Ooh, That Feels So Good!

 

THE FIRST OF MARCH. NO MORE FEBRUARY and I am glad about that. March is the month when spring officially starts. It is when Baseball Season begins. All of that nicely wrapped up inside the fact that it is the end of Winter. YAYYYYYYYY!

There is that zoological adage about March, “In like a lion, Out like a lamb.” I think of it more like, “In like an Ice Tray, Out like a Wet Mop.” I agree that the “Lion and Lamb” thing is more poetic, but mine is more realistic and I never claimed to be a poet. I am just a semi-literate Geezer with bad knees.

Words? I Know Dozens Of Them

 

Oh, The Creative Process. It’s not as simple as those three little words might indicate. It is a delicate and fragile thing – a lot like a soufflé, one jarring moment and it all falls as flat as a three week old Dr. Pepper.

On a good day I can sit down and knock out enough to fulfill my daily blog requirement in less than an hour. I try to keep it between 500 – 700 words. That is enough to make my point (If I have one) or at least get to the punchline. That’s all I ask. I don’t try to push my Muse too far. Of course there are those other days when it all hits the wall like wet spaghetti.

Icy Roads And Hot Soup

OH, SWEET JESUS IT IS GETTING UGLY. Last weekend that was a phrase I said several times. I said it usually right after I looked out of the window. Weather conditions were deteriorating at a rapid pace.

I did not like that.

It was Friday evening and the predictions from the various weather networks, websites, and TV Weather Dudes told us to expect snow and ice – anywhere from one inch to two feet. Don’t you just love such precision?

These predictions of doom and gloom had been coming all week. The forecasts were all over the place. One person would say that it was going to be nasty in northern Maine, but not bad at all in Indiana where we are. The next person would say that Indiana was going to be wiped from the face of the earth. The third source was saying…Somewhere in between.

Oh, Deer Me!

WINTERTIME IN INDIANA – ICY COLD, SNOW UP TO YOUR VASECTOMY SCARS, AND DEER EVERYWHERE. You can’t do much about the cold temperatures and it is pointless to worry about the snow. It is all of those deer that make things scary. They are everywhere and they all seem to be part of a suicide pact.

Maybe all of the 87 million deer within the Terre Haute (That’s French for “Look out, here they come!”) city limits have reached their own personal breaking point and have decided to end it all by leaping into traffic.

The number of deer/motor vehicle collisions around here is just plain ridiculous. The result is measured in bent metal insurance claims and venison hot links.

Zero wins – Two losses.

OK, So I’m Whining.

 

WHINE, WHINE, WHINE.

Excuse me while I whine.

WHINE, WHINE, WHINE.

There! I feel better now.

What am I whining about? I’m whining because it’s January and I miss Baseball.

I miss the crack of the bat, the roar of the crowd, and their collective gasp as the ball arcs through the air into the Gap. Ahhh, the sensual glory of The Game.

The Sights, the Sounds, and the Smells are all a vital part of the Baseball experience. Without reveling in these basic sensations the game might as well be on television.

I Refuse To Accept Just Any Old Reality

THERE IS ONLY ONE THING THAT I DON’T LIKE about this time of year: The Cold; The Snow; The Icy Roads; The Crowded stores; The Nonstop Ads on TV; The Crowds at the Airport; and The Cold again.

Not that I’m complaining mind you.

I stepped out of the back door this morning and was greeted by a blast of cold air and sixty-two million snowflakes coming by at a 90° angle. That was not in my plans for the day. I was all set for it to be 85° and sunny. The fact that it was Mid-December in Indiana notwithstanding.

Throwback Thursday From November 2015 – Grumble, Grumble, Mutiny, Mutiny, Mumble, Mumble

Throwback Thursday From November 2015 – 

 

Grumble, Grumble, Mutiny, Mutiny, Mumble, Mumble

MY OFFICE IS CROWDED TODAY. Of course, “my office,” also doubles as a corner table in the Starbucks a few blocks from home. I can usually shut out the hubbub and foot traffic around me, but today, for some reason, it is all getting on my nerves.

Most of the people in here at this time of day are college students. This location sits almost exactly halfway between two schools. On most days they have their noses deeply buried in either textbooks or computers, but not today. Today must be a day after they have gotten their grades or test scores back. It sounds like they all did well.

Rather than studying the majority are socializing (read: putting the moves on somebody) and trying to look and sound like they can read and write in cursive. I’m seeing short hair being combed and patted to keep it in place and long hair being tossed and flipped, almost as punctuation marks.

“Snap Out Of It!”

THE RAIN IS GETTING TO ME. Everything, including me is wet. It is like living in a never ending Rinse Cycle. I am not looking forward to when the Spin Cycle kicks in. I’ll have to tape my glasses to my head.

The temperatures have risen. We are at about 50° now. Instead of being solid ice we are all feeling like pork chops that have been sitting out for a few days. I may be wrong, but I think I may have freezer burn on my backside. Personally, I still think it is too cold. I feel chilled to the bone. I’m hugging a space heater and I have two of those little heater things in my pants that hunters carry to stay warm…and I’m still cold. It may take July to get me thawed out. Either that or a bout of Spontaneous Human Combustion. A month on a Caribbean beach would be good too.

I would have made a terrible Eskimo.

Throwback Thursday From March 2015 “Springtime On The Wabash”

Throwback Thursday From March 2015

“Springtime On The Wabash”

 

AH, THE CHIRPING OF THE BIRDS, the reappearance of the crocus, and the crack of the bat on the baseball – the true harbingers of Spring.

Easter is early this year, coming in late March. That and the fact that the local Dairy Queen has opened reassure me that life will continue.

Taking It Slow

 

BOY! THOSE ROADS ARE SLICK OUT THERE THIS MORNING! We had a couple of inches of that dry and fluffy snow last night and that has made driving a bit of an adventure. I’m fine because I am a perfect driver (Stop snickering!). It is the rest of those idiots out there that made things ugly.

This is Indiana in January. Are all of those other drivers imported from Southern Arizona where it never really snows? It’s like watching someone on ice skates for the first time only now they are piloting tons of steel on wheels.

Finger Lickin’ Good

 

I JUST READ THE DARNDEST THING – a restaurant review that made me lose my appetite.

Straight from the home town of Godzilla and Hello Kitty comes a story that, under other circumstances would probably reconvene the courtrooms of Nuremberg. (Under 40? Look it up.)

The restaurant named “Resoto Ototo No Shoky Ryohin” has opened its doors in Tokyo and somehow gotten all of the usual permits and government approval to become the first eatery in the world to legally serve (Brace Yourself) Human meat. The name of the restaurant translates into English as “Edible Brother.”

Throwback Thursday from Nov. 2015 – Grumble, Grumble, Mutiny, Mutiny, Mumble, Mumble

Throwback Thursday from Nov. 2015 – 

Grumble, Grumble, Mutiny, Mutiny, Mumble, Mumble

MY OFFICE IS CROWDED TODAY. Of course, “my office,” also doubles as a corner table in the Starbucks a few blocks from home. I can usually shut out the hubbub and foot traffic around me, but today, for some reason, it is all getting on my nerves.

Most of the people in here at this time of day are college students. This location sits almost exactly halfway between two schools. On most days they have their noses deeply buried in either textbooks or computers, but not today. Today must be a day after they have gotten their grades or test scores back. It sounds like they all did well.

Shouts And Murmurs

Fiction Saturday

One of the best playing around with the Language pieces I have ever read.

I’m

How I Met My Wife

by Jack Winter

The New Yorker, July 25, 1994 P. 82

SHOUTS AND MURMURS: a column about a man who describes meeting his wife at a party. In his description, he drops many prefixes.

It had been a rough day, so when I walked into the party I was very chalant, despite my efforts to appear gruntled and consolate. I was furling my wieldy umbrella for the coat check when I saw her standing alone in a corner. She was a descript person, a woman in a state of total array. Her hair was kempt, her clothing shevelled, and she moved in a gainly way. I wanted desperately to meet her, but I knew I’d have to make bones about it, since I was travelling cognito.

Beknownst to me, the hostess, whom I could see both hide and hair of, was very proper, so it would be skin off my nose if anything bad happened. And even though I had only swerving loyalty to her, my manners couldn’t be peccable. Only toward and heard-of behavior would do. Fortunately, the embarrassment that my maculate appearance might cause was evitable. There were two ways about it, but the chances that someone as flappable as I would be ept enough to become persona grata or sung hero were slim. I was, after all, something to sneeze at, someone you could easily hold a candle to, someone who usually aroused bridled passion. So I decided not to rush it.

But then, all at once, for some apparent reason, she looked in my direction and smiled in a way that I could make heads or tails of. So, after a terminable delay, I acted with mitigated gall and made my way through the ruly crowd with strong givings. Nevertheless, since this was all new hat to me and I had no time to prepare a promptu speech, I was petuous. She responded well, and I was mayed that she considered me a savory character who was up to some good. She told me who she was. “What a perfect nomer,” I said, advertently. The conversation became more and more choate, and we spoke at length to much avail. But I was defatigable, so I had to leave at a godly hour. I asked if she wanted to come with me. To my delight, she was committal. We left the party together and have been together ever since. I have given her my love, and she has requited it.

 

The Latest From Unalaska, Alaska

YOU WIN SOME, YOU LOSE SOME. Today I found out that I became a loser.

Several times over the last couple of years I have posted excerpts from the Official Police Blotter of the metropolis of Unalaska, Alaska – a fishing port far out in the Aleutian Islands.

When I logged in last night to check on the latest doings up north I learned that they weren’t going to be posting the blotter on line “For some time.” Someone up there was upset. That broke my heart. There have been times when I would read the blotter just to cheer up myself after a rough day.

On The Road Again

WHILE THE CIRCUS IN WASHINGTON CONTINUES I find that there are smaller side shows going on that I find both interesting and entertaining.

Example: While we were down in Texas, visiting family and avoiding nasty northern weather there was a great story on the TV about two Congressional Representatives from The Lone Star State who felt the need to get back to Washington and actually do their jobs. The problem for them achieving this end was that the entire northeast, including D.C. was getting blasted by a late winter snowstorm and airports in the area were closed down.

The Hermit Ventures Forth

THIS HAS BEEN ONE OF THOSE DAYS ALREADY. Up early to try to get in some writing, then coffee time at St. Arbucks, a trip to the pharmacy, and then to the bank, and to the everpresent Kroger.

What will be on the agenda for after 10 AM remains to be seen, but I’m not terribly hopeful?

Throwback Thursday from January 2015

Throwback Thursday from January 2015

Don’t Blame Me

I LIKE SNOW LESS than I like going up and down flights of stairs. I like snow less than I like going up and down flights of stairs that don’t have handrails on both sides.

I like snow less than I like Jeff Bridges movies – and that is saying something.

But why do I feel this way? Is there some deep, dark, pseudo-psychological, brain cell tweak memory that has made me feel this way? Could be.

Reaching back into the musty attic of my memory I am sure that, up until the age of ten or so, I was really into winter and snow. There were snowball fights defending the snow-fort we constructed in the back yard. And there was sledding down the sloping streets in the neighborhood. We did that, ignoring the fact that we lived two blocks from a steel mill, which had heavy duty semis going up and down the streets twenty-four hours a day. We rode our sleds down hills where the streets were under construction from dirt to pavement. I think that that might be the when and where that my feelings toward snow may have changed.

I was about nine or ten years old and just one block away from our house was a street that went downhill for three whole blocks until it hit the railroad tracks. There was a lot of work going on along the way downhill. Huge storm drain pipes were being installed and they sat along the side of the street waiting to be buried come spring.

To get a really good rate of speed downhill you would get a running start, then throw yourself down onto the sled and hold on. Steering was accomplished mostly by dragging one foot or the other into the ice. On the day in question, when my love for snow disappeared, I was just flying down that hill!

From what I was told by the other kids, I have no direct personal memory, I was going downhill at a good clip when another kid lost control and swerved right into my path. By reflex I dropped my left foot into the ice and made a sharp right turn right into a huge section of the storm drain pipe by the side of the street.

The next thing I actually recall is being carried by several kids back to our house and my mother screaming. It seems that my face was covered in blood and already swelling up to resemble an overripe cantaloupe.

After a quick preliminary inspection somebody drove us to the hospital emergency room. This was in an era before Paramedics came to you.

The immediate end result was three stitches under my left eye, a face so bloated that I ate soup through a straw for a week, and parental confiscation of my sled. They failed to appreciate my quick reaction time, avoiding a potential collision with another kid, and only saw my failure to choose the lesser of the two collision targets. There were few soups available that could be navigated successfully through a soda straw.

Yup. I think it was then that my love affair with winter and snow ended in an image seared into my brain of scar tissue and sucking up broth through a paper straw.

So, don’t blame me if I grumble and moan about winter. Blame that other kid who couldn’t keep his own sled under control.

Happy Half-Birthday To Me

MY MOTHER-IN-LAW JUST HAD HER 96th BIRTHDAY a couple of weeks ago. 96! Me? I’m just happy I made it through the weekend. I’m a “One Day at a Time” kind of guy. When I was a little kid, fresh out of the oven, there was speculation that I wouldn’t survive to adulthood. There are days when I still think they might be right.

 

Cleared For Takeoff

WE ARE FAST CLOSING IN ON CHRISTMAS and shortly we will be winging our way down to Texas. Airports in December – Such fun.

Experience has taught us that the best day to fly during the Holiday Season is on Christmas Day. The airports are not nearly as crowded. You can get a seat in any airport restaurant without waiting or having ten thousand other travelers (and their carry-on baggage) crammed in next to you. On the plane things are not as crowded either. We can stretch out a bit and the Flight Crew is generally in a better mood.

Weather Or Not

THE COLDER WEATHER THAT COMES THIS TIME OF YEAR HAS ITS CONSEQUENCES. It can be hard on the driveway as the cycles of freezing and thawing temperatures turn those little hairline cracks into gaps that could house a family of raccoons.

The cold can also make it hard to get comfortable sitting in the car. Thank goodness that problem is easily solved if I remember to use the Remote Starter feature to get the car all toasty warm.