – and went back to sleep. I reach to the dresser and grab my cell phone. It’s an old phone, over four years old, but heck, it can do more than I need. I flip it open and punch the power button to turn it on. I hit the “online” button to connect to the Internet. I want to check the temperature. I hit the menu button, but I’m still only half awake and for a few seconds I look blankly at the menu, trying to figure out what to hit next. Oh yeah, “view bookmarks.” I select “the weather channel” and in comes the weather report. It’s 27° F.

I look at my east-facing bedroom window. The blinds are closed but there is pink light streaming past the edges of the blinds. I get up and go to the bathroom. There’s pink light streaming into that room, too. I look outside and the eastern sky is intensely red. It’s really beautiful. “Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.” That’s what they say. Will there be bad weather today? I get my camera and snap a photo, but I can’t capture that sky. The photo shows a red sky, but it doesn’t show the intensity, the vividness, the glow.

After breakfast I sit at my computer. Before I went to bed last night, I deleted yesterday’s blog post. It seemed lame so it had to go. I want to write a replacement. At 8:30 I’ve just started writing when my phone rings. (Actually, it doesn’t ring – it plays a little tune.) It’s the woman across the street. She’s complaining about the escapades of another neighbor. After 8 minutes on the phone, I tell her I’m only half awake and she gets the message and wishes me a nice day. Actually, it’s true. I am only half awake. A full stomach and a little space heater blowing hot air on my legs combine to put me halfway to dreamland.

The sky is cloudy, overcast. By 9 AM it has warmed up to 30°. There are a lot of things I could be doing, should be doing. It seems to be getting darker outside. The whir of the little space heater is soothing, and the warm air is relaxing. The thick clouds seem to say, “Stay inside. Do nothing now. There’s plenty of time later when the sun is shining.”

It wouldn’t hurt to take a little nap on the sofa, would it?

Snack time

Nothing to write about today, so I’ll describe a couple of snacks I made today. You might like to try one or both. If you’re a cook, you may have already tried them.

Spinach for people who don’t like spinach:

Heat up a little extra virgin olive oil in a wok with some chopped onion. Add a little Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, and a little Tabasco or Texas Pete. Add baby spinach leaves and let them wilt down while you stir.

Mini ham sandwich:

Open up a sandwich round, spread on mayo, and add a slice of pepperoni (sandwich size) and baked ham. It’s a good combination.

Sometimes I use a sandwich round to make a mini pizza sandwich. Add pizza sauce, pepperoni, and mozzarella. Don’t forget to add red pepper flakes. Nuke for 20 seconds.

I’m a fan of stir-fry meals and salads. They’re so easy to make. For lunch today I made a chili salad: hearts of romaine topped with a serving of hot beef-and-bean chili, red pepper flakes, grated cheese, and sour cream. It may not be on the menu at the Ritz-Carlton, but it’s cheap, easy, and tasty. Feel free to add a comment with a recipe for your favorite cheap, easy, and tasty meal or snack.

Kim

Last night I had a dream.

I dreamed I met a young woman named Kim Cellére. (Note the diacritic over the second e – it’s called an acute – nice touch for a dream, I thought.) And before you complain; yes, I know ‘Kim’ is not a French name but it’s what she said. (It was a dream; go with it.) And when I asked her to spell her last name, she spelled it in French. That is, she used French pronunciations for the letters. Which is interesting, because we don’t normally think about the fact that our alphabet is pronounced differently in other languages. Take the letter ‘C’ … we pronounce it like ‘see’, but in French it’s pronounced like ‘say’. In French, the letter ‘E’ is pronounced ‘er’ (as in ‘her’). So when dream-girl Kim spelled her last name, basically, it was Greek to me. I mean French. How is that spelled? Comment ça s'écrit?

If you think getting the spelling of her name was difficult, you should have seen me trying to get her phone number written down.  Like letters, numbers in other languages are pronounced differently than they are in English. In English it’s “one-two-three”; in French it’s “un-deux-trois” (pronounced approximately like “unh-der-twah”). What’s that phone number, again? Uh, one more time? It was futile. Why did I study Spanish? The only time I’ve actually needed to know another language was in this dream, and I studied the wrong language. “Uno, dos, tres, cuatro,” … those I remember. You know the expression “in your dreams”? Well, for me, apparently, not even in my dreams. I can’t catch a break here.

Coincidentally (or maybe not coincidentally), in my previous life I wrote several short stories involving a female character named Kim. That was at a time when I didn’t know anyone named Kim. Perhaps that’s why I chose the name Kim for my character. The name was pure, unspoiled, unsullied by association with a real person. I could ascribe any attributes or qualities to the character I wished and there would be no discordant “Hmm, that doesn’t feel like something a Kim would do.” Since then, I’ve met several Kims. The woman next door is named Kim. The woman across the street is named Kim. Her neighbor, who just moved away, was named Kim. In Roanoke, I knew a bartender named Kim (she was in college studying biochemistry or something equally arcane – I wonder what became of her) and when I moved to this city and dropped into the pub, there I met another bartender named Kim.

The dream went on and on, but what does it mean? Something? Nothing? The dream was nice – interesting, even – while it lasted, but perhaps nothing more than a potpourri (a French word) of memories and experiences thrown together – shaken, not stirred – with a touch of influence from the chicken samosa with dal rajastani I ate for dinner.

Footnote: the girl’s name Kim is a short form of Kimberly from Old English Cyneburg meaning “royal forest”. Kim is also a boy’s name, a short form of names like Kimball. Kim is also a Korean name meaning “gold”. Cellere and Celere appear to be Italian, as are Cèllere and Cellére. There is also an ancient manuscript called the Cèllere Codex.

The New Year, As Usual

The Old Year is history, the New Year has arrived.

My cousin-in-law Betty reminded me that today’s date is 1-1-11. She said all those ones makes the day lucky. If that’s true, 1:11 PM was the right time to make a New Year’s wish.

The tornado siren just sounded off. They test it on the first day of every month. I call it the BFS because it’s really loud; if a tornado approaches it has to be loud enough to wake people from a sound sleep all over this part of town. The problem: it’s 150 feet from my house. I almost jump out of my chair every time they test it.

I have a little home repair project to do, for which I stopped by Home Depot earlier this week and purchased 6 bolts, 6 nuts, 6 flat washers, and 6 lock washers. I get started on the project and then discover that my little plastic Home Depot bag contains 6 bolts, 6 nuts, 5 flat washers, and 4 lock washers. What happened to the rest? I paid for six of each. I’ll make do with what I have.

Yesterday I ate lasagna for lunch. It was a frozen entrée I bought at Walmart. I’m clearing my desk of papers and here’s the receipt for those groceries. Glancing at my purchases, I notice I was charged twice for the lasagna. It happens. I’m surprised I don’t get charged twice for everything, the way those checkout people handle the items they’re scanning. The lasagna wasn’t good.

Today for lunch I heat and eat a meat loaf and mashed potato entrée. The picture on the box shows a delicious-looking meatloaf glazed with ketchup and gravy and accompanied by fluffy mashed potatoes. What comes out of the microwave oven is soupy potatoes and a couple of little brown dominos without spots. There is no hint of ketchup. The potatoes aren’t good. The meatloaf is edible.

Having food in my stomach makes me drowsy, and I lie on the sofa for a little while. I lie on my side facing the light blue sofa back and close my eyes. The blue fades to black. But I don’t go to sleep. I lie motionless for a long time and a strange thing happens. I begin to lose awareness of my location and my position. I know I’m lying on my sofa, but I’m barely aware of my arms, my legs … or my body. I feel like I’m floating in space. I’m barely aware of being in my own house or in which direction of the compass my head is pointing. I know this strange illusion will be broken as soon as I make a movement. Just moving my hand against the sofa will bring me back to reality. I move my hand and instantly I’m back.

It’s 63° F outside and cloudy; the weather service says a chance of rain. It’s a good time to take a walk. Happy New Year!

Retail Surprises

I went to the “big box” home store and bought 6 bolts, 6 nuts, 6 flat washers, and 6 lock washers for a home repair project. The clerk put them in a plastic bag and I brought them home. But when I started working on the project, I realized that the bag contained 6 bolts, 6 nuts, 5 flat washers, and 4 lock washers. Where did the rest go? Did the clerk drop them on the floor?

I went to the store and bought groceries, including a frozen lasagna entrée. Looking at the receipt after I got home, I saw I was charged twice for the lasagna. It’s a marvel I don’t get charged 2 or 3 times for everything, the way those checkout people handle the items they’re scanning. The lasagna wasn’t even appetizing.

I bought a frozen meat loaf and mashed potatoes entrée. The picture on the box showed a delicious-looking meatloaf glazed with ketchup and gravy and accompanied by fluffy mashed potatoes. What actually came out of the microwave was soupy mashed potatoes and a couple of little brown dominos without spots. There was no hint of ketchup.

I bought a box of nitrile gloves to use around the house. The box stated “one size fits all.” The gloves were so small and tight-fitting, I couldn’t put them on without using talcum powder, and even then they were difficult to put on.

Store-bought bread isn’t bread, it’s a doughy confection of chemicals. Have you ever eaten real bread? It’s nothing like what comes in that plastic bag with the twist tie.

What is wrong with retail in this country? Too many things are made by people who don’t care about what they make and are sold by other people who don’t care about their jobs. Taking pride in what you make, taking pride in what you do — those things are old fashioned. It’s modern times now.