A Camera, a TV, and a Crowbar

     My Tuesday started off with a trip to the ENT where I had a little bitty camera on a stick stuffed up my nose so the doc could look down my throat. If I said it was a totally whack feeling to know something has been stuck in my head through an orifice that can barely accommodate finger, would you fault me for shuddering a bit once it was removed?  No worries I survived my moment of being creeped out. The doc laughed when I told I couldn't keep my eyes open while he was working that camera since it just felt too weird knowing what he was doing. He gave me some samples and a script and sent me on my way.

     Due to the efficiency of my ENTs office I was in and out of there so fast I still had some time to kill before work so I headed home to indulge in more coffee, peruse the net and I found myself a surprise. I stumbled across an article about a TV recall and thought ours was on that list. We have a 32" TV we bought about 2 years ago to replace the old monster of a set I'd had for about 15 years. The old set was still working when we brought the new one home so we stuck it in a corner of one of the bedrooms. Why we didn't just can it then I don't know. I guess we were guarding against the trend in televisions and other electronics made since the late 80's that are basically built to crap out, though they somehow manage to last just long enough to run out the warranty. Back in the day a television set was kind of a big deal purchase and if you found a good one you hung on to it until it blew up. When I bought the old set I didn't expect it to last as long as it did. I hated to move it. It was one of the picture tube models that had you reaching down to tuck your nuts in your socks after you had to pick it up and carry it somewhere. After biting the bullet to get satellite we decided to finally retire the beast and upgrade to something a tad bit newer. We bought it because the price was right and it definitely was an upgrade to the old set.

     So here I am just piddling around online when I come across a recall article that mentions 32" Coby TVs. Cue the blue air,apparently the sets in the recall have shown a propensity to catch fire. Lovely, I've had this fucking thing in my house for two years with no trouble but did I have a sleeping monster in my living room?  I grabbed my trusty penlight and tip-toed to the TV. Underneath the dust on the back I found both the serial number and model number on our set didn't match the ones mentioned in the recall. Yay for that. The thought of having to fiddle fart around with Fry's or stick a crowbar in my wallet to buy a replacement didn't exactly fill me with dread, though I surely wasn't skipping. The retailers who sold them are handling the recall replacements since company has gone out of business, big surprise there. One little sigh of relief here, though wisdom says keep our options open at this point. I guess I'll need to keep my crowbar handy.


Some other recalled stuff

I decided to include the list even though some of these have been around a while.

Light show

Last night we were treated to another Arizona light show in the sky. The lightning here is amazing to watch. My wife and I stood outside next to the car port for a while last night taking in its splendor. The wind was whipping at us from the east, which means it came straight down our little driveway next to the trailer. The temp had dropped after another hot as hell day and the cool breeze felt really refreshing. Standing there, hair whipping around our faces just drinking it in, the slight smell of rain in the air; then wham!... eyeful of dust. Then the rain started, not a real rainstorm, it was that smattering of moisture that covers your car with a rash of little brown dust spots type of rain. Standing quietly in what passes for dark in the city hearing sounds akin to someone throwing handfuls of pebbles on your roof we were blessed with sideways rain spotting our faces with little cooling kisses. I‘ve noticed that horizontal rain seems to happen out here in the West a lot more often than I remember from back East.

We stood there facing into the wind, arms around each other talking about how different lightning acts here in Arizona compared to our hometowns in New England. Watching the lightning run across the bottom of a cloud then split off into 2, 3 or 5 strikes heading toward the ground is like happening upon an impromptu fireworks display, "Whoa did you see that one! Wow that was so cool, it was huge!"  Faces turned to the sky we discussed the idea that there had to be a reason why the lightning here displays differently than it does back home. We decided that some science person could explain it but we really didn't care. We were there just to enjoy the show.

 

 

 

 

Find more great photos of the day

Football Indoors?

I scored tickets to an Arena Football League game recently so my wife and I hopped the Metro into the center of Phoenix to see the game. I had been to a few Rattlers games before and since you’re essentially in a hockey rink the feel of being closer to the action is an added bonus. We could tell the game was on TV due to all the timeouts, though that time was always filled with rock and roll blaring over the PA,  crazy contests involving the jumbo-tron or the cheerleaders throwing t-shirts into the stands. I noticed it wasn’t a full house like the previous Rattlers games I’ve been to, which I suspect had more to do with economics then the Rattlers popularity. The ticket prices have surely gone up, then again what hasn’t gone up in price? No doubt continuing national TV contracts have helped with visibility and furthering the league’s popularity.

I became an arena ball fan when I moved here the summer of ’94. The games were on one of the local stations so I had an opportunity to get my football fix during those blazing hot summer days with no football. The local team, the Arizona Rattlers won the championship my first year in Phoenix and I was hooked on the AFL.

I remember when tape delayed Arena League games started appearing on ESPN back in the late 80’s when they still needed to fill their 24 hour schedule and would televise almost anything that even resembled a sport.  Here we are over 25 years later and there is a 14 team league playing an 18 game schedule and there are games on TV almost every weekend. Prior to the league reorganizing in 2009, the player’s offseason was akin to the old days of the NFL before the huge salaries brought on by free agency.  After the season finished they would go back to whatever their 9 to 5 offseason job was until training camp rolled around again. Now many of the Arena League players don’t have to do that because teams have a year round payroll.  

Outside of tickets prices generally costing less than the four major pro leagues I think another aspect to the appeal comes from being so close to the action. Probably the biggest draw has to do with the game itself. It is very fast paced and scoring can get really high with all the passing going on; the AFL record for touchdown passes in a season is 142 for example. You’ll see familiar names from NFL rosters playing in the AFL; several players have made the jump to the NFL with Kurt Warner the most recognizable.

I never would have expected this odd idea of playing 8 man football indoors would catch on like it did or have the resiliency to remain relevant in the sports world for the last 25 years. This definitely is a game that is best experienced firsthand. Take a chance and go see a game if your area has a team, you won’t be disappointed.

 

http://www.arenafootball.com/       

 

Update: Our local team, the Arizona Rattlers won their 3^rd Arena Bowl in a row on Saturday 72-32. Three championships in a row in any team sport is not easy to do.  

 

On the Hood of a Pinto

I’ve been going through the collection of scribbles that I’ve clung to despite my many moves over the past several decades.  I didn’t realize how many unfinished stories I had in various and sundry states. A paragraph or two here, a couple pages there, some sentences that seem like they fit something else I found over there. The other thing that surprised me in my treasure hunting was the number of poems and songs I had on the most random bits of paper. Some of them had dates and/or locations where and when I wrote them. One such notation read,”First written on a half pint bag on the hood of a Pinto.”  Guess I was lucky I had a pencil that night.  Looking over the songs and poems their most common characteristic would be my trouble in deciphering my own scrawl.  It’s kind of bad when you can’t even read your own handwriting.  My wife makes fun of me when I have to sign anything because I close my eyes and just move the pen. I just don't like to watch when I sign my life away. I guess the time has come to clean my glasses and get all those little ditties into digital format so if anyone wants to read them they won’t have to ask me what this word is right here.

Simple

I saw the news about another of the “70s icons of my youth passing on yesterday. I loved The Rockford Files with James Garner and watched it in reruns when it was still showing up in syndication.  I think the celebrities from my youth whether TV, sports or music still have a special place in memory because they remind me of a time when life seemed simpler, when we both were young and vibrant. After some of the things I done and seen I’m glad to still be vibrating. Of course maybe because I didn’t know shit back then and the stuff that I thought was important really wasn’t all that important and that is what made life seem simpler. Simpler isn’t about easier it’s just about less moving parts to get in the way or lose sight of. Being happy is pretty simple. Just be happy. Not a lot of parts to that and it took some work to see it in those terms. Truth in essence is pretty plain and simple it’s either true or not. The boxes or limitations we try to put on the people, things and conditions around us are what create grey areas. You know what I’m talking about, those grey areas that are created when you over think something and it messes with your harmony. Sometimes that can be a good thing for me because I find that I need to take a minute and look at some thing from another point of view. The other side to that is sometimes I have to make a stance for my Truth, how I live in the center of my being where Life really is simple when I pay attention. Not an easy thing to do some days, on other days it’s as simple as changing a thought. I’ve had a lot of practice with that and I still need to keep practicing because though I may be a bit older now I still don’t know shit but I’m working on it.

 

That Day

Yesterday was one of those days where I work on something to write spending time creating, rewriting and editing then get to the end and think , "this sucks".  What to do? Put it aside for another day then go back and look it over to see if maybe there is something to salvage. Took a look from a different point of view or add something that is missing. No doubt others that feel the need to put pen to paper have experienced this as well. Some days I've found are better spent in further researching or cultivating ideas when the work just doesn't meet my standards. I've always been my harshest critic which is probably why virtually everything I've written over the years has remained in a collection of beat up notebooks and scribbled bits on random pages torn from journals. The old journals I've since burned or shredded with the idea in mind that I've moved past that and on to something new. The things I worked through on paper I carry with me wherever I go. I don't keep my old math tests why would these be any different? Every day is new. Life is about constant renewal. What's new today?

The Dew Drop Inn

          The endangered species list isn't limited to animals, birds, and fish. One of the disappearing icons of small town America is the roadside diner. Many have been razed to be replaced by kitschy themed strip malls and cookie-cutter burger doodle joints. More than one whistle stop town, crisscrossed by winding two lane highways had a Silver Dollar, a Mom's, or a Dew Drop Inn, the namesake of my personal favorite from my home town locale. Today, it no longer exists. The result of the inevitable creep of decay caused by time and the gluttony of progress lead to it being demolished to be replaced by a snazzy new bistro. I’m sure it's thoroughly missed by those lucky enough to have experienced its quirky confines during its long lifetime.

          The cavernous potholes in the parking lot gave a clue to its age and popularity. Paint-starved siding waited patiently for its next coat of paint, while a rusted sign, its weathered letters nearly worn off, stood solemnly guarding the door. A small iron bell cheerily announced your entrance, as the fingerprint blackened door banged shut behind you.

          In front of you, faded red vinyl and chrome stools stood half-cocked at attention. They encircled an ancient counter. The innumerable dishes and utensils dragged across it had scratched and dulled its once bright surface. In front of each stool the pattern on the counter had been worn off by the multitude of arms and hands rested there grasping nickel cups of coffee.

          A sleepy-eyed, rumpled, middle-aged woman with a pleasant smile and thin mousy gray hair sat behind the cash register. The stool where she perched sighed when relieved of her weight as she rose to show you to your table. The unevenly sloped floor created the sense of falling as you walked into the dining room. The low ceiling, the sparse old style fluorescent lights, and the trip across that crazily slanted floor solidified your sense of The Dew Drop's earthy charm.

          The seating was stiff, un-padded wooden benches, worn slick as oil by the dozens of rumps rubbed across their surface, making it difficult to sit back without sliding under the table. The padded seats were on the two tops! Once you were seated the atmosphere assaulted your senses. A cacophony of clanging pots, and clinking dishes, occasionally interrupted by a loud thump, leaked from the kitchen. The aroma coming from that kitchen was a welcome invasion to your nose; the signal that you had indeed made a good choice.

          Simply prepared food on heavy china was brought steaming to your table. Real steam from fresh hot food, not microwaved frozen crap. The inn usually had only two waitresses in the dining room unless it was a real busy day. If you didn't look close they were hard to tell apart. They both wore their dark graying hair piled on their heads, overfilled their uniforms a bit, and carried a warm and friendly smile. The only definite way to tell them apart were the glasses one wore. Usually they were perched precariously on her head and no doubt bets were placed on when they would fall to the floor.

          If you judged the Dew Drop Inn on appearance alone you would miss out on the best part: the food. The dining room was always packed on weekends and with good reason. Fresh, soft melt-in-your-mouth dinner rolls came warm to your table first, followed by a hot meal that looked like it had been prepared at home. Pork chops, Delmonico steak or a half pound beef steak patty were the usual dinner meat items, all well prepared and simply presented and they tasted even better. The main reason to clean your plate was what came after: homemade pies. Apple, lemon meringue, and the house specialty coconut cream were all served as a generous slab that nearly overflowed the plate it was on. I often wanted another slice though I very rarely got one.

          The Dew Drop Inn wasn't fancy, hip, slick, or cool, but the cozy, cramped atmosphere, the tasty simple food, and its rustic historic feel made it a great place for an afternoon pit stop. I still look for places like that when I travel, and though they may be more difficult to come by in our new world I’ve still been lucky on more than one occasion to find a similar member on this endangered species list. Not all of them are gems like this one. To me this little slice of heaven was a pearl of great pleasure.

         

Rock n Roll Remembers

I read on the book of Face that Johnny Winter passed on today in Switzerland. I watched some of the videos that were posted in remembrance of him and it got me to thinking about how lucky I was to grow up during the time that I did. I saw The Beatles first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show and rocked out to Don Kirshner's Rock Concert on Friday nights and the King Biscuit Flour Hour on   FM radio on Sundays. Along the way I was fortunate enough to hear some of those iconic bands live and in person, though for most of those shows I know I was at there is no way I could begin to tell you the set list. Every time I scraped a few dollars together I was adding to me record collection, which got to be very large. It is all gone now, lost along the way for various and sundry reasons. I've replaced a decent chunk of it with CDs and though the music is the same vinyl just felt more permanent. It has been making a bit of a comeback, which didn't seem possible at one point. I still find newer artists that have come along in recent years that I really like, though if I'm just chillin' either gaming, reading or writing the old sounds just suit me more. Rest in peace Johnny and thanks for being a part of the best era in music.

Four Legged Kids

 

                I've had my share of four legged kids over the years. I’ve had everything from dogs and cats to gerbils, rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, also fish and birds. Some of them were great pets others not so much. I won't ever have another fish tank. I gave my last one to someone I didn't like just to get rid of it. I realized how much noise it added to the house after it was gone. I had to turn the TV up loud all the time just to hear it. I thought I was going deaf. I didn't realize how much background noise it added to the house, the hum from the filter didn't seem that loud when I stood next to it. The first time I turned the TV on after the tank was gone I wondered why the hell it was so loud, really loud. It was akin to that day you're running errands jamming out to your car stereo. You shut the car off at the end of that great song you've heard a million times, but you just had to listen all the way to the end with the volume cranked. Later you come out of the store, start the car and blow out your ears because the volume is still maxed out. I should have known it wasn't a great idea for me when I got the tank because our cat never paid it much attention, though I think she was more afraid of the noise the filter made. No more fish for me unless its beer battered with fries and slaw.

                The first dog I ever acquired was mainly due to my inability to say no convincingly enough to a cutie with big tits. A few of my running buddies and I were partying at her house one night. She had a litter of puppies she was trying to get rid of and apparently I was drunk enough to send home with one. The next morning my seriously hung-over ass rolled over on to something wet as I was greeted with the smell of puppy breath and a little wet tongue all over my face. I realized later that the wet stuff I rolled in was puppy piss. Good Morning you are now a dog owner! That was the summer I spent in training as a motivational speaker living in a van down by the river, or the parking lot behind the grocery store, or the little rest area on a back road in the sticks, or … You get the picture. I had no business trying to care for a dog when I couldn't my own stuff in one sock let alone give a dog what he needed.  He was a cute little ball of fur that was part German Shepherd. I named him Friday because I got him on a Friday. Now that’s stoner originality at its finest for sure. I think I still have a couple of pictures of him around in a box under the bed. Doesn't everybody keep old pictures there? I finally realized he deserved better than me for an owner when I caught him chewing on my tire iron to exercise his little puppy teeth and knew I he would be much better off with someone that had more sense than I did. I found him a good home with a fireman I knew a couple days later and went back to living here and there in my van the rest of that perpetually foggy summer.

                I’ve probably had more cats than any other pet. I’ve had hunters that left me proof of their skill by the back door, a couple that wanted you to play fetch with them, one that bit your leg just hard enough to get your attention, another that begged for peanut butter whenever you opened the jar and a couple that could carry on a conversation with full sentences in cat language. To me cats are pretty low maintenance, though I know others would say no. Everyone has their own idea of what low maintenance is.

                Now I have a new critter experience to add to the list. For the past month my wife and I have been babysitting a pair of chinchillas. We were asked to help out a friend that needed some time to get her new apartment in shape before bringing the little guys home. I knew a girl way back in elementary school that talked about the chinchillas she had but I had never seen one before except in pictures. They are just balls of fluff, very fluffy fluff and incredibly soft. They weigh almost nothing their size is all from hair. Occasionally we let them out of their cage in the office to give them more room to run around and play. If you sat on the floor one would jump up and sit on your leg and you barely felt it. A bag of cotton balls weighs more. They are rather social after dark, though in the daytime not so much except when it was treat time. Their diet consists mostly of hay, though they did get a morning treat of a mini shredded wheat square each. At night they each got one raisin and man did they know when it was time for raisins. Little twitching noses would push through the bars in the cage and we’d get scolded in chinchilla if we weren’t fast enough with the raisins. They both made those little treats go all gone really quickly. They take baths in dust. There is a cylinder type thing in the cage that you fill with this special dust and they roll around in it. When they come out they look like they raided a flour sack. If chinchilla shit could be made into shotgun pellets you would wear your arm out pressing shells. They are without a doubt the shittingest critters I’ve ever been around. If turd size was more proportional to the amount we would have been in trouble. Chinchillas are surely sweet little animals and it sucks to think that in parts of the world they are raised just for the pelts. They have since gone home and though we are glad to have that corner of the office back it was a rather interesting experience having those two around for a few weeks. I think our cats miss the kitty TV entertainment value they offered.

               

Bits

Writing is like anything else you need to practice and keep practicing the craft. I equate it to sawing off a log with a hand saw. You have to keep going until you run out of steam, rest for a bit then get back at it. I’ve been keeping a journal for many years. On occasion I would fill it with songs, poems and stories along the way.  Mostly I used it to work through stuff that was going on in my life.  Grab some coffee, my smokes, a spiral bound notebook and a pen then go to town. Sometimes I would fill 5 to 6 pages before I put the pen down. The time spent was really helpful at different points along my path.  Thinking on paper I suppose you could call it.

Now I am at a point in my life where things are good, very good and I find that I want to use those writing muscles in a different way.  I use little exercises to keep the creative juices flowing and I find myself collecting things and ideas here and there. I collect things like a phrase that becomes a thread in an old sweater that keeps unraveling as you pull it or an unusual name for a street or a person, a chance glimpse that brings to mind a connection to something old relating to something new. I find myself looking forward to being home to write after work at night. I do have some time in the morning so I take advantage of that too. Every little bit is another little bit and those bits come together bit by bit.  And so I continue to practice and collect bits. 

Zombies R Us

I’ve made a point of separating myself from the fascination with everything zombie that has exploded on the scene the past few years.  I just never got it. The Dawn of the Dead series of movies, and the original Night of the Living Dead were train wrecks you almost couldn’t stop watching. I actually went see World War Z at the theater with a group of friends I hadn’t seen in a while because I wanted to see them, not because I gave a shit about the movie.  I left there thinking that was the first zombie move ever with a little intelligence to it, though I have to admit Shaun of the Dead was a great parody and really funny.  I remember seeing a brief article on the web about a town that had made preparations for a zombie apocalypse. Seriously, what the fuck is in the water there.

I’ve been a science fiction fan for many years and thoroughly enjoyed post-apocalypse novels like Dhalgren, Earth Abides and The Stand. Those were great stories for me because they were really about the relationships between individuals thrown together in the aftermath of epic catastrophe and their reactions to the stress of carrying on in the face of impossible odds.  Seeing how everyone found their own way to cope and manage to find enough inner strength to keep going really made for great reading. The line between good guy and bad guy definitely blurs, stretching the limits of things which we’d never believe ourselves capable in the quest to survive.

 I’ve seen all manner of zombie apocalypse related things popping up and I always had a feeling there was an allegory in there somewhere.  The typical zombie scenario of zombie bites or scratches someone, they die then turn into a zombie and the only way to stop them is take out the head one way or another. The hook is we all have that wondrous potential to be zombies. Makes me wonder where does it come from?  Zombies are rampant consumers of brains and flesh, mindless dedication to just consuming brains and or flesh.  No thought involved just gimme what I want, somewhat like our consumer driven society.  We are lead around by our internal noses for everything from the latest phone, electronic device, or game on the market.  Then we are given the option to live vicariously through lives of the Kardashians, The Housewives of (insert city here), or the collection of sad people that want to air their dirty laundry on the Jerry Springer show.  Seriously are we so unhappy that we have to watch someone’s life that is more ridiculous then owning a pet rock to make us feel better about ourselves?  Granted everyone is just finding their own way, whether on TV or in the living room watching it, though where do we draw the line on some of this stuff. If there wasn’t a market for it, it wouldn’t sell would it?  That is a rather disquieting thought to me, then again what do I know I ‘m just a dude with a blog.

This post started off about something else before that rant jumped in the way. So I’ll have to say I’ve surprised myself and actually gotten hooked on watching the Walking Dead.  It has a lot of the elements of some of the great cacotopian[1] society stuff like that I mentioned above.  The lines are blurred constantly for what good people will do in a bad situation.  Despite the fact that the storyline hits some flat spots and seems to move at a snail’s pace it is rather thought provoking story telling.

So that’s my two cents, well probably closer to 1.2 cents with the current inflation, though I do want to add something that made me laugh the first time I heard it many years ago. Enjoy.

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[1] ^ Beaumont, Matthew. (2006). Cacotopianism, the Paris Commune, and England's Anti-Communist Imaginary, 1870-1900. ELH, 73(2): 465-487.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yasin1ULLvI

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[1] ^ Beaumont, Matthew. (2006). Cacotopianism, the Paris Commune, and England's Anti-Communist Imaginary, 1870-1900. ELH, 73(2): 465-487.

Going Home Again

The big news on the sports pages the past few weeks is where is Lebron James going to sign. Finally the speculation ends and James announces he is going to sign with Cleveland again. Over the next few weeks the news will be predictions on how well Cleveland will do this year and what other free agents they can grab. Thank you David Stern for creating streetball with refs that promotes the idea of individual players being bigger than the game. I pretty much stopped watching the NBA about the same time I quit playing myself. I will tune in occasionally, maybe at playoff time though that is about the extent of it.

                As infrequently as I watch it is obvious Lebron is a great player who has made the effort to expand and strengthen his game and also those around him. You're not going to be the leading scorer on a championship team without putting in the work. When The Decision hit the sports pages then TV a few years it was a real what the fuck kind of moment. Now it’s 4 years and a couple championships later and he’s going back to Cleveland. Maybe Thomas Wolfe was wrong, maybe you can go home again. Only time will tell.

Just Say No to That Guy

Training camps for all the NFL teams will be starting soon and with it the analysis and predictions for the coming season will take on new meaning for us armchair jocks. In other words, Fantasy Football is upon us again. When I first heard about fantasy leagues for the major sports I always looked sideways at them they just didn’t make much sense to me. I figured I watch the games or not so what would I get out of it? Well, I was wrong big time. A good friend who now happens to be my wife had been playing for a few years and convinced me to try. Needless to say I was hooked, hooked like a degenerate gambler at the roulette wheel. The fun isn't in winning week in and week out, though it is nice to make the playoffs at the end of the season. The fun, the rush of adrenaline comes from the buildup to the games each week. Making decisions on who to start, looking at your team’s matchups, your opponent’s matchups, who is on a bye, what teams might be looking ahead, and the big one - hoping that one player you're not sure of doesn't have a dud game. Insert the name of your "that guy" right here, one would think we’d know better after previous seasons. Nope, at some point when you need to pick someone up up to cover a bye week that happens to be available again and you pick them up and they tank like a gut shot duck. Then you spend your Sunday screaming at the Player Tracker again. This season we both swear that will not be anywhere near the roster. Maybe

                I stopped being a die-hard fan of any team a long time ago. After the strike seasons and all the free agent moves from team to team I realized I didn’t know any of these guys. I only knew what I saw or read that was spoon fed to me by the media. We all were witnesses to OJ’s 4 hour Ford commercial so we know perception can surely lie like hell. I started to keep track of favorite players and would watch their games if I could to see them play. That to me is the whole point of signing up to play. It adds something different to watching the games, because they sure do need it now. Sure scoring is up and also the number of TV timeouts, really to the point of ridiculous. I don't often sit and watch a whole game anymore, it's too big of a time sink for me to justify. If you've ever been to an NFL game you experienced those TV timeouts and they seem really odd in the flow of the game. All of a sudden the players just stop and mill around for a few minutes before they get back to playing. I’ve been to a half dozen games over the years and it is definitely not an experience to pass up if you have the chance to go. Just bring your wallet or leave it home if you want to eat, drive your car and have lights for the next month.

My wife and I have played in the same leagues and after 3 seasons of head to head games we are tied 2-2. Those games always make for an interesting Sunday of football because we are both rather competitive.  It would be great to play each other in the championship game at the end of the season. What would be worse finishing second or sleeping on a lumpy couch? Someday I’ll sure I’ll find out, hopefully after we get a better couch.

Arizona Rain

 I've lived in Arizona for 20 years and I still smile when I'm driven to go outside and watch or stand in the rain. It happens so infrequently that it becomes an event. It rained two nights ago and my wife and I went outside to watch the lightning and the rain. It had been over 100 days since the last rain of any consequence, at least at my house, that we also experienced another Arizona phenomena. If you've ever smelled a pile of dirty socks in a damp basement then you were right there. That first rain after a long dry spell STINKS! All the collected dust on everything from just normal everyday occurrences plus the additional piled on from our dust storms makes the air smell really bad when it gets wet. I am still waiting for that first hard rain that clears the air and makes a lake at the end of my driveway. That first big rain nearly begs for you to go stand outside in it or as we do,  just take a walk around the neighborhood in it mainly because it feels good. Coming from New England as I do I never thought I would miss the rain or want a break from almost continual sunshine.  Guess I was wrong.

The Right Fielder at Fullback

 

 

            World Cup fever is dying down a little here in the US of A since we lost recently in the World Cup.  I was able to watch few minutes of the USA/Belgium game at work during my lunch that day.  Much better than dodging the Communist News Network that is perpetually on in there.  I actually watched some of the other games on TV at home, which is rather unusual for me.  I’m pretty much a football only kind of a guy so that stretch from Super Bowl Sunday to Hall of Fame game leaves a big sports gap for me each summer.  I didn’t used to be that way though that’s a story for another day.

              The skills these soccer players have honed are so amazing to me it’s like watching art, unlike Kobe taking that previously illegal extra step before he dunks which isn’t.  I’ve never been a big soccer fan even though I did play very briefly way back when.  When World Cup soccer comes around it manages to tickle the memory banks of another time and place.

I spent the first month of 6^th grade attending school in a small schoolhouse in Townsend, Vermont.  How small?  There were 4 rooms with 96 students in grades 1-8. The town population at the time was less than a 1,000. You could dial just the last 4 numbers of a phone number to call up a friend down the street.  I am pretty sure the only fall sport was the soccer team for 6th-8th grade boys.  I was pretty good athletically at that time but soccer was definitely not in my wheelhouse. I think I was asked to play based on the touch football games we played in the town square park. I really had to work to convince the kids I played with that football didn’t have a goal like soccer, just a goal line. Sometimes one of the teachers or some of the other kids would watch us play after school. I must have made some kind of impression on somebody because they asked me to play for the school team. I had no idea what the hell I was doing.  I usually was stuck in the back row as fullback and spent most of the games talking to the other fullback and the goalie.  The school team had a couple of really good forwards who managed to keep the ball in the other teams end most of the game, which really helped our defense.  If you don’t have to make a play what can go wrong?  It was my first taste of being the Little Leaguer the coach has to play so he’s stuck in right field because the ball never goes there, thereby minimizing the potential for any damage he could do.  I was used to being picked early in pickup games and being in the thick of the action so this was something new to me.  My soccer career lasted 3 only games, we won 2 and tied 1 before I had to go back home.  My stat line was zeroes across the board, though most importantly no dumb plays to allow an easy goal.

When the month ended I didn’t want to go back home. I kicked and screamed and made a big stink but being 11 I didn’t have any say in the matter. I really can’t point to any specific thing that made that little town so hard to let go of.  I just felt really good being there. Most of the names and the faces have been lost to the passing of the years, though that brief sojourn in very small town New England and my equally brief soccer career will always have a warm special place in my heart.  It’s been quite a while since I went through there by car but the mental photographs I’ve kept I can pull out and peruse any time I chose.  They always manage to make me smile inside.

My Dogs Meow

      I have dogs that meow, really. Well they are actually cats but they act more like the dogs I've owned. Both of them are almost always under foot requesting attention of some kind. I’m accustomed to dogs being almost constantly underfoot requesting pets, pats and acknowledgement, but not cats. imagine having two short furry doting moms follow you around the house whenever you go after getting up to do something and all the while you're regaled with a steady stream of kitty conversation. They are the most talkative cats I have ever had. Both of them have a rather extensive vocabulary of questions, rebukes and demands for food and other requests, often in stereo.

      After several years of not having a dog or a cat I have a pair of litter-mate sister Tabbies. They were hard to tell apart when we first got them leading to numerous conversations that started with, “Which one just did that”? It took some time for us to be able to tell them apart at a glance.

                            Top - Water Cat Bottom - Grumpy Girl

        As kittens they lived in shelters and foster homes after being abandoned in an apartment. My wife’s importunity shattered my resistance to getting another cat. So of course we ended up with two! She convinced me we needed to rescue them from a return to that fate again. After hearing their story repeatedly I was putty in her hands. My wife worked with the couple that owned them and they needed to find the pair a new home because their new apartment didn’t allow pets, though they were hoping to keep them together if possible. I knew after hearing their story they would require some work and patience, though my reservations were met by assurances to the contrary. It hasn’t really been all the difficult other than being woken up by being walked on or to the sound of a toy being thrown around in the middle of the night.

The first couple of days we knew they would be skittish and just set out food and water and sat back and observed. They did the same to us. They each camped at opposite ends of the living room for a while before they decided to explore. Little by little they seemed to relax, though it took time before they stopped hopping away when we tried to pet them. And even now after 4 years they still dance away when if we move to fast whenever going in for the pets. Miss Grumpy Girl still does that, though it seems more like a game with her now and they have both figured out that getting pets is a good thing.

After we had them a few weeks I started to pick them up briefly. Of course they struggled to get way and I’d put them down immediately. I kept at it and left them to define the terms of that situation. Eventually they both got to a point where they now realize it’s a good thing and ask for it their own special way. They each demand their own one-on-one with each of us every day.

The shy one we dubbed Grumpy Cat, due to her perpetual scowl is surprisingly the one most likely to ask to cuddle. She also never really got rid of her kitten voice either. It's odd hearing such a soft voice coming from a cat her size. Water cat has a good sized handful of various intonations to let you know you need to pay attention here. 


They are different as night and day. Grumpy Girl seems to only prefer toys that are designed so we have play together. Water Cat will play with anything she finds and can amuse herself continuously it seems. Her tail can be a great source of amusement for her and us though her sister will watch while crouching and shoot her a disgusted look as if she's thinking, "nothing like furthering the dopey cat stereotype sis?" Water Cat will also race you to the bathroom and jump to the vanity expecting the faucet to be turned on a trickle for a drink. We finally had to put a stop to that when every time we headed in that direction she'd hustle to the vanity and scream for us to turn on the water. 

It has been great having them here and I expect them to be around for a good long while. They have added more laughter into a house that already had its fair share. They are the little door greeters when we each get home from work at night. They are masters at finding missing hair-ties, though I'm sure they are responsible for the missing part.. Time to go now my presence is being requested at the bathroom sink.

Funeral for a Friend

     My wife and I are fans of Rizzoli & Isles on TNT. One of the actors on the show recently committed suicide and the show wrote his death into the storyline by having him die in a car accident. The follow up show was about continuing on with life and the tribulations friends and family go through in the aftermath of such a sudden event. I thought the show did a good job within the time constraints it has in presenting a glimpse of how some of us react differently to the death of a friend or relative. The show  lead me to thinking about the way some funerals I attended affected me and how my attitude toward the entire idea changed.

     The first funeral I ever attended was my Dad’s four days after my 14^th birthday. Between the wake, the funeral and the people that came by our house I ran the gamut of weird handshakes over that first week. I don’t think I’ve been graced with as many dead fish handshakes combined in all the years since those few strange days. I really hated the whole experience, though we did have some lighter moments that week thanks to some of the folks that spent a lot of time there in the aftermath. Little did I know then how important those moments really were. I decided I would never go to another funeral until my own and was steadfast in that way of thinking until a close friend passed on almost 20 years later.

     I was asked to get up and say a few words at his memorial service and the request really surprised me. I spent time putting words down on paper figuring it would help me focus on the difficult task at hand. I still have the pages I wrote for that day and recently stopped to read them while digging through some old scribbles I've kept. I’ve kept them around for their significance because that experience changed me. It changed the way I looked at the strange rituals we humans have around death and presented me with a new attitude toward them going forward. I finally realized that day that funerals are not for the departed. What do they care what suit you put them in or how fancy the casket is because we can’t ask them anyway. The important part of the whole ritual I came to see is the bringing together in one place those people who had their lives touched by this man. I spent a good part of that day sharing stories about him with people I had never met previously that come to appreciate him as much as I did. It was truly a noetic experience realizing that this was what the ritual was about. Our common bound shared through one individual and the lives he touched by being who he was allowed all of use to come together to celebrate and remember our friend.  I'm sure others have come to a similar conclusion , so I guess I'm a little slow on the uptake apparently when it comes to some things. We can only understand what we can understand. 

     My views on many things have changed since then though I'm still not the first person in line when the time comes for a funeral. The one thing I do know now is a funeral really is an opportunity for those of us left to carry on a chance pool our spiritual resources so no one ever truly dies. So keep sharing stories of those who have moved on to keep their memory alive. I 'm going to.