Happy Birthday, Momo

IT’S A BEAUTIFUL DAY FOR THIS EARLY IN THE YEAR. The sun is shining and the temperature is in the low 60s. If I didn’t know better I’d call it a Spring Day. I like it.

The only dark cloud on the horizon seems to be that it is getting to be time to take the Toyota in for its 30K mile checkup and an oil change.

“Open your hood, stick out your air filter and say ‘Ahhh’.”  The mechanic grabs the fan belt and says to hit the turn signals and cough. Rotate those tires.

I don’t expect there to be any major problems. It seems to be running just fine. It goes forward when I step on the gas and it stops when I hit the brakes. Beyond that I don’t ask for much. It’s a car – not a financial advisor or a podiatrist.

Fiction Saturday – And Pull The Hole… Continued Chapter 30

Fiction Saturday

 

Chapter Thirty

 

“Kids, I’m sorry.  I’m really sorry.”

Vivian was near tears.  Davis was numb.  Laura was torn between comforting Vivian, trying to keep Davis from going into shock, and keeping watch on her own boiling pot of anger and fear.

“Vivian, I don’t blame you,” she said.  “It was just bad luck.  We’re all safe.”

But she did blame Vivian in a way.  She blamed herself as well, for accepting Vivian’s dangerous invitation in the first place.  She thought that, maybe, they weren’t all that safe, not any longer.

Working Can Be A Real Job

JOBS. WE’VE ALL HAD THEM OR WILL IN THE FUTURE. Some jobs lead to careers while others serve only to put food on the table and keep the wolf away from the door.

There are full-time jobs, part-time jobs, and jobs that are one-time things – like bank jobs. Not jobs for a bank, but in a bank – with a note, concealed weapon, and a getaway car.

Some jobs are better than others. That’s true whether you are just starting out or nearing retirement.

We’re Doomed! What’s For Lunch?

ICE? WHAT ICE? I DON’T SEE NO ICE.

I take that back – I see ice in my coffee, but there is no ice on the roads or on my windshield. I’m not complaining mind you. In fact, I am doing my Happy Dance – big time.

For the last week the Weather Bunny on Channel Two has been predicting that Terre Haute (That’s French for “What’s that floating in the Wabash?”) was going to be hit with several days worth of ice storms, Sleet, Freezing Rain and NCAA Athletes. I don’t mind the athletes, but the ice, sleet and freezing rain I can do without.

Fiction Saturday – Chapter 24 – And Pull The Hole – Continued

Fiction Saturday – Chapter 24

 

Chapter Twenty-Four

 

A starlit nightfall was racing across the Mojave Desert and California was disappearing into shades of gray and neon splashes.

“Davis, wake up.  I want you to take over.  I’m exhausted and I think we’ll be safer with night coming on.  We’ll switch again when we stop for gas.”

“You look drained.  Laura, we are going to make it, right?”

“We’ll make it, Davis.  Things will be fine.  Once we get to the border, we’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, beautiful, carefree, Mexico.”

They were both whistling past the graveyard and they knew it.

They had changed their path south to California Route One, the coast road.  Just north of Ventura, on the outskirts of LA, Laura pulled the car into a Shell station.

The orange floodlights washed over the concrete and the islands with the self-serve gas pumps.  Inside the station a young man with stringy hair and acne sat behind the counter reading a motorcycle magazine.

“I’ll fill it up,” said Davis.

Laura opened her door and got out.  She stretched her arms and yawned.  She looked around the brightly-lit station.

“I’m going to the bathroom.  I’ll be right back.”

She walked into the mini-mart and reemerged seconds later holding a large brass key attached to a miniature baseball bat.  She disappeared into the darkness around the side of the building.

Davis used his debit card to fill the tank of his three-year-old, white, four-door Ford Taurus.  He made a mental note that it was due for a scheduled maintenance checkup.  He topped off the tank and put the nozzle back into the pump.  It was then that he realized he was finally hungry.

He really hadn’t eaten anything since he had picked at his lunch back at the Target store in Santa Maria.  Now he wished that he had, at least, eaten his churro.  Laura had inhaled her food as if lunch was going out of style.

“Maybe she’s more used to this than me,” he thought to himself.

After replacing the gas cap and pocketing his receipt, Davis walked up to the cashier’s counter inside the station.

“Hey, good evening, Mister.  Can I help you?”  The young clerk put his magazine down on the counter.

“Hi.  I need to get something to snack on.”

“We got a pretty good selection of munchies and the cold sodas and stuff are over there in the cooler.  We don’t sell beer or anything hard any more.”

“Thanks.  Soft drinks will do.”

Davis walked over to the rack.  He studied the collection of foil and paper-wrapped sweet and salty junk foods.  He picked up a small bag of chips and headed over toward the beverages.

“Hey, Mister,” the kid called out to him.

“Yes, what?”  Davis turned away from his search.

“I think you got some company outside,” said the young man, his head tilted toward the door and the gas pumps beyond.

Throwback Thursday from January 2015

Throwback Thursday from January 2015

Colleges Across The South Abandoned

I SAW THE FOLLOWING news item yesterday and I thought that it might have repercussions beyond just traffic problems.

“ROCKY MOUNT, N.C. — Authorities closed all southbound lanes of Interstate 95 north of Rocky Mount early Wednesday after a tractor-trailer carrying ramen noodles wrecked near N.C. Highway 4.

No other information about the wreck has been released, but boxes of noodles were spilled over a larger portion of the highway.

The state Department of Transportation said the closure could last all morning. Lanes are expected to reopen by 3:30 p.m.”

I thought that when the word of this crash got out all hell would break loose.

My brain created its own little movie of college students all over the South dropping their textbooks and i-phones and rushing to the accident scene.

The first reel, even under the opening credits, would show speeding traffic along Interstate 95, and then the Semi in question loosing traction and slamming into a bridge abutment. Next comes a slo-mo following shot of thousands of those little cellophane packets of the Ramen Noodles spreading out across all lanes like little flavored migratory butterflies.

Music comes up: Paul McCartney and Wings – reunited to sing: “Food on the run.” I can almost smell an Oscar nomination coming for the soundtrack.

The next shot cuts to hordes of skinny underclassmen and women sensing the possibility of free meals, scattering across the landscape, heading toward the Interstate. It is meals just ripe for the picking. An overturned truckload of gold bullion (not bouillon cubes) would not draw such a response.

Those Ramen Noodles don’t grow on trees, y’know. One must strike while the saucepan is hot.

In my collegiate days (Pre-Ramen) we were limited to making grilled cheese sandwiches with a steam iron or instant soups that tasted like flavored sea water. If an accident like this had happened back in the late 1960s I would have been moving with all imprudent speed to scoop up as many free and easy meals as I could stuff into my backpack.  

Most days I can look at news stories and just yawn. Things don’t vary all that much from Six O’clock News to Six O’clock News. If you want to get my attention you’ve got to do something original, or at least really dumb. Spreading several tons of Ramen Noodles across an Interstate highway gets my attention. It also makes me hungry.

Talk amongst yourselves for a while. I’m going out to get some lunch.

Fiction Saturday Chapter 23 – Pull The Hole… Continued

 Fiction Saturday – Continued

Chapter Twenty-Three

 “Actually, Davis, using your car is a good idea.  We can avoid public transportation and no pesky rental agreements floating around.”

“See, I told you I’d come in handy.”  Davis looked out of the passenger side window at the passing California landscape.  “I wish you’d let me drive for a while, though.”

“Later tonight maybe.  I’m a better driver than you are and it helps me to relax.” Relax was something that Laura had not been able to do for a second, ever since she saw her own face staring out from page four of the San Francisco Chronicle.  “Besides, I think better while driving.  Maybe I can figure a way out of this mess for us.”

“Well, I’m a very good driver—no accidents ever, and you could use a break.”  Davis knew there was no changing her mind once it was made up, even though Laura looked like she hadn’t slept in days and her jaw was clenched tight.

Appreciating his effort to care for her, Laura smiled and gazed at him as he huddled up against the car door.  He looked lost, she thought.

“Well, dearest,” she said, “at sixteen I was picking up extra pocket money as a wheel man.  Just for kicks really.  My father never knew.  It was stupid and dangerous, but I was good at it.”

“Don’t tell me any more right now.”  He was a stranger in a strange land if ever there was one.  “I haven’t digested everything you’ve laid on me so far.”

“Okay, I understand.”

“I do have one question though,” he said.  “Why did we stop at a travel agent before we left?  A ticket for one from Miami to Detroit?”

“A little deception.  Detroit is a border town, a ten-minute walk out of the country across the river.  I bought it in my own name, of course.  It won’t fool anybody for long, especially Dominic.  But the Feds will have to check it out.  It’ll tie up a couple of their guys for a few hours and give us a little extra edge.  It’ll help our odds, maybe.”  She shook her head and shrugged her shoulders.  “Maybe not.  I don’t know.”

“What are our odds?”  He was immediately sorry that he had asked.

“We’re two snowballs and we’re driving south.”

“Oh.”

Coming Up Shorts

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I THINK THERE IS A STRANGE EPIDEMIC GOING AROUND. People seem to be losing stuff at a furious rate.

Not long ago I and my wife, the lovely and non-clumsy, Dawn, were driving along Route 40 in Illinois and we noticed something sitting by the side of the road – a very nice and expensive office chair.

Seeing that chair, lost and abandoned out there, was a bit of a surprise. Most of the stuff by the side of the road is little more than trash, or Fiats.

Welcome to Holland

A FEW WEEKS AGO I WROTE ABOUT A RETREAT we took in the Holland, Michigan area. It was an intensive week, but it was not all work and no play.

On Thursday afternoon we had some time off to relax and let our brains blow away the sweat. It was listed as free time so we decided to morph into tourists for a few hours. After stops at the local St. Arbucks for coffee and a mini-mart for a Dr. Pepper we headed into downtown Holland.

Retreat! Retreat!

WHEN I SAY “RETREAT” I’m not saying it as if the attack has failed and we are advancing to the rear. No. This is “Retreat” meaning withdrawing from our usual surroundings to participate in a time for reflection and resuscitation on a more spiritual plane. It’s a good thing to do every so often.

Our retreat is at a facility on the shore of Lake Michigan near the town of Holland, Michigan.

For five days we will be thinking about our past and allowing our future to present itself. Prayer, contemplation, and sharpening our perspective on life are a large part of the retreat.

Throwback Thursday from October 2015

From October 2015

Leaves of…uh…Leaves

IT IS THE LATTER PART OF OCTOBER IN INDIANA. The trees are at their peak of Autumnal color. The leaves I saw this morning were red, yellow, gold, and blue. Blue? That turned out to be a plastic bag stuck on a branch.

People come from all over to look at the trees and go “Ooh” and “Ahhh.” After that they eat lunch and drive away. They never stay to help clean up the leaves as they fall to earth.

Throwback Thursday from October 2015

From October 2015

Start Planning Your Vacation Now!

IT IS PART OF HUMAN NATURE to want to excel, to be the best, at whatever one attempts. That is why we keep records of achievement. Sports keep records of just about every facet of a game, important or not. This mania for record keeping is why there is such a thing as the Guinness Book of World Records.

Starting in 1955, the Guinness Book of World Records now keeps track of more than 6,000 records with 50,000 attempts annually to break into The Book.

Throwback Thursday from October 2015

From October 2015

More Questions Than Answers

TODAY IS ANOTHER ONE OF THOSE POSTS about the strange behavior of the human animal. If you have already heard or read about this please feel free to talk amongst yourselves or go get a piece of cake.

The dateline on the news item, and I use the word “News” very loosely, was Yekaterinburg, Kazakhstan. We’re talking Central Asia here, a place where I might think that isolation from – everywhere else – can play practical jokes with your brain. The gist of this story was something that the AAA magazine would never have printed I am sure.

Name That Tune

I DO LOVE BEING MILDLY SURPRISED by the actions of people. Sometimes those surprise actions are not good, but on most days they are downright delightful.

The other day I had the opportunity or the need, depending on your point of view, to be a passenger in a Customer Service Van. The driver was the kind of fellow you don’t soon forget.

My guess is that he was a native son of some place in the hills south of the old Mason-Dixon Line, or as we used to call that part of the South, “Pennsyltucky.” His accent was thick enough that you would need a chainsaw to cut it through. His language was filled with the ultra colorful language of the hills. Imagine the reality of what the old TV show “Hee-Haw” tried and failed to recreate.

Throwback Thursday – Get Well Soon

From September 2015

Get Well Soon!

HOW CAN ONE TRULY DEFINE what is, “Bad Taste” and what is not. Just as “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” the same can be said about humor. What one person thinks is funny another may not. In fact, I think you can be rock solid sure that for whatever one person thinks is funny there is another person who won’t laugh.

Such is the case of the picture to the right.

I think it is funny and I’ve had others say that it is “In bad taste.” Of course, if I ask them to tell me the difference, they fall silent.

One person tossed out the “bad taste” thing, saying that the balloon was what made it so bad. I then asked him if it had been a Get Well Card instead of the balloon would they have approved?  That was met with stony silence. That was kind of nice compared to his whining. He was also upset when I said I would have done as much for him as was done for the deer.

Somehow I don’t think he’ll be bothering me again.

The Night The Lights Went Out In Terre Haute

LET’S FACE IT; I CAN NO LONGER SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT. It’s not Insomnia, or Noisy Neighbors. It’s something else called, “I gotta go potty.” This happens at least once each night, regardless of my fluid intake and that is why we have a small nightlight in the bathroom.

When I crawl out of bed in the middle of the night, more than half asleep, it is like a scene from the movie, “Poltergeist.”

“Go toward the light, Carol Ann! Go toward the light!”

Without that nightlight, well….I hate to think about it.

The Good, The Bad, And The Crispy

I LOVE PIZZA. CORRECTION: I LOVE MOST PIZZAS.

Pizza is a very simple dish (or pan). It is not difficult to make. I suspect that you could make a passable pizza in one of those old “Suzy Homemaker” or “Easy-Bake” ovens.

Tempus Fugit-su

That title is a slight (ahem) modification from the Roman writer Virgil and it survives into our modern lexicon because everyone knows that “Time flies when you’re having fun.” It also flies whether you like it or not. I know that as well as anybody, and I don’t need daily reminders, but I get them anyway.

Getting An Oil Change – Not At Grease Monkey

I LIKE CARS, BUT I CAN’T BUILD THEM. I can’t repair them. I can’t even sell them. I just like driving them and I do appreciate them as an Art Form. The Jaguar XKE was once exhibited at the New York Museum of Modern Art.

The Good, The Bad, And The So-So

I’M GOOD AT GROCERY SHOPPING. I’M NOT GOOD AT DANCING.

Everybody has those little slices of life where they excel and others where they stink like the next morning in a fraternity house. No matter how hard we try to master a certain skill it evades us.

For example: