Had an oscar delivered this morning. Been bowled up all day. Bagged a run. Baked bread. Planted Kohllrabi and beets. Took the wind-torn door off my greenhouse and used boards for raised-bed borders. Walked to PO, mailed some letters and stopped by to buy a classic lotto on the way back. No, I guess I got the ticket first.
That's when I talked to the City Auditor about the political scene. Said I don't trust old people politicians, need new blood to do something before they get muddied up and on the take or senile and led around.
Found a carrot in my garden that had wintered over (kept growing.) Measured six-inches long and four-inches at widest girth. The flavor is delicate but the consistency is like soft ice which crumbles and melts as you chew it.
My greenhouse is a seven-foot cube of a variety of windows. Cookie said it's a work of art. Paleo said it is constructed on the perfect angle the ancients chose for a habitable cave, with the opening slightly to the east of south to catch maximum sunlight. Five days ago, maybe six, I notice a rabbit gathering clumps of dry grass to resemble big walrus whiskers and carrying them to the southwest corner of the greenhouse. The sense of urgency was necessary as it has rained every day since.
I've heard stories of females finding ways to return at night to feed nestlings even if something falls in the way. And about males eating young. And that a rabbit will abandoned the nest if human scent is detected.
I checked on the nest every day and I've seen an adult rabbit on the outside and I'm certain it stays under the platform porch of the glass house but never saw one go inside until two days ago.
After sunset, the rabbit circled around the structure, hesitating often, before going inside to the nest. The next morning the nest looked the same, still covered with the grass, but with lots of moisture around it.
Yesterday, there were rabbits in every direction. The first one I noticed was sitting up and it looked huge. It was outside the corner where the nest is. The temperature was in the low seventies with intermittent showers and the grass was removed to reveal a clump of newborns.
For the next few hours before dark, as wet as it was, rabbits were all around, across the street, next door, two doors down. They would run at one another and begin a high speed zig-zag chase. Then another would run towards the other two. A couple times I saw the second jump straight up to avoid the rush of the first. They were concentrated in a view from my stool perch window. More than one made the trip into the greenhouse and checked the view as they traveled around the edge towards the nest.
The bobtail cat was in the neighbor's high grass, watching the action. I let the dog out and a rabbit watched her go around the greenhouse, reluctant to move until Zimba was within a few feet before jumping.
I'm only guessing that they were turned on by the perfect nest location. It was definitely more celebration than happenstance meetings.
I have seen no rabbit or rabbits the entire day. The grass is back over the top of the nest.
7May - On Easter Saturday, part of the nest was pulled back and a bunny was exposed. The area was wet and water was dripping, and my first thought was it was attempting to leave the nest but it was still. I called my neighbor who was in the middle of "just out of bed" breakfast with kids and grandkids. She brought her son-in-law and two kids to see. The next day, the nest was recovered, so no Easter bunnies jumping around.
The mother was still going inside the greenhouse every evening and the nest was snug. I kept watching, expecting the litter to stay around, but exactly two weeks from April 20th, the nest was vacated and no rabbits around. That evening, the mother came inside the greenhouse and the little ones followed.
When young rabbits move, they scurry like other rodents. This year's offspring may get less action than all the others since Zimba arrived. Just say "rabbit" and she was headed for the door. She stalked them to jump and was right behind them. Then she learned to hot-track and forced them into the full circle escape route. She still chases but just to get one out of the yard. Still checks out all the past places they used to hide.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
LAST QUACK
Judith Anne held the duck in her lap and rolled down the window of the slowly moving automobile. Her plan was working.
Earlier, soon after her entry in the 4-H spring show had won a blue ribbon, the family discussed the impending move which would end their semi-country lifestyle.
She'd raised the duck from a yellow duckling. Ordinarily, she would take a winning animal home or it would have already been sold. The farm was alive with chickens, geese, ducks, lambs and larger livestock to go with a variety of dogs and cats.
That was all ending, fast and furiously as each of them dealt with this transfer to an urban setting. When her father suggested having "roast duck" in jest, Judy asked if they could drive "a turn" around the lake before going home.
Setting the duck on the edge of the open window, Judy whispered.
"Petey, it is time to flee, time to be free."
The name had always been derided, since the duck was a female.
"Petey, don't be afraid. You are a duck but we can't have a duck in Indianapolis. You'll be safe here...people feed ducks here...."
Judith nudged the duck and it fell , flapped to a beak-first landing, stood and quacked.
Petey had never seen a large body of water. The next morning, she wasn't far from where she'd landed, sitting near the edge of the lake. Her feathers were reflectively white and obviously trimmed to show.
A jogger attempted to chase the duck, figuring it would go into the water. Petey simply ran further along the bank.
For two days and nights, Petey wandered only a short distance. Two boys on bicycles stopped, dropped the bikes and chased after the duck. When they changed tactics and approached from opposite directions, Petey was forced to go into the lake. Within a second she was safely away. Except for the stuff the boys began throwing, but she was out of their no-throwing arms range.
Once she was paddling around on the lake, a flock of canada geese noticed. Nineteen formed a semi-circle around the newcomer, twenty-feet from shore. They watched from a few yards distance, doing goose-gurgle observations. They soon lost interest and swam away.
Petey still spent most time out of the water. For a few more days she stayed closeby. The jogger ran down towards her and she flew into the water. "Good you're going into the lake with the getter-punks that rampage this place at night," he thought.
When the smattering of mallards finally got hip to Petey, things changed fast. First, all the drakes approached, while the hens kept their distance. Eventually, Petey was a welcome member in the flock. She was soon imitating the bobbing action needed to feed from underwater vegetation.
The mallard flock inhabited all of the lake, the center island, under the connecting bridge, the steep banks on the south edge, the sand beaches on the north and everything in between. As the season progressed, the white duck kept regular company with seven mallards, four drakes and three hens. They roosted together, fed together and swam togther, often with Petey in the back which resembled a white tug pushing gray barges.
A migrating white egret saw Petey and perched on the limb of a large oak collapsed into the lake. For some time, he watched. From across the lake, she appeared as his reflection. Many hours passed before the bird realized there was no way this one was going to leave the lake and fly away.
"That white duck" was observed by many walkers, joggers and the circle of drivers and riders. None knew where it came from but it was obviously having a good life at the lake. A few worried for it, thinking of the coming winter season and the pack of coyotes which had managed to catch and devour an aged beaver two winters back.
Soon after the first snowfall, the geese began to leave. The last to fly away were the three dozen yearlings from the six spring nests.
When the ice began to form, the mallards started their migration. Petey's group was the last to leave. As the space beneath the bridge became the last to freeze, she stayed there. More snow fell and covered the lake and island. Some farther north geese landed for awhile, on their way south. Petey walked over to see them but they soon flew on.
Tempratures dropped and ice closed the last area of open water. Petey, weakened and thin moved onto the island and bedded under a small pine tree.
A week later, the jogger noticed a single row of fox tracks crossing the lake, angling towards the bridge. "Later on, white duck," he mumbled as he passed, figuring the worst but hoping for better.
Earlier, soon after her entry in the 4-H spring show had won a blue ribbon, the family discussed the impending move which would end their semi-country lifestyle.
She'd raised the duck from a yellow duckling. Ordinarily, she would take a winning animal home or it would have already been sold. The farm was alive with chickens, geese, ducks, lambs and larger livestock to go with a variety of dogs and cats.
That was all ending, fast and furiously as each of them dealt with this transfer to an urban setting. When her father suggested having "roast duck" in jest, Judy asked if they could drive "a turn" around the lake before going home.
Setting the duck on the edge of the open window, Judy whispered.
"Petey, it is time to flee, time to be free."
The name had always been derided, since the duck was a female.
"Petey, don't be afraid. You are a duck but we can't have a duck in Indianapolis. You'll be safe here...people feed ducks here...."
Judith nudged the duck and it fell , flapped to a beak-first landing, stood and quacked.
Petey had never seen a large body of water. The next morning, she wasn't far from where she'd landed, sitting near the edge of the lake. Her feathers were reflectively white and obviously trimmed to show.
A jogger attempted to chase the duck, figuring it would go into the water. Petey simply ran further along the bank.
For two days and nights, Petey wandered only a short distance. Two boys on bicycles stopped, dropped the bikes and chased after the duck. When they changed tactics and approached from opposite directions, Petey was forced to go into the lake. Within a second she was safely away. Except for the stuff the boys began throwing, but she was out of their no-throwing arms range.
Once she was paddling around on the lake, a flock of canada geese noticed. Nineteen formed a semi-circle around the newcomer, twenty-feet from shore. They watched from a few yards distance, doing goose-gurgle observations. They soon lost interest and swam away.
Petey still spent most time out of the water. For a few more days she stayed closeby. The jogger ran down towards her and she flew into the water. "Good you're going into the lake with the getter-punks that rampage this place at night," he thought.
When the smattering of mallards finally got hip to Petey, things changed fast. First, all the drakes approached, while the hens kept their distance. Eventually, Petey was a welcome member in the flock. She was soon imitating the bobbing action needed to feed from underwater vegetation.
The mallard flock inhabited all of the lake, the center island, under the connecting bridge, the steep banks on the south edge, the sand beaches on the north and everything in between. As the season progressed, the white duck kept regular company with seven mallards, four drakes and three hens. They roosted together, fed together and swam togther, often with Petey in the back which resembled a white tug pushing gray barges.
A migrating white egret saw Petey and perched on the limb of a large oak collapsed into the lake. For some time, he watched. From across the lake, she appeared as his reflection. Many hours passed before the bird realized there was no way this one was going to leave the lake and fly away.
"That white duck" was observed by many walkers, joggers and the circle of drivers and riders. None knew where it came from but it was obviously having a good life at the lake. A few worried for it, thinking of the coming winter season and the pack of coyotes which had managed to catch and devour an aged beaver two winters back.
Soon after the first snowfall, the geese began to leave. The last to fly away were the three dozen yearlings from the six spring nests.
When the ice began to form, the mallards started their migration. Petey's group was the last to leave. As the space beneath the bridge became the last to freeze, she stayed there. More snow fell and covered the lake and island. Some farther north geese landed for awhile, on their way south. Petey walked over to see them but they soon flew on.
Tempratures dropped and ice closed the last area of open water. Petey, weakened and thin moved onto the island and bedded under a small pine tree.
A week later, the jogger noticed a single row of fox tracks crossing the lake, angling towards the bridge. "Later on, white duck," he mumbled as he passed, figuring the worst but hoping for better.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Bucket List Trip
Chronological age was the impetus to return to northern California one more time and check out former addresses. I'd talked Dr. Doug into driving me to Tiffin, Ohio, last year for a similar trip. Afterwards, I'd discussed the possibility of the professor, Paleo and I making the drive to California. But Freeble landed a position at the University of Missouri and Big Cat was called back to a gig in Georgia.
The job ended under pressure of the recession but he came back with a new F-150. I began planning the west coast journey, offering to pay all expenses, except the truck payments. It nearly happened in February, but the weather never approached a favorable outlook.
By March, he was behind in payments and repossession seemed likely, so I mentioned the trip every time he came around. The deal included taking my dog, if she had enough strength left to jump into the the back seat. On the 11th, Roger stopped by and I lined half the back seat of the F-150 with an old quilt and three old sheets used to cover the dog's favorite area of my water bed. Zimba had no trouble leaping into the seat. Back in the house, I indicated we were ready to go. Today? Of course. I thought you meant next week. Once convinced, Paleo left to load his stuff and returned just after noon. By 1:00, we were loaded, gassed to full and on the way.
Currently, I have no driver's license, but I offered to take the wheel whenever he got tired. Soon, it became apparent his freeway driving was not conducive to my ability to get any rest in the passenger seat. He was constantly on his phone, talking to a new girlfriend, hogging the fast lane and too often veering into rumble strips on both sides of the roadway. So with constant pots of coffee and bowls of pot, I kept us both awake all the way to a motel in Elko, Nevada, at 6:36 PM on the 12th.
In 1977, my wife and I drove I-80 from Ohio to Reno and turned north to Eureka. CA. This is the route I wanted to go and on the 13th, we got a motel in Eureka. Although the weather channel had indicated a couple of high pressure skies all the way, the rain started in Indianapolis and it was cloudy all the way to Colorado where we left I-70 to hit I-80. Snow covered the mountains and after a bit of sunshine, it began to fall, mixed with rain. High winds and snow continued through Wyoming and Utah. In the higher elevations of California, snow was two feet deep and by the time we reached Eureka, the rain was steady.
Tsunami warnings had been issued for the Humboldt Bay area. We drove to Glatt Street, C Street, Watson Street and the house behind Long's (which is now GNC). Next morning (14th) we drove to Dandy Bill's Avenue in Loleta, on Hookton Road. Talked to Jamie and the Buddhist dude who bought the 1/3 acre I used to own. He allowed me the opportunity to view the campsite and pond I'd dug out of a peat bog, but thirty-years of growth prevented me from getting any closer than 30-feet.
Bought a half-pound of Loleta cheese, but the bar I used to walk to for a beer was no longer open.
Stopped at Redway Liquors for beer and continued up Wilder Ridge Road to the eighty-acres on Horse Mountain Road. When I was camping there, I put up a mailbox on Wilder Ridge (Ettersburg Star Route) which I could walk or jog to on a former logging trail. I started walking down the trail while Paleo waited in the truck. Years melted over my heart and soul like coils of soft steel. Struggling to remember to breath, I saw a house and outbuildings on the slope to my right, belonging to the present owners. I kept walking and arrived at a sign which warned to go no further "No exceptions!" It angered me to mumble, "I am the exception, mutha!" A little further along, I came to the washout that I used to jump over, but it was now eight-feet across and over my head deep, so I turned back.
Once back to the truck, we continued up to Melvin Longmier's mailbox and I left him a note. I've written to him over the years but he's never forgiven me for calling him a nigger that time he refused to see me, Kasu and Mark.
I directed Paleo on to Horse Mountain Road. The back-up-to-turn-through switchbacks had him ready to quit. Had him park on the landing where I used to load firewood, and we walked down the narrow path to the site where I had a dirt floor log wall and roof shelter at the fork of two springs. Floods had swept everything away, including the six-feet diameter Douglas fir stump which anchored the structure.
Back on the road, we continued towards Shelter Cove. It took some urging to get Paleo to drive through the water-filled ruts gushing across. I couldn't admit there was more water than I'd ever seen. Shelter Cove was overcast, windy and the ocean seemed menacing.
In Laytonville, we stayed at the Budget Inn.
On the 15th, we drove into Cloverdale. I'd half-intended to look up an ex-wife but it was raining and after I queried a postman who had no knowledge of her name, it occurred to me that her attitude would likely match the somber day so we drove on.
In Hopland, I looked for the mini-brewery where I intended to purchase another Red Tail Ale shirt like the one the Sweet Baboo bought for me. The building was empty and The Keg was closed. I considered stopping at the Blue Bird Cafe for pie, but we continued on to the Russian River to find that house my wife and I were flooded from in Forestville.
It was still pouring down when we drove into Santa Rosa. Went to 54 Boyd and 225 Barnett. Spoke briefly with ex-neighbor Jeff Coors. I wanted to show Paleo my "vertical circle" running route and drove by addresses on Southridge and Raycrest.
We crossed the Golden Gate Bridge at 4: 30, drove down Lombard Street and along the cable car tracks and continued on to the Oakland Bay Bridge to catch I-80 east. Once past Sacramento, the signs began warning about snow-chains requirement. I suggested a motel to wait out the storm but Paleo insisted he could drive through. Beware the ides of March!
At 10.45, on Donner Pass Road, in Soda Springs, California, all traffic was stopped for chains. $140 for about a half-hour of driving.
On the 16th, we stayed in Laramie, Wyoming and left the next morning. By 6:00 AM on the 18th, our relationship had deteriorated to the max (not to mention by, for, and with the maxx). While trying to hip him to fast lane driving, some important facts surfaced. He'd messed with the truck's computer and it's top speed was 80 mph, dangerously slow for any real attempt at high speed cross-country 'chinein'. His eyesight isn't good enough to anticipate traffic switches and turnoffs. He never drives with both hands on the wheel, preferring a one-hand forefinger and thumb pinch on the steering wheel, with the other hand holding a phone. He tries to peer down into every automobile and actually thinks if it is a female driver, she is attracted to him. He complained about dog hair in his $33,000 truck. At one point I asked if it was worth fighting over and he rushed me with threats, chest heaving and a flutter of hands until I thought he was going to levitate. Of course, I had to talk him down. It would have cost too much to return alone.
In Indianapolis, while I was napping, he missed I-70 to 35 (Chillicothe) and we ended up on the west side of Cincinnati and had to go all the way around to 32.
Years ago, his wife, Geneva, told me the only thing Roger and I have in common is marijuana. With that in mind, I stopped getting high on the 19th. Another item on my "bucket list?" Could be.
Man, I can't do it. It isn't healthy for an old dude to give up his drug of choice. I've lost ten pounds. Eating isn't any fun. The runs and lifts are bland. And the dreams which are obviously retarded by toke come in violent scenes of blood and smoke. Plus I've got the bucks to have it delivered to my door, if I choose, so puffhugginlees, get over it, who the fuck ever of y'all still keeping your distance. Make it longer. Hell's fire, I can barely handle the intensity myself.
Turned down a finder's fee to finger Paleo's pickup. Turned him away at the door, last week, when he offered the piece of madrone he got from the Shoaitie. I first met him on a job for the Steel Breeze, two-stories up on a metal scaffold, painting a brick building white. I remember putting a free hand on the surface and he pinted over it. The dude could flat slap it on. We were next to a parking lot. He was lifting a section to take the scaffold down and the force pulled him over the edge. The way he got his feet, and 270 lbs. on 6'4" of height under the iron framework and landed, still holding it, is still hard to fathom. His physical prowess is pretty much a small town legend. I've only seen the last thirty-years of it. He and I were as close as cut buddies and with this last steering wheel week we end up distant friends.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Bachelor Batches
I doubt you are as fit and free as me. I'm certain you are not as free. Bake some bread. Whole wheat. Yeast, sugar in water, some salt, some oil. Mix. Knead and allow to rise. Punch it down, knead, section into loaves, allow a second rise. Bake. If you can take the time to bake your own bread, you are on the way to freedom.
If you eat no bread you don't bake, you are on the way to fitness. Jesus said man can not live by bread alone, said nothing about living without bread. Man needs bread in his diet. Once you've eaten your own fresh from the oven still steaming,with the pats of butter still melting, nothing else comes close to being real bread.
In California, I once had a crock pot on for months. I was houseman to two chicks. Here's a lesson I had to learn even though I had an example before my early eyes. No matter the combination, i.e. sister/sister, sister/mother, mother/wife, wife/sister-in-law, sister/daughter, wife/daughter...no man has any chance when his viewpoint is challenged by any two women. It is useless, say it once, shut up, listen.
Buy a crock pot. Cover the bottom with pound of dry beans and fill it up with water. Put the lid on and turn it up to high. Leave it until you notice the smell. Next day, dip out a bean and see if you can masticate it. Turn the dial to low.
With a pot of beans on heat, you have something to eat. All the time. Anytime. In a bowl with salt and pepper. Plus your bread. You could live on it. But the bean base is only a beginning. A crock pot will not boil over or burn. As long as there is liquid, anything which makes soup in your mind may be added to the pot. Tomatoes are necessary in our diet. Pizza is not the best way to get your daily requirement of tomatoes. Put tomato in your pot. Sauce is easy and inexpensive. Any vegetable you can name can go into the pot. Give it time and it will cook to the consistency you prefer.
There are numerous types of dry beans. I once bought a half-bushel of soy beans from a grain elevator in Ohio to use in California. For years, those beans were the base for my crock pot ingredients. Nobody would have tried soy bean soup, so I always said it was vegetable/bean. Soy are the best beans for crock pot because they never cook to mushy. Try many: red, black, pink, speckled, gray or white. Split peas and lentils cook faster than beans so they may be added to thicken the mix. In the past, my crock pot was always hot. One time a downstairs neighbor brought frozen fillet mignon to my wife as a peace offering after she'd gone down to threaten his ass after he'd disturbed our sleep the night before. I sliced it into cubes and put it into the pot. The neighbor hood came by and asked what kind of soup I had. Steak. He spooned a chunk and began to chew. His eyes widened and he said, "It's really tender, man, like...?" "Crackers?" "Yeah, man, that meat is as soft as wet crackers."
Actually, over the years most of my carrots,onions, garlic, potatoes, etc. were fixed in the pot. Today, I am free enough to use it just for beans.
Beans can be prepared for anybody's taste. Homemade whole wheat toast is tasty to everybody. For the past couple of decades, my intake of food is mainly beans and greens. I eat all day long but have a morning meal after my run or lift (every other day.) Peanut butter and chicken or fish on whole wheat toast with hot tea. Later, I chop an apple, shred a carrot, crack an egg white into it, add pepper and cinnamon and nuke for four minutes.
99% of the bread I consume is my own. No commercial bread approaches the taste and feel of mine. I could take my loaves door-to-door for $5 per and be baking full-time. For decades, double-kneading has been my method. Just yesterday, I had to change, due to the fact I'd used more water than I had whole wheat flour. Tried some powdered milk and oat flour (oats in coffee grinder), but it was too wet to knead.
My recipe is so automatic, I just run an amount of hot tap water into a white plastic bowl. add some sugar and stir in two packets of dry yeast until it's dissolved and wait for the explosions. Depending on the humidity, each grain of yeast will expand in a burst until the water is covered with tan foam. Add flour, salt, oil, knead, allow to rise, knead and put into pans. My recipe is for four loaves, but I never replaced a broken glass one and now bake in two glass and one metal pan. My mixing bowl is from a $-store set of four lidded ones which are long gone, except for the largest. Imagine what you can do with a steel mixing bowl and matched set of loaf pans?
I have a friend who makes biscuits with wet dough. She takes self-rising white flour and works it into a watery ball between her fingers while flipping and adding more flour until she has a huge flat biscuit shape not sticking to her fingers. Baked on a greased sheet, they become large fluffy biscuits to keel over forever for. You have to see the procedure to appreciate it and when I tried it, the value became more evident. The only lesson from it, which I applied last night, was the "wet" factor. I ladled the mixture into well-greased pans, to half full. They doubled but were still runny when I put them into the 350-degree oven for 45 minutes. Turned oven off and let them coast for another 15 minutes. Nice flat-topped loaves with dynamite texture. Only hitch is the over-browned bottoms. Need pressure on the slice knife. Point is, I completely eliminated the kneading process and ended up with good loaves. Can't imagine doing it on purpose, though.
Most dudes don't get to savor bachelorhood early enough in life to appreciate the style. In the first place, getting a place one can handle alone grows ever more difficult. Looking for a mate who cooks like you're used to, i.e. modeled after your mother's, is probably useless. As well as less nutritious.
A bachelor crib should be the place you eat food you fix. Anything else is paying someone to prepare food which makes a profit. You pay for the food and the profit. Free food will put money in your account immediately. Homemade food is the next best way save big bucks. You try my diet, exclusively, and you will increase your muscle mass and monetary worth.
Anybody can sing The Anthem, Jimi made The Anthem sing.
Soon, my greens will be from the yard. Free food. Dock, polk and dandelion. Broccoli is the green I use most. Cabbage is a less expensive route. My skillet base is garlic (halved) and onions slightly fried in soy (nearly all "vegetable") oil. Sometimes I use olive. I add some sprinkles of soy sauce, put on the lid and turn down the heat.
I take the flowers first, slice them into a shred, put them into the skillet and stir. Ladle in the beans from crock pot. Add cooked chicken, salmon or tuna. Stir again. Cover with Parmesan cheese and put the lid on. After it is thoroughly heated, it is ready to eat. Many times, I've eaten the whole thing. The broccoli shreds have the consistency of creamed hamburger. Any herb or spice you like may be added anytime. The ones you like most should probably go in late during the process.
Beans and greens every day. Whole wheat home-bread every day.
Turnip, spinach, chard, collard, kale, mustard; all greens.
Apples and carrots are daily necessities. Each one every day.
The only way I can avoid sweets is to not have them in my food budget. I don't bring them home. The only sugar in my house is granulated. The only chocolate in my house is cocoa powder. I use butter. No fat powdered milk. I use eggs (whites only). To allay a total sweet need, I eat a teaspoon of sugar. Not enough? Add some powdered milk and cocoa. Half-cup mixed and eaten dry will slowly satisfy any sweet root.
Not long ago, I ordered thirty-five lbs. of peanut butter from Groeb Farms in Orsted MI because there were no "peanuts only" jars within walking distance. I kept it in the space above the veggie drawer. Today, I have a choice of Kroger, Krema and Smuckers. Anything other than 100% peanuts is imitation peanut butter. If you require the sugar and fat in this stuff, you must not be getting it from other food, which is highly unlikely. If it is commercially prepared, it is sugar and salt and fat filled. These are the flavors we enjoy.
"I really like fried eggs and bacon." Of course, you do. In fact, it should be a meal savored once or twice a year, instead of a steady diet just because you "love the taste."
Meat has to be killed to be consumed. The act of being killed releases all manner of toxins into the carcass. The next link in the chain is us, so these virulent microbes enter the meat eater. The more meat, the more poison. It will shorten a lifespan. Meat eaters are warriors, chance-takers, quick tempered, fearless, designed to live more intense lives and die early. Archie Moore said one of his secrets for weight control was to not swallow the meat. If one chews out the flavor and spits out the rest, it eliminates the end result which is the difficulty of digesting and defecating meat.
How you move your bowels is for more important than how you fill you stomach. Here's a lesson, watch the nearest animal mammal you can observe. No matter if nocturnal or night sleeper, the first thing it does upon awakening is take a dump. It doesn't look for something to drink or eat to awaken fully. It takes a short walk to a space to mark a claim..
This could set a mood
Which could start a feud
But I present these facts
About dogs and cats.
My feline buries her waste
With diligent care, no haste.
Your dog, on the other hand,
And it's obvious throughout the land,
Leaves his above ground in bad taste.
Before you get much older, it is necessary to train your intake and elimination of food. It should become as natural as breathing and heart beats. For me, the most natural intake of nourishment for natural movements is vegetable matter. A diet of meat may be alright for certain mammals designed as carnivores because they have to work so hard to obtain food. It has to come in gulps and stay in the system for the time between kills. When the kills stop, lifespan ends. If you are living to die, anxious to fly crash and burn, just for the memories, then your bag is meat. Plus chokes, liquor and lack of sleep. The strain of just pinching a loaf could very well kill you.
Take half a can of tuna and stir it into a couple egg whites. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and pepper. 'wave for 2-3 minutes and sandwich between slices of toasted bread. Cup of green tea. Total time can be cut to 3:33 if the cup of tea water is nuked at the same time.
I seldom drink tea without a spoon or two of powdered milk and teaspoon tip of cocoa powder. Anything made with water can serve as our daily requirement of water. Sugar water (all of the soft drinks) may keep us from dehydrating but it won't keep us from amplification. The most water I consume at one time is during a shower. Warm water is best for the sluice to our insides.
Have to admit the "batter" loaves seemed worth attempting again. Still whole wheat flour, still yeast rise. The time savings is substantial. Have three pans rising right now. This recipe is too simple to ignore. Going through the "double rise" method may be something I used to do.
My beans are black with split peas and brown rice. Stir-fried with garlic, onions and broccoli florets, sprinkled with Parmesan cheese; too good.
Baked a double-rise recipe and can't believe I was enamored by that batter bread. No comparison. That little side-step induces me to finish this up. The male prostate continues to grow, just like your nose. In time, it will intrude on elimination. Piss stream begins to flow more slowly and turd gets a curb to climb over. The longer you last the more pronounced, no matter what else happens. As long as you can get it up and get it off, prostate is happy but still growing and waiting for you to get old and slow down. Most of us slow down long before the old part. Whatever "old" is to you. No matter, beans and greens.
You have to do something every day. As Easy Beans expounded enthusiastically:
Something that you do every day.
Something.
Just something that you do.
Having a dog that jumps
Into the ocean.
You gotta do something cool!
All year long, I jog for ninety-minutes or lift weights for at least one set, every other day.
Most any larger lidded skillet will hold a chicken in an inch or so of water. Cook it out of its skin, fat and bones. Separate the lean and give all the rest to the dog. Use the clear broth in the crock pot. The white and dark meat is ready for sandwiches or beans and greens. For variety, I use canned tuna or salmon.
I always remember a guy telling me about not having enough iron in his blood to donate. The nurse told him to go home and eat a handful of raisins. He did, came back and was able to give a pint. I eat a handful every day. Plus almonds, pecans or walnuts.
The only known aphrodisiac is oats. Water, salt, dry milk, quick oats, two-minutes in 'wave. There is nothing special about one rolled oat from another. Generic is the same as Quaker. I use oat-soaked water as a pre-lift drink.
If you run (jog) for any number of years, it is likely you will have some knee problems. In Eureka , California, in 1979, my right knee pained so badly, I walked home. I thought, at the time, my jogging days were finished. But the knee healed and I began jogging. The only trouble was a bony protrusion on the inside of my knee if I did any fast dancing.
A couple years later, living in Santa Rosa, the knee got so bad that when I walked, it felt as if there was no more than a tendon holding my calf to my thigh. So I began lifting free weights as a primary athletic activity. Years previously, while lifting with Willie Wagner, I read a magazine article by Sergio Oliva which pointed out that if a person was restricted to one exercise, parallel thigh squats with heavy weight was best. I concentrated on this exercise as a lung expander (breath in on the way down and push it out on the way up). Soon, my knees seemed to strengthen and I resumed running.
Decades later, while in Maui, eating large and lifting little, I blew out my left knee. It took three years to recoup, mostly by long walks and a new lifting method. The bar I use is a vertical grip type. With 40 lbs. of iron, I do twelve exercises times ten reps, without putting the bar down: front grip squats, straight leg rowing (lowering the weight each rep until the iron touches the floor, seated triceps extensions, standing curls, seated presses, wide grip (bar behind neck) squats, behind neck seated presses, wide grip curls, wide grip front press. Then I put down the bar, lie flat and do 100 elbow to knee crunches, followed by vertical grip triceps extensions behind my head and ten reps to forehead level. I finish with ten full sit-ups and ten push-ups. That's one set. I always do one. Two is better and three is a real workout. I lift every other day, after a cup of green tea and prior to anything else. On the other days, I do a ninety minute run. I've been running pain-free for about ten years. There is little doubt in my mind, that the front grip and behind the neck squats is necessary for keeping the knees in shape.
If I'd had the wherewithal or or medical insurance, I would have had my knees 'scoped years ago. But I didn't and I'm glad. Unless one is a professional athlete, the rehab from arthroscopic surgery seldom restores full knee recovery. Pros are pushed to push past the discomfort which most citizens can't suffer through.
If you eat no bread you don't bake, you are on the way to fitness. Jesus said man can not live by bread alone, said nothing about living without bread. Man needs bread in his diet. Once you've eaten your own fresh from the oven still steaming,with the pats of butter still melting, nothing else comes close to being real bread.
In California, I once had a crock pot on for months. I was houseman to two chicks. Here's a lesson I had to learn even though I had an example before my early eyes. No matter the combination, i.e. sister/sister, sister/mother, mother/wife, wife/sister-in-law, sister/daughter, wife/daughter...no man has any chance when his viewpoint is challenged by any two women. It is useless, say it once, shut up, listen.
Buy a crock pot. Cover the bottom with pound of dry beans and fill it up with water. Put the lid on and turn it up to high. Leave it until you notice the smell. Next day, dip out a bean and see if you can masticate it. Turn the dial to low.
With a pot of beans on heat, you have something to eat. All the time. Anytime. In a bowl with salt and pepper. Plus your bread. You could live on it. But the bean base is only a beginning. A crock pot will not boil over or burn. As long as there is liquid, anything which makes soup in your mind may be added to the pot. Tomatoes are necessary in our diet. Pizza is not the best way to get your daily requirement of tomatoes. Put tomato in your pot. Sauce is easy and inexpensive. Any vegetable you can name can go into the pot. Give it time and it will cook to the consistency you prefer.
There are numerous types of dry beans. I once bought a half-bushel of soy beans from a grain elevator in Ohio to use in California. For years, those beans were the base for my crock pot ingredients. Nobody would have tried soy bean soup, so I always said it was vegetable/bean. Soy are the best beans for crock pot because they never cook to mushy. Try many: red, black, pink, speckled, gray or white. Split peas and lentils cook faster than beans so they may be added to thicken the mix. In the past, my crock pot was always hot. One time a downstairs neighbor brought frozen fillet mignon to my wife as a peace offering after she'd gone down to threaten his ass after he'd disturbed our sleep the night before. I sliced it into cubes and put it into the pot. The neighbor hood came by and asked what kind of soup I had. Steak. He spooned a chunk and began to chew. His eyes widened and he said, "It's really tender, man, like...?" "Crackers?" "Yeah, man, that meat is as soft as wet crackers."
Actually, over the years most of my carrots,onions, garlic, potatoes, etc. were fixed in the pot. Today, I am free enough to use it just for beans.
Beans can be prepared for anybody's taste. Homemade whole wheat toast is tasty to everybody. For the past couple of decades, my intake of food is mainly beans and greens. I eat all day long but have a morning meal after my run or lift (every other day.) Peanut butter and chicken or fish on whole wheat toast with hot tea. Later, I chop an apple, shred a carrot, crack an egg white into it, add pepper and cinnamon and nuke for four minutes.
99% of the bread I consume is my own. No commercial bread approaches the taste and feel of mine. I could take my loaves door-to-door for $5 per and be baking full-time. For decades, double-kneading has been my method. Just yesterday, I had to change, due to the fact I'd used more water than I had whole wheat flour. Tried some powdered milk and oat flour (oats in coffee grinder), but it was too wet to knead.
My recipe is so automatic, I just run an amount of hot tap water into a white plastic bowl. add some sugar and stir in two packets of dry yeast until it's dissolved and wait for the explosions. Depending on the humidity, each grain of yeast will expand in a burst until the water is covered with tan foam. Add flour, salt, oil, knead, allow to rise, knead and put into pans. My recipe is for four loaves, but I never replaced a broken glass one and now bake in two glass and one metal pan. My mixing bowl is from a $-store set of four lidded ones which are long gone, except for the largest. Imagine what you can do with a steel mixing bowl and matched set of loaf pans?
I have a friend who makes biscuits with wet dough. She takes self-rising white flour and works it into a watery ball between her fingers while flipping and adding more flour until she has a huge flat biscuit shape not sticking to her fingers. Baked on a greased sheet, they become large fluffy biscuits to keel over forever for. You have to see the procedure to appreciate it and when I tried it, the value became more evident. The only lesson from it, which I applied last night, was the "wet" factor. I ladled the mixture into well-greased pans, to half full. They doubled but were still runny when I put them into the 350-degree oven for 45 minutes. Turned oven off and let them coast for another 15 minutes. Nice flat-topped loaves with dynamite texture. Only hitch is the over-browned bottoms. Need pressure on the slice knife. Point is, I completely eliminated the kneading process and ended up with good loaves. Can't imagine doing it on purpose, though.
Most dudes don't get to savor bachelorhood early enough in life to appreciate the style. In the first place, getting a place one can handle alone grows ever more difficult. Looking for a mate who cooks like you're used to, i.e. modeled after your mother's, is probably useless. As well as less nutritious.
A bachelor crib should be the place you eat food you fix. Anything else is paying someone to prepare food which makes a profit. You pay for the food and the profit. Free food will put money in your account immediately. Homemade food is the next best way save big bucks. You try my diet, exclusively, and you will increase your muscle mass and monetary worth.
Anybody can sing The Anthem, Jimi made The Anthem sing.
Soon, my greens will be from the yard. Free food. Dock, polk and dandelion. Broccoli is the green I use most. Cabbage is a less expensive route. My skillet base is garlic (halved) and onions slightly fried in soy (nearly all "vegetable") oil. Sometimes I use olive. I add some sprinkles of soy sauce, put on the lid and turn down the heat.
I take the flowers first, slice them into a shred, put them into the skillet and stir. Ladle in the beans from crock pot. Add cooked chicken, salmon or tuna. Stir again. Cover with Parmesan cheese and put the lid on. After it is thoroughly heated, it is ready to eat. Many times, I've eaten the whole thing. The broccoli shreds have the consistency of creamed hamburger. Any herb or spice you like may be added anytime. The ones you like most should probably go in late during the process.
Beans and greens every day. Whole wheat home-bread every day.
Turnip, spinach, chard, collard, kale, mustard; all greens.
Apples and carrots are daily necessities. Each one every day.
The only way I can avoid sweets is to not have them in my food budget. I don't bring them home. The only sugar in my house is granulated. The only chocolate in my house is cocoa powder. I use butter. No fat powdered milk. I use eggs (whites only). To allay a total sweet need, I eat a teaspoon of sugar. Not enough? Add some powdered milk and cocoa. Half-cup mixed and eaten dry will slowly satisfy any sweet root.
Not long ago, I ordered thirty-five lbs. of peanut butter from Groeb Farms in Orsted MI because there were no "peanuts only" jars within walking distance. I kept it in the space above the veggie drawer. Today, I have a choice of Kroger, Krema and Smuckers. Anything other than 100% peanuts is imitation peanut butter. If you require the sugar and fat in this stuff, you must not be getting it from other food, which is highly unlikely. If it is commercially prepared, it is sugar and salt and fat filled. These are the flavors we enjoy.
"I really like fried eggs and bacon." Of course, you do. In fact, it should be a meal savored once or twice a year, instead of a steady diet just because you "love the taste."
Meat has to be killed to be consumed. The act of being killed releases all manner of toxins into the carcass. The next link in the chain is us, so these virulent microbes enter the meat eater. The more meat, the more poison. It will shorten a lifespan. Meat eaters are warriors, chance-takers, quick tempered, fearless, designed to live more intense lives and die early. Archie Moore said one of his secrets for weight control was to not swallow the meat. If one chews out the flavor and spits out the rest, it eliminates the end result which is the difficulty of digesting and defecating meat.
How you move your bowels is for more important than how you fill you stomach. Here's a lesson, watch the nearest animal mammal you can observe. No matter if nocturnal or night sleeper, the first thing it does upon awakening is take a dump. It doesn't look for something to drink or eat to awaken fully. It takes a short walk to a space to mark a claim..
This could set a mood
Which could start a feud
But I present these facts
About dogs and cats.
My feline buries her waste
With diligent care, no haste.
Your dog, on the other hand,
And it's obvious throughout the land,
Leaves his above ground in bad taste.
Before you get much older, it is necessary to train your intake and elimination of food. It should become as natural as breathing and heart beats. For me, the most natural intake of nourishment for natural movements is vegetable matter. A diet of meat may be alright for certain mammals designed as carnivores because they have to work so hard to obtain food. It has to come in gulps and stay in the system for the time between kills. When the kills stop, lifespan ends. If you are living to die, anxious to fly crash and burn, just for the memories, then your bag is meat. Plus chokes, liquor and lack of sleep. The strain of just pinching a loaf could very well kill you.
Take half a can of tuna and stir it into a couple egg whites. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and pepper. 'wave for 2-3 minutes and sandwich between slices of toasted bread. Cup of green tea. Total time can be cut to 3:33 if the cup of tea water is nuked at the same time.
I seldom drink tea without a spoon or two of powdered milk and teaspoon tip of cocoa powder. Anything made with water can serve as our daily requirement of water. Sugar water (all of the soft drinks) may keep us from dehydrating but it won't keep us from amplification. The most water I consume at one time is during a shower. Warm water is best for the sluice to our insides.
Have to admit the "batter" loaves seemed worth attempting again. Still whole wheat flour, still yeast rise. The time savings is substantial. Have three pans rising right now. This recipe is too simple to ignore. Going through the "double rise" method may be something I used to do.
My beans are black with split peas and brown rice. Stir-fried with garlic, onions and broccoli florets, sprinkled with Parmesan cheese; too good.
Baked a double-rise recipe and can't believe I was enamored by that batter bread. No comparison. That little side-step induces me to finish this up. The male prostate continues to grow, just like your nose. In time, it will intrude on elimination. Piss stream begins to flow more slowly and turd gets a curb to climb over. The longer you last the more pronounced, no matter what else happens. As long as you can get it up and get it off, prostate is happy but still growing and waiting for you to get old and slow down. Most of us slow down long before the old part. Whatever "old" is to you. No matter, beans and greens.
You have to do something every day. As Easy Beans expounded enthusiastically:
Something that you do every day.
Something.
Just something that you do.
Having a dog that jumps
Into the ocean.
You gotta do something cool!
All year long, I jog for ninety-minutes or lift weights for at least one set, every other day.
Most any larger lidded skillet will hold a chicken in an inch or so of water. Cook it out of its skin, fat and bones. Separate the lean and give all the rest to the dog. Use the clear broth in the crock pot. The white and dark meat is ready for sandwiches or beans and greens. For variety, I use canned tuna or salmon.
I always remember a guy telling me about not having enough iron in his blood to donate. The nurse told him to go home and eat a handful of raisins. He did, came back and was able to give a pint. I eat a handful every day. Plus almonds, pecans or walnuts.
The only known aphrodisiac is oats. Water, salt, dry milk, quick oats, two-minutes in 'wave. There is nothing special about one rolled oat from another. Generic is the same as Quaker. I use oat-soaked water as a pre-lift drink.
If you run (jog) for any number of years, it is likely you will have some knee problems. In Eureka , California, in 1979, my right knee pained so badly, I walked home. I thought, at the time, my jogging days were finished. But the knee healed and I began jogging. The only trouble was a bony protrusion on the inside of my knee if I did any fast dancing.
A couple years later, living in Santa Rosa, the knee got so bad that when I walked, it felt as if there was no more than a tendon holding my calf to my thigh. So I began lifting free weights as a primary athletic activity. Years previously, while lifting with Willie Wagner, I read a magazine article by Sergio Oliva which pointed out that if a person was restricted to one exercise, parallel thigh squats with heavy weight was best. I concentrated on this exercise as a lung expander (breath in on the way down and push it out on the way up). Soon, my knees seemed to strengthen and I resumed running.
Decades later, while in Maui, eating large and lifting little, I blew out my left knee. It took three years to recoup, mostly by long walks and a new lifting method. The bar I use is a vertical grip type. With 40 lbs. of iron, I do twelve exercises times ten reps, without putting the bar down: front grip squats, straight leg rowing (lowering the weight each rep until the iron touches the floor, seated triceps extensions, standing curls, seated presses, wide grip (bar behind neck) squats, behind neck seated presses, wide grip curls, wide grip front press. Then I put down the bar, lie flat and do 100 elbow to knee crunches, followed by vertical grip triceps extensions behind my head and ten reps to forehead level. I finish with ten full sit-ups and ten push-ups. That's one set. I always do one. Two is better and three is a real workout. I lift every other day, after a cup of green tea and prior to anything else. On the other days, I do a ninety minute run. I've been running pain-free for about ten years. There is little doubt in my mind, that the front grip and behind the neck squats is necessary for keeping the knees in shape.
If I'd had the wherewithal or or medical insurance, I would have had my knees 'scoped years ago. But I didn't and I'm glad. Unless one is a professional athlete, the rehab from arthroscopic surgery seldom restores full knee recovery. Pros are pushed to push past the discomfort which most citizens can't suffer through.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Hooks and lines, fishing for rhymes
God doesn't strike people down for bad stuff they've done or may do. God doesn't have the time to squash your chintzy ass; there's a universe out there to get good lambs through.
I suppose it looked like I was a tad wild in that '78 "Hummingbird" with the tumbleweed buckled in on the passenger side.
Feel that drumming in your head?
Proves you don't know when to stop.
Downed all that suds instead;
Now you curse the brew of barley and hops.
The way you primp and preen
From a distance rarely seen
(By whomever it is for)
In the inches from your mirror.
Ignorance drives evolution. With no evolution, humankind would have remained as ignorant as the oldest generation. The ignorance of our forebears proves evolution.
You poured more hurt into my heart than it can hold, then you broke it open.
I'll tear your picture into such tiny pieces the worms will get some good from it by eating it into compost.
Lay my pall with a long song I never heard, I want to finish all the ones I know.
An exquisitively beautiful butterfly will extract nourishing sugars from sun-drenched flowers, urine-soaked sand or a damp dog turd.
I cried like this, one time, and you caved.
Said, "OK, I'll marry you to prove my love."
You can't cave, this time.
I cry because you've died.
Early grieving is most intense.
Long-time grieving makes no sense.
You can bury every female except your widow.
Alcohol stirred into testosterone is a vicious fizz.
It's raining on Christmas
The white is washing away
Colored lights are blinking drips
The kids are in to stay!
Miracles are neither nonchalant nor easy, except for human fertilization.
Parent trying to spoil their kid into submission.."Here's the money, don't forget where it came from."
Here's what I betcha, take it to the banker, don't let 'em ketcha getting old.
You can't come close to preventing aging. It will creep and crawl all over you and before you know it, you're old.
The sounds of the war chords keep drumming. It is human, we can't stop the tune. In the past, present and future, we never leave well enough alone.
You had a way, and I'm sure you still do, of stealing a heart before it could start anew.
...creeping and peeking around in the garage as if something's about to jump out.
It's not all free time, no matter the work or fun, you gotta run.
You can go home, again. But you may have a battle if you intend to stay.
A pain a day
Is the pay
For age.
Hooray!
My direction never seemed for certain and I never travelled at the same pace...
I only remember the sun coming up over my backside and setting on my face.
When the Tallyman comes to tally, you can face up straight or jump into an alley.
Doesn't matter, no right or wrong, lyrics all end in the Tallyman Song.
Got on my knees for the Mine Mistress.
That's what she required.
Wore my 'caps away while praying
And prying loose her diamonds
To be hauled away and fired.
Went to work before full light
In the deep ever-darkness.
Came home to near sunset
With face blackened starkness.
I should give that old red suitcase away. Won't be packing anytime soon. Or today.
Wish I had a Bobby McGee to hitchhike with me
To thumb down diesels and play and sing.
Instead, I'm alone on a soul-bustin' walk
Feeling the sadness of a screaming hawk.
I've had some that was good but never as good as you could.
Guess I need a shove to love you again.
If she wanted me, she'd have me, her love, alone, would have kept me around.
I lied alot when I told you I love you.
It wasn't from the bottom of my heart.
I told you what you wanted to hear,
Now that telling you is tearing me apart.
I'd rather have one chick fighting for me than ten chicks fighting over me.
You folded my heart into an envelope and posted it to nowhere.
You can push me to the edge of emotion but you can't make me fall into love.
Missed alot of studio time, this morning, singing in the shower.
Missed signing my name for all the fans, hour after hour.
Been trying to think how long its been since I quit thinking of you;
How long since I counted weeks and months and cried away each day through?
Before you are cold, people will forget, their lives will go on before you are stiff.
When you know the sound of the freighters on the Panama and the scurry of rats on the muddy creek bank
7Oct87 - still in limbo and on hold for steep stoop east
9Oct87 - sit around day, reading LENNON and watching Giants lose game #3
10Oct87 - Rog calls - Florida job uncertain - going to work on 12th, same day I leave CA
14Oct87 - Giants lose in seven games - St Louis/Minnesota in series
15Oct87 - Unrelenting, unrepentant bitch - a long waist to go before we sleep - making love makes it difficult to recall the uneasy times
18Oct87 -- headed east to NJ from CA
19Oct87 - side by side with a red Prelude at 80 mph ("How fast you going?") the couple looks up and freaks, I back off
As expensive as Nevada
20Oct87 - On I-80, just prior to 220 mile marker, the 1962 Olds Cutlass F-85 turns 100,000 miles
21Oct87 - Stayed at John and Marker's. Moe and Sandy asked about Pieffs (not since my wife). Saw Joe and Marie. Peanut butter, gov't cheese, home-baked whole wheat bread
22Oct87 HaWK and Elsee land in Roosevelt about 3 am.
I look for the bad in you while hoping there's some good in me,
Eliminating the vile bile that plasters over a pleasant smile.
Love can't last that comes too fast,
Hold me, let me slowly fall in love.
Are my eyes betraying what I'm saying?
I can't finance this romance anymore.
11-1-11
My favorite mother-in-law was Emma
She was understanding and tried to know me.
To the end she was friendly,
Writing notes on cards
Lamenting the energy required.
In answers, I covered old ground sans guard.
The rock era is over, I heard it on the BBC.
I heard it first on WLAC.
We'd sit on Gobbler's Knob
Hearing our first rhythm and blues grooves,
Then digging a country crooner who made it all move.
You'll get over it or it will put you under.
Forget the lightening strike, enjoy the thunder rumble.
You are not going to die, stop hoping for something bad to end the burn.
Thousands, millions of lovers before you, have survived to return.
You think you are the only one in the entire world who feels as badly as you?
Well, multiply it by ten and begin to pretend how real pain sufferers get through.
I've been in love lots of ways, that is to say with many girls and dames.
Some not long enough to have to fall out,
A few so deeply that I still think about.
One best thing about old age is you get more time to complete projects and time to begin a new one.
When we review scenes in our minds which picture times of our parents, and times as a parent, it becomes apparent, we sound like them.
No family has to go too far back to find a crazy. - Pat Conroy
Intensity is a strain to maintain
When it wains the gains switch to another.
It determines success
Or momentum shifts
Intensity is a mother.
Patriotic Rhetoric
Thank you for your service, for joining the force to fight.
Thank you for the sacrifice of limbs, minds or sight.
We really do appreciate it, but dying is never right.
Half a century ago a marriage ceremony took place on a bright sun, mild, Valentine's Day. The groom wore Air Force blues with black bow tie, white gloves and a white carnation. The bride wore a white gown with tiara and veil. She carried a spray of red roses.
People propose on Valentine's Day. People plead with sweets on Valentine's Day. An Anniversary on Valentine's Day is similar to the feeling of having a birthday on a major holiday. But fifty years later, I remember only the Valentine's Day kind of stuff.
I'm a thousand watts dimmer than sad.
I know it sounds pretty rad,
She turned out the lights in my head.
I suppose it looked like I was a tad wild in that '78 "Hummingbird" with the tumbleweed buckled in on the passenger side.
Feel that drumming in your head?
Proves you don't know when to stop.
Downed all that suds instead;
Now you curse the brew of barley and hops.
The way you primp and preen
From a distance rarely seen
(By whomever it is for)
In the inches from your mirror.
Ignorance drives evolution. With no evolution, humankind would have remained as ignorant as the oldest generation. The ignorance of our forebears proves evolution.
You poured more hurt into my heart than it can hold, then you broke it open.
I'll tear your picture into such tiny pieces the worms will get some good from it by eating it into compost.
Lay my pall with a long song I never heard, I want to finish all the ones I know.
An exquisitively beautiful butterfly will extract nourishing sugars from sun-drenched flowers, urine-soaked sand or a damp dog turd.
I cried like this, one time, and you caved.
Said, "OK, I'll marry you to prove my love."
You can't cave, this time.
I cry because you've died.
Early grieving is most intense.
Long-time grieving makes no sense.
You can bury every female except your widow.
Alcohol stirred into testosterone is a vicious fizz.
It's raining on Christmas
The white is washing away
Colored lights are blinking drips
The kids are in to stay!
Miracles are neither nonchalant nor easy, except for human fertilization.
Parent trying to spoil their kid into submission.."Here's the money, don't forget where it came from."
Here's what I betcha, take it to the banker, don't let 'em ketcha getting old.
You can't come close to preventing aging. It will creep and crawl all over you and before you know it, you're old.
The sounds of the war chords keep drumming. It is human, we can't stop the tune. In the past, present and future, we never leave well enough alone.
You had a way, and I'm sure you still do, of stealing a heart before it could start anew.
...creeping and peeking around in the garage as if something's about to jump out.
It's not all free time, no matter the work or fun, you gotta run.
You can go home, again. But you may have a battle if you intend to stay.
A pain a day
Is the pay
For age.
Hooray!
My direction never seemed for certain and I never travelled at the same pace...
I only remember the sun coming up over my backside and setting on my face.
When the Tallyman comes to tally, you can face up straight or jump into an alley.
Doesn't matter, no right or wrong, lyrics all end in the Tallyman Song.
Got on my knees for the Mine Mistress.
That's what she required.
Wore my 'caps away while praying
And prying loose her diamonds
To be hauled away and fired.
Went to work before full light
In the deep ever-darkness.
Came home to near sunset
With face blackened starkness.
I should give that old red suitcase away. Won't be packing anytime soon. Or today.
Wish I had a Bobby McGee to hitchhike with me
To thumb down diesels and play and sing.
Instead, I'm alone on a soul-bustin' walk
Feeling the sadness of a screaming hawk.
I've had some that was good but never as good as you could.
Guess I need a shove to love you again.
If she wanted me, she'd have me, her love, alone, would have kept me around.
I lied alot when I told you I love you.
It wasn't from the bottom of my heart.
I told you what you wanted to hear,
Now that telling you is tearing me apart.
I'd rather have one chick fighting for me than ten chicks fighting over me.
You folded my heart into an envelope and posted it to nowhere.
You can push me to the edge of emotion but you can't make me fall into love.
Missed alot of studio time, this morning, singing in the shower.
Missed signing my name for all the fans, hour after hour.
Been trying to think how long its been since I quit thinking of you;
How long since I counted weeks and months and cried away each day through?
Before you are cold, people will forget, their lives will go on before you are stiff.
When you know the sound of the freighters on the Panama and the scurry of rats on the muddy creek bank
7Oct87 - still in limbo and on hold for steep stoop east
9Oct87 - sit around day, reading LENNON and watching Giants lose game #3
10Oct87 - Rog calls - Florida job uncertain - going to work on 12th, same day I leave CA
14Oct87 - Giants lose in seven games - St Louis/Minnesota in series
15Oct87 - Unrelenting, unrepentant bitch - a long waist to go before we sleep - making love makes it difficult to recall the uneasy times
18Oct87 -- headed east to NJ from CA
19Oct87 - side by side with a red Prelude at 80 mph ("How fast you going?") the couple looks up and freaks, I back off
As expensive as Nevada
20Oct87 - On I-80, just prior to 220 mile marker, the 1962 Olds Cutlass F-85 turns 100,000 miles
21Oct87 - Stayed at John and Marker's. Moe and Sandy asked about Pieffs (not since my wife). Saw Joe and Marie. Peanut butter, gov't cheese, home-baked whole wheat bread
22Oct87 HaWK and Elsee land in Roosevelt about 3 am.
I look for the bad in you while hoping there's some good in me,
Eliminating the vile bile that plasters over a pleasant smile.
Love can't last that comes too fast,
Hold me, let me slowly fall in love.
Are my eyes betraying what I'm saying?
I can't finance this romance anymore.
11-1-11
My favorite mother-in-law was Emma
She was understanding and tried to know me.
To the end she was friendly,
Writing notes on cards
Lamenting the energy required.
In answers, I covered old ground sans guard.
The rock era is over, I heard it on the BBC.
I heard it first on WLAC.
We'd sit on Gobbler's Knob
Hearing our first rhythm and blues grooves,
Then digging a country crooner who made it all move.
You'll get over it or it will put you under.
Forget the lightening strike, enjoy the thunder rumble.
You are not going to die, stop hoping for something bad to end the burn.
Thousands, millions of lovers before you, have survived to return.
You think you are the only one in the entire world who feels as badly as you?
Well, multiply it by ten and begin to pretend how real pain sufferers get through.
I've been in love lots of ways, that is to say with many girls and dames.
Some not long enough to have to fall out,
A few so deeply that I still think about.
One best thing about old age is you get more time to complete projects and time to begin a new one.
When we review scenes in our minds which picture times of our parents, and times as a parent, it becomes apparent, we sound like them.
No family has to go too far back to find a crazy. - Pat Conroy
Intensity is a strain to maintain
When it wains the gains switch to another.
It determines success
Or momentum shifts
Intensity is a mother.
Patriotic Rhetoric
Thank you for your service, for joining the force to fight.
Thank you for the sacrifice of limbs, minds or sight.
We really do appreciate it, but dying is never right.
Half a century ago a marriage ceremony took place on a bright sun, mild, Valentine's Day. The groom wore Air Force blues with black bow tie, white gloves and a white carnation. The bride wore a white gown with tiara and veil. She carried a spray of red roses.
People propose on Valentine's Day. People plead with sweets on Valentine's Day. An Anniversary on Valentine's Day is similar to the feeling of having a birthday on a major holiday. But fifty years later, I remember only the Valentine's Day kind of stuff.
I'm a thousand watts dimmer than sad.
I know it sounds pretty rad,
She turned out the lights in my head.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
The Sweet Baboo
Sally called Charlie Brown her Sweet Baboo, but Charlie was enamored of the Pretty Little Redhead. I composited the strip and called my little redhead The Sweet Baboo. She was a tall redhead and did not like the Sweet Baboo moniker. Her name was Babette and everybody called her Bobette. Her mother called her Bobbie. F.L. called her Bob. Kerry called her Bu-bette. But Bobette was most common for her. I called her Bette from the get-go. I was never so infatuated with a female. Ever, and I'd been through two marriages. And no woman ever infuriated me more. For ten years I forced the direction our lives took.
For me, it totally alienated me from all my blood family. For her it was recovering from a total rejection by a lover who put her on a plane back to the states after she'd spent three years of a blissful life on a military base on Oahu. Back to the husband and son she'd abandoned as the boy was about to graduate high school. Back to Ohio hills from Hawaii night clubs. Back to the mother she'd left in a nursing home. She was bummed to thoughts of suicide. I was jobless, homeless and penniless. And nine years older. She was forty-three and had been working with a thigh master for months while passing as thirty-five. Five-feet ten carrying 115 lbs. Our ages always add up to the same sum. I was fifty-two. We were jealous and accusitory, but she had tons of acquaintances and I was no prodigal son, living with my mother. She was living with a girlfriend who had two teenage sons, walking distance from mom's.
For the past ten years we battled less, and began a more supportive relationship. We traded thoughts about our children, which we knew they'd never hear and she called me more than anybody else and I was glad to listen and add a little. I tried to make her laugh. She stopped by alot and hired me for every handyman job, even though her ex-husband was her landlord. I cleaned her house and changed all the venetian blinds for new ones on the 27th of Oct. The last time I saw her, she was leaving after her live-in boyfriend had dropped off me and my Sears Powermate. She died of a heart attack on Nov 1, three months after my first ex-wife died. I had a longer personal relationship with her than I had with either of my official ex-wives. So I very much consider that I've lost another x. I'm back to Max (with one x).
During the first eight years I knew her, Bette sent more drugs through her system than any other one person still living. For the three years before I met her, she was mostly drug-free, except for pot and the occasional parcel of coke she had sent to her from the mainland. When I met her, her drug of choice was "pills." She'd free-based cocaine and knew how to cook it down. I was a strict t'ic, no chemicals. No lab candy. Just marijuana. She was into weed but more as a "best stuff" dealer. I'd carried that title in the past.
After we moved in together, my knowledge of her intake was limited, since I never cared to share any. She was getting 'scripts for her mental disability which was also providing a monthly check. Then cocaine came already cooked to a solid, smokable form. Bette got hooked quickly. Latched on to a nickle-dime dealer who collected in advance from as many people as he could and drove to the black hood, thirty-five miles away to score. Bette had been married to a brother from that area, so she was always welcomed. She was soon tethered to crack. All acquaintances were doing it, old and new. I was doing it with her but I refused to kick down for the shit. She would beg up on fifty, or so, when it was being done in our apartment. It jacked up my testosterone and dampened her libido. I hated the shit. Plus, to come down way late in the early morning, she'd smoke into our stash of ganja. She would hide in the kitchen closet when really geekin' out. It was every five days, then every three, and finally all the time.
I had to leave, moved back in with mom, got a job, bought a house and got a new girlfriend.
At one point, we were planning marriage. But Bette was always in the background.
For about five years, or so, Bette has been my only female visitor. She confided she has been doing more drugs than ever before because her live-in has retirement and Vietnam checks totalling $6000 per month and it all goes for crack, powder cocaine, oxycodone, percocet, etc.
It was a killing recipe for a woman of sixty-three who had ballooned to near 200 lbs. and had no mind to do much of anything else but hit the stem or crush and snort. She was truly miserable and had no life. The holidays were coming and she hated them, especially after her mother died. The Sweet Baboo's death was no disguise, it was a blessing.
I mourn alone, again.
For me, it totally alienated me from all my blood family. For her it was recovering from a total rejection by a lover who put her on a plane back to the states after she'd spent three years of a blissful life on a military base on Oahu. Back to the husband and son she'd abandoned as the boy was about to graduate high school. Back to Ohio hills from Hawaii night clubs. Back to the mother she'd left in a nursing home. She was bummed to thoughts of suicide. I was jobless, homeless and penniless. And nine years older. She was forty-three and had been working with a thigh master for months while passing as thirty-five. Five-feet ten carrying 115 lbs. Our ages always add up to the same sum. I was fifty-two. We were jealous and accusitory, but she had tons of acquaintances and I was no prodigal son, living with my mother. She was living with a girlfriend who had two teenage sons, walking distance from mom's.
For the past ten years we battled less, and began a more supportive relationship. We traded thoughts about our children, which we knew they'd never hear and she called me more than anybody else and I was glad to listen and add a little. I tried to make her laugh. She stopped by alot and hired me for every handyman job, even though her ex-husband was her landlord. I cleaned her house and changed all the venetian blinds for new ones on the 27th of Oct. The last time I saw her, she was leaving after her live-in boyfriend had dropped off me and my Sears Powermate. She died of a heart attack on Nov 1, three months after my first ex-wife died. I had a longer personal relationship with her than I had with either of my official ex-wives. So I very much consider that I've lost another x. I'm back to Max (with one x).
During the first eight years I knew her, Bette sent more drugs through her system than any other one person still living. For the three years before I met her, she was mostly drug-free, except for pot and the occasional parcel of coke she had sent to her from the mainland. When I met her, her drug of choice was "pills." She'd free-based cocaine and knew how to cook it down. I was a strict t'ic, no chemicals. No lab candy. Just marijuana. She was into weed but more as a "best stuff" dealer. I'd carried that title in the past.
After we moved in together, my knowledge of her intake was limited, since I never cared to share any. She was getting 'scripts for her mental disability which was also providing a monthly check. Then cocaine came already cooked to a solid, smokable form. Bette got hooked quickly. Latched on to a nickle-dime dealer who collected in advance from as many people as he could and drove to the black hood, thirty-five miles away to score. Bette had been married to a brother from that area, so she was always welcomed. She was soon tethered to crack. All acquaintances were doing it, old and new. I was doing it with her but I refused to kick down for the shit. She would beg up on fifty, or so, when it was being done in our apartment. It jacked up my testosterone and dampened her libido. I hated the shit. Plus, to come down way late in the early morning, she'd smoke into our stash of ganja. She would hide in the kitchen closet when really geekin' out. It was every five days, then every three, and finally all the time.
I had to leave, moved back in with mom, got a job, bought a house and got a new girlfriend.
At one point, we were planning marriage. But Bette was always in the background.
For about five years, or so, Bette has been my only female visitor. She confided she has been doing more drugs than ever before because her live-in has retirement and Vietnam checks totalling $6000 per month and it all goes for crack, powder cocaine, oxycodone, percocet, etc.
It was a killing recipe for a woman of sixty-three who had ballooned to near 200 lbs. and had no mind to do much of anything else but hit the stem or crush and snort. She was truly miserable and had no life. The holidays were coming and she hated them, especially after her mother died. The Sweet Baboo's death was no disguise, it was a blessing.
I mourn alone, again.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Anita Brewer
There was a decade when the most listened to music was easy to understand, easy on the ears and easy on the mind. When the Hit Parade hit TV, the entire nation was tuned in to the Top 10. Then rock and roll happened. Lyrics had to be interpreted. Bass guitars through house-sized speakers made hearing mechanisms bleed. Music began to draw dividing lines in age-group psyches.
Seventy-year old people were teens when the change came. Most felt the evolution via Elvis but a few of us had already been exposed to a WLAC-Nashville station which played the true crossover rhythm and blues to rock, by artists on labels which had to be ordered through the mail to play on our 45's. It was in the late hours after the girls had to be in that we'd pick up the strongest signal from our southeast Ohio vantage. After a few beers and fighting sleep, we'd be zapped to attention behind the new beat coming through those car speakers on a high hilltop.
We knew who Presley was imitating and why he was wigging-out white audiences of carried away chicks.
Folks born in the late 1930's sang in grade school. In my third grade, the teacher would move us to the auditorium for a sing-off. Individuals would stand on the stage and sing. The class would vote the best of the final two.
Anita sang ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT in a sweet soprano that topped us all. But I was voted best. Probably due to my show-off attitude versus her seriousness.
Seventy-year old people were teens when the change came. Most felt the evolution via Elvis but a few of us had already been exposed to a WLAC-Nashville station which played the true crossover rhythm and blues to rock, by artists on labels which had to be ordered through the mail to play on our 45's. It was in the late hours after the girls had to be in that we'd pick up the strongest signal from our southeast Ohio vantage. After a few beers and fighting sleep, we'd be zapped to attention behind the new beat coming through those car speakers on a high hilltop.
We knew who Presley was imitating and why he was wigging-out white audiences of carried away chicks.
Folks born in the late 1930's sang in grade school. In my third grade, the teacher would move us to the auditorium for a sing-off. Individuals would stand on the stage and sing. The class would vote the best of the final two.
Anita sang ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT in a sweet soprano that topped us all. But I was voted best. Probably due to my show-off attitude versus her seriousness.
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