Tag: life

Tuesday’s Theme Music

On the Oregon coast for today, Tuesday, August 17, 2021. Sunrise was at 6:20 AM. Sunset is at 8:09 PM.

Cool, here. Rained this morning. Ahhh. Rain and coffee. Is there a song for that? We expect a high of 64 degrees F. Brilliant, walking along in the cool, fresh air, going to a coffee shop in the early hours while the sun is still clearing its eyes behind a bank of clouds. Going into a funky coffee shop. Fantastic art by local artists on the walls. Fresh coffee. Fresh pastries. Fortunate to enjoy such things.

Back home, the woman staying in our house and taking care of the three amigos told us the smoke blew away after we left town. Yes, we’re taking it personally. The heat dome wandered on. Temperatures dropped by twenty degrees. Yes, we’re taking it personally.

Talking with friends about their lives, medicines, treatments, and ailments. Friend visited Pompei back in the mid seventies. I’m listening to the Bangles’ cover of “Hazy Shade of Winter” in my head. You know, “Time, time, time, see what you’ve done to me. While I looked around for my possibilities. I was so hard to please. Look around. Leaves are brown. And the sky is a hazy shade of winter.” It’s another terrific Simon & Garfunkel composition. Paul and Art released the original in 1966. The Bangles did their bang up in 1987. Here I am, thirty plus years later, listening via technology’s assistance. Do you have a preference between these two versions, or another?

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, get the vax. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Directions

Toilet’s clogged

And your mind is bummed

The cat’s been sick

And you’re feeling a little strung

Out

This is the way

Of life today

If it’s not one thing

It’s another damn thing

Taking you

Down

You try to cope

With a little caffeine

Maybe some wine

To help you make

The scene

But the way you see it

Everything is really fucked

Up

So you vow for change

And make it work

Then you clash

With some guy who’s an asshole jerk

And you decide the best you can do is stay

In

It’s like water

Going down the drain

All this stuff

You’re starting to feel

Insane

But what else are you going to

Do?

But that was then

And this is now

So you tell yourself

With another vow

I’m gonna make it like

Mary Tyler

Moore

And you start again

Like it’s fresh and new

As the little drops

Of morning dew

And you hope that someone

Doesn’t try to screw

You

It’s just a week

Another month

Another year

Of stumbling on

But one of these days

It’s gonna be

Different

You know that in your heart

Of hearts

Or maybe that’s gas

And you just need to fart

Who knows what the hell is really going

On

So you work and play

And live another day

Trying to change

But it’s the same old way

Even though you say

Again and again

Enough

2

Inappropriate

They were ordering food. Take-away from an outdoor café. Burritos, wraps, and sandwiches. Fries, of course. Sodas. A hut where the cooking, storing, and sales transactions took place. White tables with red umbrellas surrounded the hut on a small pond of blazing white cement.

The food was ordered. Waiting commenced. Others were eating. It was outdoors. They wouldn’t eat there. They’d go home. A man and three boys were at one table. Food-focused, none looked up. Nobody spoke. Blonds. Crewcuts. Dad appeared to be in his mid thirties. The boys ranged from guesses that put them six to twelve.

Their ticket was called. He got up and collected their food. His wife joined them on their walk to the car.

“You see what happened behind you?” she asked.

“No.”

“Did you see the man and three boys a few tables over? The littlest one got up and walked over and peed behind your seat on the grass by the sidewalk.”

He gasped. “Did his father see that?”

“I think his father told him to.”

The man thought, he’d have to pass this on to Jill. Some see something as inappropriate, but to others, it’s fine.

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Sunday Setting

  1. The kale started growing again. We’d grown and harvested it. Well, my wife, really. I helped buy supplies. Provided extra hands as needed. The kale took off initially, then wilted under a combined attack – heat, insects, sun. Wife battled on, then clipped it back. Per her orders, I moved its planter off the patio. I put them in the bush’s shade. Matter of convenience. Surprise: the kale is back. Hasn’t been watered since harvest two plus weeks ago, so she began watering it. It seems to like that shady spot.
  2. Tomatoes are doing well. Great to go out and pluck tomatoes as required. Ditto, the squash. Romaine is all gone, though. Sad face.
  3. Did some wardrobe culling. My wife’s simplify switch suddenly turned on. Ergo, I am expected to participate. Out went five bags of clothing between her and me. Two bags of books. Book sellers aren’t buying. Those like Powell’s who buy wouldn’t accept these books. The books are too worn. A bag of shoes. Old blender.
  4. Culling is a serious matter. Embarrassing, too. How much do I need? Well, I’m sixty-five. Things have been acquired for different eras and their needs. Much of it is from my suit and marketing days. Yes, wore suits. Did trade shows. Visited customer sites. Also required for when I returned to company headquarters. That was my U.S. Surgical Days. I worked in California. Headquarters was in Connecticut. Tyco acquired us. Talk about a crazy time. Yeah, time to get rid of those shirts. The ties were already gone. I left Tyco in 1999. Still did marketing work after that for a period for another startup involved with coping with peripheral and coronary chronic total occlusions. It was going under so I went on to Network ICE in 2000, where suits were no longer required.
  5. Also departing my wardrobe were my jockstraps, sweat bands, and racquetball gloves. Haven’t played in two decades. There it all was, buried at the drawer’s bottom, waiting for daylight.
  6. Purged underwear, too. I had enough underwear, I found, to go without washing them for fifty days. Why so many? Well, a large number was undies which no longer fit. Good-bye, I told them. Blew them a kiss. Now I have enough for twenty days. Don’t judge me. I judge myself enough for all of us.
  7. Ten belts were surrendered. All leather. Browns, tans, blacks, burgundy. Tested first. I could see where I wore them. What holes were utilized. Usually the third or fourth. The test today was that the belt must reach at least the second hole. The results amazed me. I generally couldn’t get the tip to the buckle. I had no idea that leather would shrink so much. Only four belts now remain. Black, brown, fancy, and plain.
  8. Catching up on the wildfire news in the U.S. west. Bootleg Fire still burns. Sixty percent contained. 420,000 acres. Drought is spreading. Deepening. Lightning strikes are causing more fires. I turn to other world news. Move beyond the Olympics. Past the spiking — again — COVID-19 numbers. Past the tales of regretful vaccine hesitant folks who are woke after suffering themselves or losing someone close. On to Europe, where Italy, Greece, and Turkey are evacuating tourists due to wildfires. It’s a hot, hot, hot world, and it’s getting hotter.
  9. Absorbing how much floofitude is on exhibit by a cat’s encounter with a spider or cob web. We have loads of them. Webs, that is, not cats. Just have three cats. Probably have so many webs because we have a strict no-kill spider policy. It’s an unending chore cleaning webs out of corners and from ceilings, walls, patio, porch, and garage. Spiders love throwing up webs. I opened the living room patio door this morning. Stepped out. Breathed in. Considered the browning landscape. Then turned to return inside. Walked straight into a web. Some spider must have seen the door open and hurried a dragline across there.
  10. The cats have different reactions to webs. Papi, aka Youngblood, the Ginger Blade, and Meep, is the youngest and most graceful. When he encounters a web, he immediately backs away and goes around it. Boo, our large-size bedroom panther with the small velvet paws, hurries through the web while shaking his head. Tucker, the big black and white alpha cat, stops, shakes his head, washes, and then shoulders on. I’ve witnessed this several times over the months — seriously, the number of webs and how quickly they emerge staggers me — spiders are productive little critters — and I’m certain about my assessment on the cats’ behavior.
  11. Writing has been entertaining. Yes, that’s the term I’ll employ. Absorbing will work as well. I’ve gone surprising places with the story. Then pause as I think, oh, WTF, and ponder the direction. I keep telling myself, just get out of your own way, fool. Don’t overthink anything. Just write. That works. Just need to hurdle myself. An interesting noir style has emerged. So I have a science fiction mystery thriller noir going.
  12. Got my coffee. The day’s second cup. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time. Then I’ll go clean off spider webs. Cheers
2

Updated

Well, no avoiding it. Get it done. That had become her new motto. She had gotten it done for her husband. Children. Work. Now it was time for her to get it done for herself.

This, if anything, proved that she could not wait. COVID-19 had interrupted. Age was interrupting. Nature. No doubt. “Get it done.”

Coffee was first sipped. Comfort drink. And for fortitude. Then she pulled up Excel. Opened BucketList.exl. Found ZZ Top. She’d always wanted to see them. Her husband had seen them three times before dying. So when they’d been scheduled for the Britt Festival this year, she’d jumped all over it. Get it done.

Now the bassist was dead. Dusty Hill. Original. Sure ZZ Top would go on. But. Like Cream. She’d hoped to see them but Cream only had Clapton left. At least she’d seen the Beatles. Stones. Pink Floyd. Jethro Tull. Heart. Journey. Foreigner. All thanks to her husband. Get it done. Because time didn’t wait. She’d missed on The Who. Had put it off. Then. Moon was dead.

She would still go to the ZZ Top concert. Wouldn’t be the same. Just like with the Temptations. They’d done all the music but not with the members she’d known growing up.

It had not been the same.

0

Travails

Well, haven’t been writing. Not on paper. Or computer. Have been writing in my head.

My wife wanted (needed, she claims) a vacation. COVID-19, you know. Sheltering with me, you know. And the cats. She thought she was going a little crazy.

Her sister called. Hey, she and her boyfriend were coming west. His children (and his children’s children) live on the west coast. He hadn’t seen them for almost two years except on Zoom. So. Would we like to meet up in Seattle? The boyfriend’s son lives in Kent and the boyfriend lived in Seattle for years before retiring from Boeing. He can show us around.

Difficult for me. And yes, selfishly, I was thinking of me. I’m already a frustrated writer. Now I was being asked to travel and surrender more time. More energy. I’m quite jealous of my writing time, by choice. See, I wanted to pursue writing for a looonng time. But I was in the military. Traveling, writing on the side. My wife wanted me to stay in, get my pension. Smart financially. Good security. So I sucked it up and stayed in.

I was 39 when I retired from the military. The plan was that we would now move to somewhere where we could survive on my pension and write. But, she then got a job in advertising that she liked. Could we please stay there, in the SF Bay Area?

I was employed by startups, then was acquired by corporations. Made very good money along the way doing jobs that weren’t too hard. It all meant deferring my writing dream. I ended up staying with IBM for fifteen years after they acquired one of the companies I was at. Yes, good money but soul-sucking employment. No fun for me, for the most part. Some challenges but mostly tedium.

So, this is my state of mind. I am now sixty-five. I’ve been writing and reading, improving my writing and story-telling skills (or hope so, you know?), trying to get to know my muses and discover my voice. It’s a challenge. I love that challenge. COVID-19 was a serious interruption. Just as I felt that I was finally making substantial strides forward.

Writing the current novel-in-progress took me through the end of 2020 and into the start of 2021. I then discovered that I was trying to tell the story in the wrong way. So, recalibrated. Took all that previously written stuff as background work. And kept going, now on the right path.

It’s exciting. Then, vacation. Preparation for vacation. I’m not social. The vacation meant committing to being social. Delaying my writing efforts for another week. But what’s another week, right? Sure. Rationally, I reply, it’s just seven days or so. With writer’s angst, I tell you, it’s a painful and frustrating interruption. An unwanted interruption. The conversation with the muses was going well. I was having a good time. Who likes to stop a good time?

But I try to be a good husband and some kind of contributing member of society. So, the time was taken. The vacation done. Good for me? Sure. Aren’t I nice? You betcha.

Back in the writing seat today. Picking up those story strings that emerged as I was on a ship in Seattle, walking a street, driving the Interstate, observing a person, sipping coffee, gazing at a street scene, etc. You never know when they’ll come.

Got my coffee. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

Again.

0

Her Life

Her life. She had such a life. All centered on her children. Now. Had been different. Career. Charity work. Volunteering at the Guild and the Food Bank, delivering meals to shut-ins, meeting with the garden club and the book club.

All gone with her macular degeneration. Reducing her life to her children. No, her grandchildren. She and her daughter ‘did not get along’. Saw politics differently. Education. Fashion. Manners. Daughter blamed her for – “Whatever,” she usually explained, too limp to delve deeper into words and emotions, too worn to extricate and untangle the relationship to the satisfaction of anyone outside of it.

The grandchildren, though – twins. He, dyslexic. Energetic. Masculine but wary. She, in the forefront. Quick-minded, always watching, pausing to see. Cowboy boots – red – and sparkling tutus. She, ordering him on what to do, when to do it. How. Correcting him. He, obeying, sometimes with frustration, which the girl child – they were only eight, miniature people, perfect little unblemished slender human replicas – soothed with whispers and touches. She could not see their future. That worried her.

Then him. His life. No life. Writing. Living to write. Brooding, apparently writing in his head. Reading. Walking around, sipping coffee, staring at walls, floors, windows, always there but never there. Her son. She could no longer connect with him at all. He was a house that couldn’t be entered. Curtains on the windows. No doors in nor out.

Phone rang with an old-fashioned tinny sound reminding her of the happy times at her grandmother’s home. Her daughter was calling. She didn’t want to answer. Probably about money. Usually was, when she called. She put a smile into her voice. Shook off her weariness. Must not upset the princess lest she cut off access to the grandchildren. But she would not do that, would she?

Not a chance to be taken. “Hello, honey,” she said, fake happiness in her voice, pressing forward with her life.

0

Old Computer Dream

I’m at a work station. One those stands with a big tan CRT monitor on top, tower PC, keyboard on sliding tray. Something from the 1990s. Whole thing is just wide enough for the monitor. I’m one of many at such computer work stations. Large room. Wide and tall. I’m in the last row, on the end. Fourth one in line. This gives me space to my right. It’s open there and behind me.

Everyone is doing through thing. It’s a hubbub of clicking, clacking, talking, laughing. I’m doing my thing, reviewing files for a dead friend. The computer files on the screen on red. They fill the screen. When I print things out, the paper and folders are red. I suppose, when I’m wondering about the red while I’m dreaming, that the red is supposed to be symbolic of something. I don’t get it. Urgency? Warning? Don’t know. I’m also wondering why I’m going through folders about a dead guy. He’d been a friend but he died a while ago. My rational side intrudes: it’s your birthday. You’re sixty-five. Dead guy was a year older than you. Never lived to be sixty-five. Collect the dots.

Aha, dots probably collected. My wife is pestering me for specific information. This annoys me. She flits in to demand I look at something, sure that it’s important. I already looked and moved on while she wasn’t there. But she keeps coming back, asking to see specific files that I already read and closed.

Many others are behind me. Two women and a man are among them. The women are attractive. I gather that they’re foreigners. Maybe British and Scottish. They’re friends. I think one is with the guy. He seems American. He comes and goes. I keep catching snatches of the women’s conversation. They’re speaking of going someplace, doing something. I’m familiar with the areas and offer some unrequested advice, which they shun.

“Keep yourself to yourself,” I tell myself, sorting files on the computer. I’m testy with my wife as she comes and asks for information on a specific date and event. Without responding to her verbally, I search for the appropriate document, drilling down through information. She doesn’t realize what I’m doing and hectors me. I snap back with an explanation. She then goes away.

Meanwhile, the British and Scottish women have become friendlier. As if they sensed they rebuffed me and now want my friendship — or something — they step closer. I’m aware that they’re surreptitiously attempting to see what I’m doing. They make a subtle show of patting me on my shoulder, touching my arm.

It all confused and wearied me. I move off the dead man’s files. Why should I be involved with them? I find myself instead working on the files for another who worked for me. Investigating this person makes no more sense than checking the dead man’s files.

I understand it all when I awaken. The sense of dissatisfaction, frustration. The searching in myself for answers about directions and desires.

0

Under Where?

My Great Underwear change is not progressing with the dreamed-of joy conjured when the great change began.

Setting the scene, I’ve been a boxer wearer for decades, migrating from other styles while I was younger. Recently, while shopping, I spied other underwear on the shelves. Why, the materials were different. And the shapes! Perhaps I will try these newfangled garments.

I bought two styles. One was purchased at Costco. Kirkland. The second, Body Glove, was purchased at Kohl’s. Both are elasticized cotton or something. Boxer shorts. That’s where their overlapping identities end.

The Kirklands went on first. Wow, comfy. Very nice. Useful and expected, it had that vent up front that negates the need to drop trou and sit to pee. I know females are shrugging, “So you have to pull down your underwear, sit and pee instead of standing? Welcome to my world. Is standing to pee really so special? Got any other tricks?”

No, that’s my one trick.

Standing to urinate isn’t the world’s most amazing feat but I’m used to it. I’m in my mid-sixties. Learning new information is challenging. Especially when it comes to the body. The body is already rewriting its rules on its activities, sending out new advisories without warning whenever it feels like it.

“Hey, don’t move like that!”

I was in the process of sitting down. “But I’ve always moved like that.”

“Well, stop it.”

“Why?”

“Don’t question me! I don’t like it. And put that doughnut down. What’s wrong with you? Now go pee.”

“Again? But I just peed two — “

“Don’t talk back! Pee! Now!”

“Okay, okay, okay…” Grumble, grumble, grumble.

That’s why I still stand to pee: because I can. I almost feel young again, you know?

So the Kirkland shorts work. The Body Glove? Umm, no.

They were comfy. At first. But, they didn’t have that useful front vent.

I was surprised. I thought the vent was a requirement. I speculated, maybe men are all starting to sit down to pee, so the vent isn’t required.

It is possible. I’m not always up on the latest happenings. Take, if you will, ball deodorants. I saw a post on Trouserdog while I was flipping through the net: “How to Stop Smelly and Sweaty Balls — Defunk Your Junk”.

Yes, it is an arresting title.

I’ve never considered a need for ball deodorant. Sure, my hairy sack sometimes sweats. Smells can ensue. That’s why I wash. A quick wash and they smell fresh as rain. A sweaty/stinky testicular area didn’t seem to be a problem. Maybe it’s been one and others are too polite to mention it. Perhaps, after walking away, people turn to one another and whisper, “Did you smell him?” My wife has never said anything. Neither have my cats, who are some of the most critical creatures I know.

The second offense against the Body Glove undies is a classic: they shrank. A lot. The comfortable tight fit now felt like a girdle or leather pants encasing my skin like a sausage, i.e., tight as hell. Now, it could be that I’d gained weight. I’ll give you that. But to have gained that weight, my other clothes would also need to no longer fit or fit differently. That wasn’t happening.

I gave the BGs two additional tries after that first washing. You know, more data. They became worse and worse. Waist bands flipped over. Legs rolled up. No, I told myself. I’m too old to endure this crap. Off you go. I banished them to the giveaway pile.

Yet, the experiments have intrigued me. I saw undies that have a cool sack to keep my Johnson more comfy on these hot days. They might even keep my junk from getting sweaty and funky. I’m willing to try them as long as they’re vented and I can stand and deliver.

If my body says it’s okay. It always has the last say.

0

Ready

Well.

Pat drank coffee. Sheetz, black and sugary. Squinted. Eyes burned. Little sleep. Too much night telly. Too much sunshine. Possibly vodka, too. And beer chasers. A Marlboro was lit, sucked, stared upon with distaste. Vile habit. Had him in his grip.

This little mélange of acknowledgements about his underlife stirred anger. Anger fed determination. Get ‘er done. He threw down the cigarette. Tramped it. Picked it up and carefully added it to the small baggy in his pocket. To be thrown away later. Litter was terrible. He wouldn’t be part. Smoking might be killing him but litter embarrassed him. ‘Specially butts on the ground. Fuckin’ appalling.

He stared up at the house, shifted himself, and moved. Now he was ready. Pumped himself up. Drank more coffee. Marched the walk. Pavement needed repaired. Up the steps. The rot on them caused a grimace. To the front door. It stuck. Required a shoulder and a grunt to push in.

Mom’s house, without Mom, waiting inside. He had, he was certain, never been to Mom’s house without Mom being there. No, wait. He nodded. Yes, there was the time when she was hospitalized. Yes.

Eyes went to the steps where she’d fallen, flipping over the side, where there was no rail, bouncing off furniture. He’d warned her. Damaged shoulder, black charcoal and gray clouds covering her fair, flabby skin. Pierced lung. Broken ribs. Could have been worse. Gone into Mercy for three days which became ten. Had to come back for items she needed. Dan lived with her then. Her fiancé. But Dan, Mom said, “Can’t do it. He doesn’t know where things are.” The man lived there with her for twelve years and didn’t know where things were? Come on. But Dan beat Mom out of the house, dying while driving, crashing his Prius into a tree on a snowy winter night while the icy road laughed. Fuckin’ roads.

Yeah, only he was left. Shit. To go through Mom’s stuff. Shit. He brushed away tears from his eyes’ corners before they could get a rolling start, finished the final coffee ounce, tossed that cup and looked. Shit. Where was he supposed to start? He was the last of the children. Mom outlived them. Well, till now. Him, the oldest. Cancer took two. Shit. Both non-smokers, just a year apart, pancreas. Just him and grandchildren now. Well, widows and widowers. But they…yeah, no.

He’d called his ex to help. She couldn’t. Sympathized but couldn’t. Busy with their kids, going to Disney. Second wife just laughed. “No. Not bailing you out this time.” Like, when had she bailed him out? Made it sound like he’d been in jail. He’d never been in jail. Third wife was in Vegas with her fourth. Cried a lot on the phone but made no commitment. So here was Pat. Alone. Cleaning out Mom’s life. Shit.

He’d walked, he’d sat, he was thinking. Didn’t know how to do this. Despite everything with Mom, he thought she’d keep on living. Always thought somehow, impossibly, she would outlive him.

He bent his head with a heavy sigh. Yeah, he was wrong. It would take more coffee, more cigarettes, more time.

He was not ready.

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