firesmithsghost

Taking the Santa Hat into the YMCA is just asking for some sort of reaction. For that matter, taking it anywhere is asking for some sort of reaction, and I promised myself I would not be mean to Christmas folk who tried to bond with me. I forget I’m wearing it, honestly, because it is a warm hat. It’s a one dollar bargain basement type thing, likely made of Chinese children or at least by them, but it is uncommonly warm.
You would think children, or people with children would be the only people who really stop and make it a point to speak to me, but it’s everyone. Not as in everyone I meet but I mean there doesn’t seem to be a demographic that seeks me out more than any other, and there doesn’t seem to be one who isn’t affected. This fact, more than anything else, I find very odd.
The downside of all this is working out is nearly impossible. People want to talk to me. It’s not like I’m a stranger there, so most people know me by sight, but now I have people walking up to the treadmill and telling me they like the hat. I nod, say thanks, but at least two people want to talk Christmas with me. Remember the part about being nice to the Christmas folk? I feel like if you’re going to walk around with a Santa Hat on, you have to play the part out. But it gets worse. The Rule Of All Men dictates that in a locker room, the last man into the locker room takes a locker as far away as he can from the guy that was there first. With the Santa Hat, even men like to be around me. Naked men. This is not going to end well.
The woman putting the Christmas tree up in the lobby of the Y is a very nice young woman and she wants to tell me all about the tree. In fact, my opinion suddenly means something. Very earnestly she asks me if I think the decorations are done well, and honestly I’ve never paid any attention to Christmas decorations. She has these tiny strands of beads looped here and there and it’s pretty. It is. It’s a very pretty tree, except for the fact that it’s dead. I almost say this aloud but bite it back. The ornaments aren’t those cheap plastic things but real glass, and it’s obvious she’s spent some time on this. I look at her, and truly, she wants my opinion on a Christmas tree, and it means something to her. It is beautiful, I tell her, just like you. The Santa Hat has given its blessing. The young woman beams.
Just walking into Publix I have this odd feeling everyone has been waiting for me to arrive. “Hey Santa! Hi Santa! Santa!” The hat is magic, I tell you. You think I’m exaggerating, don’t you? You think I’m stretching this thing out a bit, but I’m telling you, people are surreal this year. This is the third year I’ve worn the Santa Hat, and this year, by far, is the strongest reaction from people. An elderly woman creeps up on my blindside and puts a hand on by shoulder, and tells me “Merry Christmas!” Nothing, there is nothing on earth that creeps me out more than for a stranger to come up on me like that. Human beings are the most dangerous animals on earth and to have one slip into knife range like that just makes my skin crawl. But she never even notices it. To this woman, I am a part of the festive holiday spirit, and she wants to thank me for it.
It’s like I’m a blonde with implants.

So can all this come from wearing a red hat trimmed with fake fur? It’s something to think about. I wonder if I expect people to treat me differently, and so they do. I wonder if once I make up my mind not to growl at people who come too close, if they don’t somehow pick up on this. Maybe it’s the economy. Maybe people are just so damn tired of being beaten down by how bad it’s been that anyone, anyone at all, who dares to be happy, or appears to be so, is infectious. Maybe I’m different when I wear the hat, or maybe they’re different when I wear the hat, or maybe people are just like this at Christmas and I never noticed.

To be very honest I am enjoying all this.

Take Care,
Mike

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How many of you out there DO NOT use any of the following

For those new to my life, please allow me to introduce a woman who has a profound effect on my sleeping habits; Bonnie Parker. You may know her better as the Bonnie half of Bonnie and Clyde. A couple of years ago I started having very vivid dreams about Bonnie and I have some rather unusual conversations, and since then she pops in and out of my dreamscapes at very irregular intervals. Oh, and she’s armed. Bonnie carries a Browning Automatic Rifle around with her like most women people carry a purse, except most purses don’t have armor piercing bullets or a twenty round clip. I get oohs and ahhs about there being some remote possibility that Bonnie is actually a ghost, but there are a few problems here, some of them more realistic than others.

Ghost people tell me ghosts haunt either people or places, mostly people in places. The idea the ghost of a dead red headed woman who never set foot in Georgia is now haunting a man she never met, who is a member of a family she never had any dealings with, goes against everything all the ghost people tell me is true about ghosts. Oh, and I do not believe in ghosts. This doesn’t help very much when Bonnie shows up.
“You and your damn strays, “ Bonnie said softly. She likes Sam. Bonnie loves Sam. She sat on the bed with Sam’s head in her lay, and she was stroking his ears, but she was looking at Lucas, who she has never seen before, “it’s a wonder you don’t have a house full of ‘em.”
“Three is plenty.” And very nearly I added, “When it comes right down too it one is sometimes too much.” But I didn’t because quite honestly I like Bonnie but she scares the hell out of me. There isn’t a reason to be rude to her, and she armed. The BAR sat leaning against the end of the bed this time. Bonnie was singing a lullaby but I can never pick out the words. She’s a tiny woman, not five feet tall, and not a hundred pounds on her. She’s smaller than my niece, who is seventeen.
“This one,” Bonnie nods her head at Sam, “would be enough, but he would get out of sorts without another to play with.” She cooed at Sam who rubbed his head against her side. “You do good by him, you know, Mike.”
“Thank you.” She doesn’t use my name very often. But I’ve known real people like that. It’s usually at this point I have people tell me, “I would have asked her what it was like on the other side!” Or “Why don’t you reach over and try to grab the gun?” Let me explain it to you one more time; She’s dead. She’s armed. If you think the sight of a dead woman who is proficient in the use of automatic weapons sitting on your bed won’t cause you to freeze up a bit, my suggestion to you is to try it. Go find yourself a ghost and ask her all the damn questions you want.

See how easily I slip into believing Bonnie is real? She looks real. I can feel her shifting her weight on the end of the bed. I can smell her. I know her voice. There’s this weird thing she does when she walks, sometimes, when she’s feeling good, and likes being around me, she will take a step with her left foot, turn a little to the right, then step with her right foot, like she’s thinking about dancing. Or sex.
“It’s not like you think it is.” Bonnie tells me, and she steps left, turns, steps right, and then does it again, leaving her rifle at the foot of the bed and walking to the window. Sam follows her with his eyes, while Bert and Lucas never twitch. She’s wearing a simple dress, that’s white, but with an orange-brown band around the waist, and another down at the foot of the dress, and a smaller one around the neck and front of the dress.
“That dress looks good on you.” I hate this. I hate thinking she’s real. I’m sitting up in bed, and I can feel the weight of the dogs on the bed, I can see the moonlight coming through the window, and I can hear her light footsteps on the floor, I know she’s barefooted, and I hate none of it is real, and at some level I know, I know this isn’t happening, I mean, I have to know, right?
“Yeah?” Bonnie drawls at me. And she started unhooking the dress from the back, facing towards me. She makes a show at it, undressing slowly, and I can see just a sliver of her face in the moonlight, and there has never been a more real women in my life.
I find myself standing in the living room, in the exact same place I was standing the last time she was here, and no closer to understand what she means.

Take Care,
Mike

People who know me freak out whenever I walk into a room and I’m wearing my Santa Hat. Me? A Santa Hat? People who know me stare. The rest of the world just assumes I’m one of those people who really like Christmas and they treat me as if I’m one of their own. I’m not. I hate Christmas. I hate each and very day of it, each and every cheap plastic Mal Wart ornament, and I hate Christmas music with a passion. So, Mike, what’s with the Santa Hat?
The people who know me stay the hell out of my way when it comes to Christmas. They do not want to hear my rants about landfill space, and bankruptcy, and this time of year being all about spending money to support the retail economy which is parasitic in nature. But I do realize there are a lot of people who get a big kick out of this time of season, and being around me at Christmas is like being around a diehard member of the AA at a kegger.

Honestly, the Santa Hat is warm on my head. I kinda forgot I had it on when I went out today after the storm, and the second I pulled into the parking lot of the Awfful House I remembered. They’ve taken white shoe polish and done all their windows up in good Christmas cheer but it looks like a five year old with a twitch did the artwork. Speaking of five year olds, as I walk in two kids scream with glee. See, this is what I’m talking about here. Eleven months out of the year I’m pretty much invisible to anyone too young to remember eight track tapes. Now, because I’m wearing this hat, I’m part of the thing that’s going on. I swear it’s weird as hell.
People are much nicer to me. The waitress smiles and brings me water without me having to ask for it. I want hashbrowns. I have to put up with some breakfast special to get them, or pay twice what they’re worth to get them, so at five in the afternoon, I have breakfast. Bacon, oh yeah, none of this stuff is good for me, but I want bacon, too. Screw it.
The cook is a woman past her prime who might have been fun at one point in her life. She has homemade tattoos on her arm, and they looked nearly as old as she is. I can see her as some bright eyed young woman going off the deep end by getting a cool tattoo from her best friend and not thinking for a second she would find up in some minimum wage job when she was sixty years old. I think it’s supposed to be a parrot, but it might be a dog. I try not to stare.
The rules of any eating establishment where there are stools is you never take a seat next to someone when there are empty seats further away. The Santa Hat changes that. A young woman sits beside me and grins at me. Really? “I like your hat.” She gushes at me. Ring on left hand, brakes, cue needle across record sound, now.
Before the married young woman can say or do anything else a thirteen year old male sits beside me on the other side, and starts talking. He’s accompanied by a much older man, a young woman toting a small child, and a young girl I suspect is his sister. The teen never stops talking the entire time he’s in the building. It’s like he’s on meth. The older guy has totaled the cook’s car. No one was hurt, but the car is a wreck. The kid throws in details the older guy leaves out, and while this is going on, the cook never misses a beat. I can tell she’s upset, but she has a job to do. The older guy might be her husband, the young women their daughter, and the nonstop commentator and the rest of the young’uns her grandchildren. This is a woman truly pissed, but she never stops cooking.
It’s some sort of odd tradition, this. After the cook plates my food, and the waitress brings it to me, the family starts their ordering, but it’s off the books. Back when I managed a restaurant, I always looked the other way if good help fed their folks. The waitress hands out a free order of fries to her daughter and tells her to go home and study. The teen looks over at my plate and says, ‘Why are you missing your bacon up with your grits? That looks gross!” The cook is appalled, but that is also part of the Santa Hat. Kids assume you’ll speak to them because of the hat. Without hearing his grandmother, or worrying about the bacon, he starts telling me about the wreck. I never look his way, never answer any of his questions, never acknowledge I even hear him, but he goes through the details, skipping back and forth as he remembers something, and he gets louder and louder in excitement.
“Sorry about that” the cook apologies after they all leave.
“No harm, no foul” I reply.
“The deductable is gonna eat up my Christmas money” she sighs.
“I’ll split my tips with you” the waitress offers and they both laugh hard at that one. Business, tipwise, sucks.
I leave a five for them to split, and wish I had more to leave. “SANTA!” a little girl yells at me as I get into my truck. So this is what Christmas feels like for everyone else. Everyone is happy as hell about it being Christmas even though things are still going to hell on them. It’s denial, but so is drinking beer. So is sitting in front of the computer writing just for the hell of it, but it does make me happy. The Santa Hat changes how people treat me, and it would be rude as hell for me to wear this damn thing and then not smile when they speak to me.
This is just so damn weird.

Take Care,
Mike

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34225823/ns/health-womens_health/

You got it in there you get it out.


For inkbabies

God Bless the Experimental Writers
by Corey Mesler
for David Markson

"One beginning and one ending for a book was a
thing I did not agree with."

Flann O'Brien from At Swim-Two-Birds

God bless the experimental writers.
The ones whose work is a little
difficult, built of tinkertoys
and dada, or portmanteau and
Reich. God help them as they
type away, knowing their readers
are few, only those who love to toil
over an intricate boil of language,
who think books are secret codes.
These writers will never see their names
in Publisher's Weekly. They will
never be on the talk shows. Yet,
every day they disappear into their
rooms atop their mother's houses,
or their guest houses behind some
lawyer's estate. Every day they
tack improbable word onto im-
probable word, out of love, children,
out of a desire to emend the world.
"God Bless the Experimental Writers" by Corey Mesler, from Some Identity Problems. © Foothills Publishing, 2008. Reprinted without permission.

This late in the year there usually aren’t a lot of serious storms. The heavy stuff, the heat induced paroxysm that violently whips the earth and sky with lightning and wind and rain, well, that’s for the Summer, and maybe late spring. Something forgot to tell the Gulf all this, so she sent us a late season storm, and she didn’t leave very much for the imagination. The radar showed a thick green glob of stuff with orange and red markings, as if there were some new species of monster about to give the denizens of The South a taxonomy lesson.
The forecast called for somewhere between three and six inches of rain, with some spots getting more than that even, and there was the forecast for forty mile an hour winds, with gusts topping out past that, so I decided to stay home with the mutts today. There isn’t anything worse than an office full of bored people. Bored people have a tendency to socialize with other bored people for no other reason than they are bored. This is boring. Okay, stay home and hope the power stays on, too.
The rain was falling, ever so lightly last night, when the dogs decided to go deer hunting. It never really quit, and never got much heavier either. At four it rained hard enough to wake me up, and I lay there and was lulled by the sound. At five twenty there was a break in the action so I got up and let the dogs out. I had the coffee set up so all I had to do was hit the switch, and that done, I pulled on my rubber boots to walk with the dogs. It’s raining, and because it’s raining, both Bert and Sam will not urinate. They’ll try to wait it out, but if that storm is heading this way, the longer they wait the wetter they’ll get when they go. If I walk out into the yard, they’ll follow, and nature will take Her course. The full moon is still casting enough light to keep it from being pitch black, but I can feel the storm.
I eat breakfast early because I might not get another chance to cook today. The radar shows the heavy stuff hours away, but I want to be fed when it hits. Coffee is good, the dishes get washed, the radar gets set, and we wait for the storm. The dogs get walked a couple of times each hour it is clear enough to walk them. Lucas needs to burn off some energy, and the Elder Mutts need to get out and pee. The light stuff is all we’re getting before noon, and it is beginning to look like west Georgia might be getting hammered. Each hour that passes shows the ugly yellow and red radar images passing just to the west and north of Hickory Head.
At noon I cook lunch and weird things begin to happen. It turns muggy outside. The temperature rises a few degrees, and the radar shows the most red and yellow band to date zeroing in on my house. This will be interesting. I walk the mutts one more time and we can hear the thunder moving in. I shut down the computer and everything else, and we all nap on the bed as the rain begins to hammer down.
For an hour, maybe longer, we get a hard steady wind driven rain, and some fireworks to go with it. Sam is terrified of the weather and it makes Lucas uneasy. Bert sleeps through it, and that clams Lucas, somewhat. I drift in and out of sleep, with Sam lying nearly on top of me, Bert at the foot of the bed for once, and Lucas unable to sit still in any place for long.
The rain pounds down, and Sam whines softly. There is thunder, but it’s a distant rumble. There are flashes of lightning, but nothing that would do more than keep me indoors, but there is rain, rain, rain. I doze, half awake, half asleep, and everything is a dream, and nothing is. The rain is pounding down hard, and suddenly it relents just a bit, and that pulls me awake. The storm, which had been forecast to be deadly and terrible, is slowing down. The wind drives the rain for a few moments then the static of slow falling rain begins as the cacophony of roof top rains diminishes. Sam snores, and that more than anything else tells me the danger, if there were ever any, is past. Lucas finally settles down and sleeps. Bert hasn’t budged. He assumes I’ll let him know if the weather is bad enough to be worried.
Six inches of rain fell, but it started late and ended late, too. There was two maybe three hours of the hard stuff, but no fireworks, and not much wind. I stayed home from work to make sure the dogs where okay, and they were, but you never know. The ground has been swept clean by the rain, the leaves in the trees are much fewer, and the whole of the earth seems a little less cluttered after the storm, at least here in the woods. My rook leaked some, and that sucks, but the overall picture is it wasn’t as bad as it was told, it wasn’t as bad as it might have been, and I took a nap with the mutts on the bed during the worst of it.

Take Care,
Mike

While no means a man of means, I pay all my bills on time. This hasn’t stopped me from having all sorts of fun and games with bill collectors, and in my time I’ve had a few who were truly relentless. Now, once again, let me repeat something; I pay all my bills on time. Always.
My first bill collector called me back in 1997, when I bought my first house. Apparently, I sound a lot like a woman named LaCrecia Nicholls. Yes, someone called my landline and asked me if I was LaCrecia Nicholls. When I protested I was not, the person acted as if I might be hiding this LaCrecia Nicholls under my sofa. I assured the person a quick check in the newest addition of the phone book would reveal who actually owned the number. This worked with the first person who called, the second, and eventually, most of them. The down side to this is one night a very drunk man called for LaCrecia Nicholls and in my anger I said something fairly regrettable as to why she could speak to him at the time. Hopefully, he didn’t run into her that night. I’m fairly certain he wasn’t a bill collector, but you never know.
When I moved to Hickory Head, nine years ago, I almost immediately started getting calls for Marjory Johnson. I’ve been getting calls for her ever since. I have no idea how many people I’ve told Marjory Johnson has never lived here, does not have this number, and I have had this number of X amount of years, but alas! It’s weird, but a guy called here and very slickly acted as if he were some old friend looking for Marjory, and I told him he would find no Marjory Johnson here. “Aha!” he pounced on that one, “Than how did you know I was looking for Marjory Johnson, eh? I never said her last name!”
Because you’ve been calling here for her for years now? Maybe that’s it? Huh, ya think?

I did have a bill collector call me about a phone bill they claim I didn’t pay. I had a check for the amount of the bill, which was received and cash by MCI the month I owned the bill, but they claimed that didn’t prove anything. They quit calling after a few months, and eventually someone accepted a copy of the check as proof.

Meanwhile, the Marjory Johnson saga rocked on. No matter who I called, or what I did, people kept calling for her, and wanting money. I would tell them all, look this number up, it isn’t her, go away, shoo shoo! But to no avail. I cannot imagine the amount of money they’ve spent trying to reach this woman at this number, but even if it only cost them ten or fifteen seconds of time it’s got to add up after a while, doesn’t it? I mean, they are paying someone to call, they’re paying that person to speak to me, or leave a message, doesn’t this all add up to whatever Marjory Johnson owes after a X amount of years?
A bill collection agency out of Texas has reached new lows, and in that they called me and asked me if I knew this woman who lives down the road from me. I do know her somewhat, and say I did, and the woman told me she was a bill collector and wanted me to contact my neighbor about the debt she owed.
New. Clee. Ur.

I’m not doing anyone’s dirty work for them. I’m not harassing my neighbors about anything. And I sure as hell am not going to get myself involved in anyone’s financial problems. Of course, I wasn’t nearly as calm when I told her this, but certainly the woman got the message. Then I went after her boss. I sent a full page, single spaced, letter of damnation to corporate headquarters and demanded they take me off this calling list, and demanded an apology from the woman who called me. I haven’t heard back from them.

Meanwhile, Marjory Johnson continued to get calls. I continued to tell people she didn’t live here, never had, and likely never would. The “Got’cha Guy” who thought he had trapped me into revealing she did live here got a nice letter in his inbox, also copied to his employer, in regard to harassment. His employer called me, we did a mutual online search of numbers which revealed my number is my number and no longer Marjory Johnson’s number. He said they would not call back and didn’t. One down…

Recently I’ve been getting a robo call and the message tells me to call Julie Lewis at 866 918 2469 regard an important business matter. I finally called them and the nice man there asked me if I was Marjory Johnson. Okay, it’s been nine years. Really, how much money can this woman owe? Who loaned her this money? Why? I explained who I was, and who I was not, and he seemed reasonable about it, but we’ll see. This particular collection agency has been calling me for about three months now, three or four times a week, and now they’ve logged on live phone call. They’ve got zero for their efforts. Can there really be any profit in doing this? Surely, Marjory Johnson, wherever she is, doesn’t feel obligated to pay someone some money. Have they ever thought about checking the number they call, or do they expect someone to say, “Gee, I’m tired of you. If I pay you will you go away?” Does it happen that way, ever?

So now I’m down to the last dozen or so people who think Marjory Johnson still has this number, if she ever did. Maybe they get paid by the call, regardless of whose number it is, and whoever pays them pays out a ton of money trying to collect from each and every person. I’m clueless, really. But I am not Marjory Johnson.

Take Care,
Mike

Bad weather is moving in tonight, so the full moon will not be on display as I had promised the mutts it would be. No worries on that account, they know, even if they cannot see it. The moon will be full again, on the last day of the month, which should prove to be very interesting.
I’m seeing that the full moon is both a natural reaction and to social conditioning. Lucas isn’t nearly as weird as the other two dogs but because they’re acting weird he’s picking up on it. Usually they want out two or three times between when I get in and when we go to bed, but tonight it’s be like a revolving door. Bert, of all people, is having some sort of odd fit to be let out, and because he isn’t normally that much trouble I let him out. Sam and Lucas follow, of course, and then we have doggie drama going down the steps, out into the yard, and holy hell what on earth is that?
Some critter hears the dogs being let out and runs through the woods. Sam is off as if he’s fired out of a cannon, Bert is a step behind him, and Lucas freezes, ears up, tail up, but left behind. Suddenly, as Sam closes in, and Bert begins to snarl, Lucas realizes he’s not in the middle of the action. He runs toward the woods, barking like god is on fire, and it dawns on me he’s telling the other two to wait up. It’s a deer. For reasons that escape me, a deer has gotten into the back yard, and this will end poorly. Deer usually do not move around when the wind is blowing, and this one might have been spooked by a falling limb, or maybe a coyote caught his scent. I know it’s a deer because Sam hasn’t caught it, whatever it is moves damn quickly, and I can hear it so it has some mass. Lucas accidently cuts off one line of retreat, but that was where Sam was herding it. Now the deer panic, hits the fence, almost gets caught by Sam, but finally manages to get over the fence where the dogs won’t follow. The come back to tell me about it and my heart stops. Bert has blood on his head. Oh holy mother off… I wipe the blood off and see Bert has a small cut over his right eye where he got hoofed.
Sam and Bert are not speaking to Lucas, and they are not speaking to me. Lucas is freaked. He’s bouncing off the walls trying to find the deer and I cannot keep him in the house. Bert isn’t bleeding bad, but he’s like a teenage boy who just got into fight. Did you see that? Did you see how scared he was of me? I scared him good, didn’t I?

Damn full moon.

In the middle of all this the rain is beginning to fall, but not really that hard. It’s a light rain, perfect for getting dogs and clothes wet and perfect for making me cold. I peel off the clothes, but them in the washer, and take a hot shower. The dogs mill around in the house, pawing at the bathroom door, and being pests. Lucas is convinced he was a hair away from getting the deer, and deer being abysmally stupid, it will return to the scene of the crime, so all he has to do is go back and find the deer in the same fenced in area the deer just barely escaped from. I explain to him deer is not so stupid, but it’s like talking to a teen age boy who just saw a naked woman in the woods. I mean, she was there before, right?
I realize all this happens before nine, and I realize I ought to be grateful it didn’t happen at midnight. Deer are dangerous, and Bert is lucky all he got was nicked. This isn’t to say the deer might have survived the attack, because it’s very likely between the two older dogs they’ve still got what it takes to take what a deer has. Still, a good sized deer is going to demand payment for his life, and someone will pony up some blood. My worst fear is the dogs will tear the deer up, but it will survive, and the deer will injure one or both of the older dogs, and they won’t. I’d hate like hell to kill a deer under those conditions, and it would be worse to put down a dog. Both parties, could we not do this, okay?

Lucas is discovering it’s for real here. Sam isn’t idly chasing because it was running, it’s running because a dog that is part Greyhound is coming through the woods at a speed which highly suggests there isn’t really any parlay to be had. Lucas also found out Sam left the back door open so the deer would cut back that way, and back into the open part of the woods. Oh please, get into the open with me knowing this place better than you. I’m not real sure if Bert got hit before or after Lucas got involved. I’m not 100% sure it was the deer, the fence could have got him, but it looks like a razor cut so I’m guessing deer.
All three want back out but I’m letting the adrenaline slow down a bit. Sam and Bert are panting like it’s a million degrees outside. It’s quite cool, actually, and that will help. Lucas is bouncing off the walls and the older dogs are snapping at him every other second. He ruined the hunt. I ought to slip him a treat when the other two aren’t looking. This could have gotten as nasty as it can get, and Lucas might have just saved me one hell of a vet bill.
If you don’t have a full moon tonight, feel free to borrow as much of mine as you need.

Take Care,
Mike

There is an order to all this, and I’m thankful for it. Bert has to sleep on the right side of the bed, near my head. Apparently this is some position of honor, and Sam will try to sneak into the spot if Bert isn’t quick enough. Sam has learned not to jump off the bed when I’m trying to get everyone situated, and he sometimes can grab the spot simply because I’m too tired to deal with puppy politics. If Sam gets the Honor Spot then Bert will walk around to where my head is and stare. The room can be totally dark, but I know he’s staring. Then he’ll walk around the bed and stare at Sam. The he’ll walk back over to where my head is and stare. Okay, I admit it. I’ve moved Sam to the foot of the bed so Bert could sleep in the Honor Spot. The Puppy Lucas sleeps at my side on the left side of the bed, and neither of the older dogs will have anything at all to do with the left side of the bed, ever.
There’s a no scratching and no licking rule that goes into effect as soon as a dog gets on the bed. All evening absolutions must be done on the floor. Once on the bed there is no changing of positioning allowed. No barking, no growling, no getting up in the middle of the night, and when the train leaves the station you’re on it until it stops, I don’t want to hear it. You get off the bed you stay off the bed. This is how it works.
Sam would sleep in if it was just Sam. He’s totally content to lie there and nap. However, Sam is a Happy Hound, and when he does wake up, his tail thumps. Thump, thump, thump, Sam is awake and he’s happy. Sam is happy each and every time he wakes up and he’s here. Sam is flawed, horribly damaged, and he’ll never be whole, but Sam is grateful for each and every morning he opens his eyes and he’s home.
Bert stares. I have no idea why it works or how it works, but I can wake up and feel it. I can see the silhouette of his ears perked up over his head, and I know he’s staring at me. It’s time to get up. Why aren’t we up? Why haven’t you turned on the light? Are you dead? Do you need mouth to mouth? Bert will edge closer to me and wait. If I pet him he comes closer and if I don’t he’ll stare. Once he’s close enough he’ll start licking my face until I get up or roll over. If I roll over that’s Sam’s cue I’m getting up and he’ll come over to be petted. Lucas sits all of this out until the pettings start and then he has to walk on top of me to get to the pettings.

None of this kicks in until the temperature in the room dips below fifty degrees. Anything less than that and everyone is perfectly happy on the floor. Sam won’t get up on the bed until Bert does, but once Bert breaks the seasonal barrier it’s on. Bert doesn’t like to get on the bed when the lights are on; he likes for me to turn the lights off before he jumps up on the bed for some reason or another. I’m not allowed to rearrange Bert once he’s on the bed. If I try to push him around he’ll growl at me with this high pitched leave me the hell alone growl. I truly think he’s afraid of heights. I can tell him to get down, and he’ll get down, and then before he gets back up I can talk him into landing where I want him to land, but once he’s there, he’s there.
Bert’s a Dropper and a Winder. He has to walking around in a circle two and a half times before he can lie down, and he cannot just lie down. He drops likes he’s been shot. He lands on the bed like a seventy pound dog dead of a heart attack. If he lands on a leg or an arm, it hurts like hell. I’ve learned to yelp loud when any of the dogs step on me. That teaches them what they’re doing hurts, so they’re careful not to step on me. Sam is a Glider. Sam can get on the bed in the middle of the night and I never know it. This usually happens when there is some light thunder, or something scares him. I’ll wake up in the morning to find Sam sleeping at my feet. He’ll look at me then look around as if he, too, is puzzled as to how he got there. Lucas is not a Winder but he is a Dropper. He’s getting some mass to him and when he drops he usually likes to land on me. Lucas craves body heat. He’s a great dog to lie on the sofa and watch television with, on a cold day. Sam stares at us when Lucas and I watch television together because dogs are not allowed on the sofa. He makes me feel like I’m committing adultery.
Bert’s sleep is deep and even. He rarely dreams, almost never snores, and I have to listen hard to hear him, even when he’s right next to me. I can tell when he’s sleeping, and when he’s staring, and I can tell when he’s just lying there resting. Sam snores. Sam has dreams. Sam’s sleep is more restful when he’s on the bed than when he isn’t, but Sam sleeps like there is something going on in there. I can tell where Sam is instantly. Lucas is still a puppy, but he’s showing signs of being a bit of a dreamer, like Sam, but without the drama. At night, before I go to sleep, the last thing I hear is the sound of three dogs breathing deep of sleep, and at least for one more night, all is right in the world.

Take Care,
Mike

Such as it will be.

Did someone from the flist email any of my dogs and change these rules?

Photos behind cut.( Read more... )

I was cold Thursday afternoon. Not the kind of it’s fifty below zero without the wind chill and I have to go chop ice so the cows can drink water right before as they turn into beeficles, no, I was just cold as in a fire would be very nice kind of cold. My fire earlier in the week had scared away the demons that cover the sky with dark grey clouds, so I loaded up the firepit again, and started another fire.
The Oak in front is shedding limbs so they all went in there, and there’s always a sizable limb down somewhere that would make a great addition. There’s always a lot of little stuff just lying around, so Thursday, after a great feast and much socialization, I sat down in the woods with a beer and a fire, and three mutts as background music. It was too cold to spend the night out there, and far too wet to worry about the fire escaping, so I left the fire burning and retired. Friday morning the fire was still smoldering so I decided to keep it going. I raked up some of the detritus from the yard, fed the fire again, and got it going. Just for the hell of it, and just to see how long it would take, I rolled a fairly large sixed log into the fire. This was a log from the Oak that fell a few years ago, and not very good firewood at all, but it would burn, and burn it did. I spent most of Friday hiding out from the shoppers. I knew it would be bad and there was no reason for me to risk my life by going out in public. I kept the fire burning all day Friday, and more or less forgot about it Friday night. The air was cool and the ground very wet. The fire would die out. But Saturday morning it was still smoking, so I decided to roll a couple of more of the giant pieces of the old Oak down to the pit and see what would happen. One of them was a very massive piece of wood I would not have tried to move by myself, except I was finishing off the six- pack I had damaged Thursday. This piece of wood has been invaded by fireants, and unless you’ve been bitten by these demons a few million times like all of us Southerners, you have no idea how good it felt to push a log full of them into a fire.
The fireant log burned for a while, as I knew it would. It was the massive stump piece, broken at one end where the tree had snapped at the bottom. It its prime it held up an Oak that reached sixty feet up into the sky. It just fell one day, with no warning, and landed on the house. It wasn’t rotten, the wind wasn’t blowing, and when I got home the tree was there, as if it wanted to come in with the mutts. Since then I’ve been letting it return to the earth slowly, but it’s full of fireants, and I need fuel for the fire. The firepit is downhill from where the log was lying, so rolling it into the fire wasn’t a problem. It had to burn for a few hours before it was reduced enough for me to move it around, and I kept smaller stuff stacked around it in the meanwhile. The firepit has been invaded by fireants, by the way, as all firepits are. I have no idea why they like such sites, but they always do. I kept a flat shovel handy and scooped up burning ash to keep them occupied.
The fireant log finally burned into two pieces, the broken end looked like the transmission from a 1967 Chevy Impala, and the other end kind looked like a giant ham. The ants lived in the transmission end, and as it burned the ants leap out of the broken end in streams. The ham end was so massive I didn’t think it would burn down, and I spent a lot of time Saturday moving things around so this morning it would all be gone.
This morning there were two small pieces left of everything. I sprayed it all down with the hose, and began scooping up the ashes for the mulch pile. There was nearly a wheelbarrow full, and I had to spray it down all again to turn it into a sort of loose mud. I spread it out evenly over the mulch pile, and them hosed it down again. The massive oak that once was is no more, but it will return to the earth, and new life will begin again. I plant to replant some of the saplings in the woods into the yard, and I’ll mixed the mulch pile debris with lime, and the new trees will grow from what is left of the old trees. I will be long gone before any of the trees I plant get as big as those I lost, but maybe one day someone will come along, and repeat this process, and love the Oaks as I do.

Take Care,
Mike

The Great Haywagon Caper has a history, as does all great criminal activity, or at least serious mischief. This started a while back, maybe two or three years ago, but in reality it all started when I met Elbow in the Unitarian Church in 2002. Neither Elbow nor myself were very good at being a Unitarian, even though she is very rarely punctual, and Unitarians as a group never do anything at all in haste. If you’ve never heard of the Unitarians then just image the religious world as a great big piece of cookie dough. The Catholics came along and they cut out their cookies in the dough, the Jews came along and cut their cookies out of the dough, the Baptist and the Buddhists, and everyone else came along and cut their cookies out of the dough, and when everyone else was done, that dough that was left over, that kind had a shape of just about every religion ever known to mankind, well, that was the Unitarians. I’m not a real big fan of the religious, and the Unitarians are least damaging religion I’ve found to date. It didn’t work out and we stopped dating, but I remember them fondly.

It was surprising to meet someone who lived just a couple of miles from me, and Elbow and I quickly became very good friends. She has a small plantation that dates back to the 1800’s, and it’s been in her family forever. A relative left it to her, and one of the many wonderful things Elbow inherited was the hired help that ran the place. We’ll call one of the HH because that stands for Hired Hand. He’s older than I am by more than a few years, and he’s spent most of his time coming out on the wrong end of arguments with the local legal authorities. Mostly, these have been alcohol related incidences, so HH has neither an automobile, nor the license to drive such. Elbow has to go into town to pick him up, and hten return him to his home once the work is done. Thursday is usually the day Elbow has work down around the place, so I’ve learned not to bother her on those days. HH is good help. He mows, he keeps the paths clear, he does all manner of work, and he is a truly nice guy. The horses love him, the dogs love him, and I like the man. He and alcohol are best of friends, however, and most of his friends are a drinking support group.

Anyway, a few years ago I was driving into town, Elbow was gone out of town for some reason or another, and she had left HH in her house to take care of things. She had done this before and it had worked out very well. The animals have someone to look after them, and HH has a very nice place to hang out and drink. But this day, there poking down the middle of US 221, was Elbow’s tractor. There was HH standing up while driving, weaving, waving people around him, and having the very best of times. Taking a tractor on a beer run is not uncommon in South Georgia, trust me on this, but that doesn’t make it any safer. I told Elbow what I had seen and she was more than a little skeptical. However, on her next trip out, as she was telling HH what was to be done while she was gone, before she could say it he said, “And no more trips into town on the tractor” Just so.

Flash forward to Thanksgiving Day, 2009. As I was heading back to the house there poking down the middle of US 221 was what looked very much like Elbow’s tractor. It was pulling a Haywagon pull of people. This was as bad as it was going to get. I went up to Hickory Head, turned down on Baden, and checked to see if there were tractor tracks coming out of Elbow’s place. There were. I doubled back and went back to 221 but there was no tractor and no Haywagon. Whoever it was had turned off on Roberts Road. The very last thing I wanted was to confront HH while he had been drinking, and even less so if he had some buddies with him, so I called Elbow and left it at that.

Today I went over at her request, and HH was mowing grass. He barely looked at me, but he did wave. The Haywagon was parked in the barn. Busted, I’m thinking. Elbow will be back in town tomorrow night.

I’ll keep you updated.

Take Care,

Mike

I live two hours from everyone. My younger sister and father live two hours west of here, my mother and her husband live two hours north of here, and my older sister and her family live two hours northwest of here. We, and my we I mean everyone else in the family, have decided to do Thanksgiving sensibly this year and have one meal in one place; my older sister’s house. We have three, four, oh screw it let’s just have Christmas at everyone’s house this year, yes, we have done that. That’s another rant for another holiday.

Classical music is something I can drive forever on, if it’s good, and this is a boxed set that is good. I dial up sixty-five miles and hour and the road is empty early. It’s eighty miles, and that usually doesn’t translate into two hours but a lot of it is back woods two lane roads, and some of it is in Albany Georgia. Albany is also another rant for another day. I don’t like the town.

My niece has been offered, and she has accepted, a scholarship to Mercer. We are thrilled, but she’s a little taken aback by all the positive attention. I think she see this as something she was going to get, because she worked so hard for it, why wouldn’t she get it? It was mine all along dammit, don’t act so surprised, people! I told her the people at work were happy for her, and she seemed a little confused as to why I would tell the whole world I have a niece who has a scholarship to go to Mercer. Because I have a niece who is going to Mercer, that’s why!

My nephew is still a self centered jerk, but he’s less a self centered jerk than usual. He eats meals with other people now, which is a step up from my older sister slipping his food under his bedroom door, no, that never really happened but it might as well have. The kid has serious issues dealing with people. I can relate. But hiding in his bedroom from family and anyone but his sister and his mother is big trouble, coming up fast.

Both my mother and her husband have gained far too much weight to be healthy and it worries me a lot. Neither look good and neither are very young anymore. My step father has hip issues, and cannot get around like he once could, and I think mom has slowed down because he has. This is worrisome.

My younger sister still sounds like a hick. Not just a hick, but a hick, hick. It’s hard to believe she is a college educated individual who came close to a 4.0 GPA. My father brought over a ton of old VHS tapes of us during the holidays and my sister sounded even worse on tape. The tapes were, ultimately, a bad idea. But my father has been doing that more and more each holiday, dragging us all into one room and cranking up the past, and we’re watching with morbid fascination at some old slow train wrecks.One day we'll watch tapes of the holidays were we all sat and watched tapes of the holidays where we sat ans watched tapes.

There’s a Christmas tape with me with my ex. That made me squirm a bit. I haven’t seen the woman in over seven years, and she mostly exists as some sort of literary device, a sort of work of fiction that was part of my life. I’m not putting her down, or anything like that, but I’ve gotten a lot of writing mileage out of that seventeen dog years I was married. To see a tape of the two of us together was surreal. There was also footage of my younger sister and her ex the next year. She looked at me. I looked at her. The tapes must die.

My older sister is a lost woman. My niece is leaving home, the first to fly the coop, and it’s like watching one person being led to the gallows while another is set free. My niece is ready to go, straining at the leash, and my sister is freaked over the idea her little girl is going to be gone come September of 2010. That’s almost a year away, but every holiday or event brings that day closer.

I really like my brother in law. He’s a very stable, down to earth, and likable person. He’s the type of guy you could call at four in the morning to come get you out of the mud, and apologize for not getting there sooner, get you out, and offer to pay for breakfast. He’s been married to my sister now for almost eighteen years, and I tell you, I couldn’t have lived with her that long.

My brother in law’s parents were there, and they are from a very strict Southern Baptist family, which caused no end of conflict with my sister when she, and the kids, converted to Catholicism. The “Saying of the blessing” thing is not something I’ve ever really gotten into, but it’s a big deal to my sister, her husband, and his family, and it is one of the sticking points. Apparently, I misunderstand the whole thing. The Cath’s have their own way of doing it, which is fine, and the Baptists have their own way of doing it, which is fine, but is either wrong, or more right than the other? Anyway, my brother in law’s father did the honors and after the first hour or so my little sister and I started looking at one another like, “WTF?” Then we started making faces at each other, and had my mother or father looked up, which they would have never done for fear of damnation, they would have freaked. But the man finally wrapped things up after thanking the people in china who make paper plates, and the beavers for cutting down the trees the table were made of, and we fell to feasting. The food was great. Everyone ate too much and afterwards everyone just sort of hung suspended for about an hour or so. My brother in law’s parents had to leave first, and then my mother, and finally I left, too.

I’m stuffed, still, and I’m wondering now if everyone liked me being there as much as I liked being there.

Take Care,

Mike

There was a guy in a silver Buick today who was sitting there talking to some chick who was directly in front of me at a traffic light. The light turned green, they sat there, I tapped my horn to let them know the world had stopped revolving around them, the chick pulled off, I pulled off behind her, and her conversational companion then pulled in behind her, leaving the turn lane, and cutting me off. I see stupid people driving each and every day of my life at work, so this isn’t surprising or shocking, dangerous that it may be. Yet he isn’t done, oh my no. I pull into the far right lane to get away from him, but he slows down and flips me off. No problem. But he matches my speed trying to get me to stop. I pull out my cell phone and call 911 to report him. I more or less I have to do it. I’m in my work truck, and it’s got this big ass identification number on it. If I report him before he can report me, then if he does report me, it will seem like he’s trying to do some preemptive ass covering. At the next light he’s one land over, and two car ahead of me. He keep looking back at me, keeps flipping me off, and I’m describing him to the 911 operator, who seems to be intensely interested in road rage. Apparently, road rage is something the law wants to keep at a minimum.
All of this happens about fifteen minutes before eight. I’m rattled. I do not like conflict with strange humans. Because I’m in my work truck I’m unarmed. Clearly, the other driver isn’t sane, or happy. I do not mind crazy people, and in fact, some of my most favorite people are nuts to the guts. None of them confront strangers on the road, unless you count screaming out bible verse to traffic.
The Smith and Wesson makes a compact .357 with a hidden hammer I could stash easily in a coat, and when it gets right down to it, there isn’t much else you’re going to need than a five shot hand cannon that sounds like Armageddon when it’s fired. The downside to getting into a firefight with a moron is he’s likely to be having the same experience. Firing a few rounds off in the middle of Moultrie Georgia is going to be remembered in court as seriously fucked up. The only upside is getting fired isn’t going to seem all that important considering the other factors focused on those who get into firefights over being cut off in traffic. A .357 does remarkable damage. It does this damage regardless as to whether you’ve tagged someone who started the fight, or if there’s some ten year old girl half a mile away saying good-bye to her mom for the last time.

Okay. No guns. Bad idea. Sorry I brought it up.

You have to wonder why anyone would open up with a firearm but that’s happened in the last week in Valdosta, not twenty-five miles from here, when a dispute over nothing at all led to someone firing into a crowd. The indefinite combination of firearms, alcohol, young men and stupidity will lead to people being killed. Hint: It is neither the guns nor the beer.

When for the second time in less than an hour, someone changed lanes on top of me, and then became hostile because I blew the horn at them for doing it, I began to wonder if maybe this just wasn’t my day. This was a SUV with a Clayton County tag, and trust me, conflict with someone from Clayton County Georgia isn’t going to result with some sort of intellectual recourse. We really have neither time nor space to discuss the Clayton County Educational system, but perhaps another day?
But then again, we are talking about education here, aren’t we? The more educated someone is in regard to what guns can do, the less likely they are to start shooting over some stupid shit. But then again, you have to get them educated enough to realize stupid shit isn’t worth killing over, hence my problem with Clayton County Georgia. Clearly, if some self educated redneck has figured this out, what the fuck is wrong with the people in Clayton County?

In a word, plenty.

As I pointed out a few words ago, this isn’t about Clayton County Georgia. They were unfortunate enough to donate a moron driving a silver SUV who almost got me killed, but this by no means is has anything to do with most of this. The idea it’s okay to ignore traffic signs and common sense is pandemic, and not in the same sense our foolish government is calling a few thousand people getting sick, out of three hundred million, a pandemic. Shooting into a crowd of people and wounding a dozen while killing one is a pandemic. It’s a pandemic of stupidity. We don’t have a Center For Stupidity Control and Prevention, like we do for disease, and clearly, stupidity is a much more dangerous condition.
Eight years of George Bush as president gave us a sense of tolerance for stupidity. He meant well, sort of, and he was president during 911, and he had that one good speech. But by and large, Bush was a moron of the first order, and anytime he spoke in public his handlers did shots of tequila in the corner. He wound up shooting into a crowd, and even years after we’ve been rid of him, no one can figure out how to stop the bullets. No, this isn’t some peace-nik rant. We burned to death 100,000 men, women and children, on March 10, 1945, during a bombing raid on Tokyo. Nearly all Americans were happy to hear about it. They knew this is what it took to win a war. Now, if you heard about us killing that many people in Afghanistan would you be horrified? Maybe we’re not supposed to be at war there, huh?
Let’s tie this together shall we?

On a personal level we’ve lost our sense of prospective when it comes to conflict. We’ve become a Taliban of one, ready to shoot because someone did something in traffic we didn’t like. Perversely, we’ve invaded two countries, well one country and Afghanistan, for reasons that seem to escape nearly everyone who knows anything about war or foreign policy.
Doesn’t all of this seem, for the lack of a better word, stupid?

Take Care,
Mike