I feel like a character in West Side Story

So, I decided I wanted to start carrying my briefcase again. There is a reason why, but it is so convoluted and ultimately insignificant that it's not even worth explaining. Suffice it to say, I have spent the last three days making half-hearted attempts at finding the damn thing. Last night I came home determined to tear the house apart if need be to find it. I knew it was there somewhere - I just couldn't find it.



Turns out, it was in the last place I looked!



(Ain't that always the case?) (heh, heh.)



So, I opened it, expecting it to be a yawning chasm of empty space, pleading for me to fill it with accumulated crud. It wasn't empty.

Do any of you who actually know me in surreal life recognize this knife? Seriously? I don't carry weapons, as a general rule. My theory is if you need a weapon, you're not talking fast enough. I don't remember this at all. Where did it come from? Why the hell is it in my briefcase?

Its old and the leather sheath is brittle and cracked. The knife is a little rusty but its still quite sharp. It has a comfortable heft and fits nicely in my hand. When I hold it, I have an almost overwhelming urge to stab things.

Jackson doesn't recognize it. No one I work with claims to know anything about it. In the most approved CSI fashion, I analyzed it carefully and determined that the rubber band is of a type found in my grandfather's rubber band stash. And the knife is impressively sharp like he would have kept it. However, the sheath and blade show evidence of having liquid spilled on them and he would never have let something like that happen. No sir!

So, my forensic investigation has gotten me no where.

I am clueless. This puzzle remains unsolved. Anyone else wanna take a stab at it?

Friday Cemetery Blogging

He's a really nice guy, even if he is a poo doctor.

I took Katie to the doctor on Monday. She was out of school anyway, so we scheduled her semi-yearly checkup with the pediatric gastroenterologist.

Say that three times fast.

It must take some special sort of weirdo to want to be a pediatric gastroenterologist. Maybe that’s why Katie’s doctor is the only one of his ilk this side of Dallas. Gastroenterologists are basically poo doctors. When we entered the doctor's waiting room we were immediately greeted with the stench of dirty diaper. Ugh. Not much in the world smells worse.

Then some poor woman hauled in an amazingly pale, 8 or 9 year old boy, wrapped in a blanket. The kid was obviously unwell. As they signed in, she asked “Can we have a trash can please? It’s been a really rough morning.”

I’ll take stinky felons over puking kids any day.

Katie gets really nervous about her doctor’s appointments – it’s somewhat embarrassing for her. So, one day I told her not to worry about it – bo-bos are his business. She found that hysterically funny and it’s become her new doctor visit mantra: Bo-bos are his business. (Can I just point out – I usually don’t use obnoxious kiddie-words for body parts, but somehow ‘asses are his assets’ didn’t work as well.)

I think I may be the one who’s a little nervous about her doctor’s appointment next time. You can’t believe all the stuff they expect you to know about the kid. You have to squirt out her date of birth without even thinking. I know the month and day, but hell, I hadn’t even met her father until a nearly three years after she was born. She was three when we got married, so it takes me a second to do the math and figure out the year.

By the time I got it figured out (with the help of Katie blurting out “1996!”) the nurse was quizzing me about her medications. I thought I was doing well to remember the names of them, but she wanted to know dosages as well. What’s up with that? It’s a green pill and a brown pill. That’s all I know. ‘Hell, y’all prescribed ‘em. Figure it out yerself,’ I thought. I tried to play it off with a ‘talk to the kid – she’s your patient, not me’ attitude. I don’t think she really bought that though, and I’m fairly sure there were some comments about incompetent adult supervision added to the file.

Witch.

Seriously – I am way behind the curve on this responsible adult business. The doctor told me her weight and height are on track. She’s starting to stretch out, he said. That I got. Then he went on with some schmaltz about her being in the 75th percentile. What is that about? Is she doing poorly on some sort of intestinal achievement test? Does she need glasses? Remedial reading? What?

I think I need a t-shirt that says something about “Not Officially a Parent”.

Somebody at church asked me a couple of weeks ago about when I was going to adopt her. Not if, when. If I’d known her better, I would’ve said “Well, hell! I never even thought about that!” Adopt her? Why? Is there something I don’t know?

I always sign her permission slips and medical forms and all sorts of other things that require a parent or guardian. No one ever questions it. And if they do, who cares? What are they gonna do, take away my PTA card? As if!

I like things the way they are. We’re on a first name basis – I call her Katie, she calls me Rachel. She sends mother’s day cards to her grandmothers. That’s cool with me.

She scares the crap out of me way too early in the morning by yelling “It’s EASTER!!” right into my sleeping face. And she gives me a bite of all her blizzards. I’m cool with that, too.

I’ve never wanted to be a mother and I’ve done my part by not contributing to global over-population. (My boss often leaves my office, shaking his head and telling anyone who will listen, “well, at least she never reproduced.” High praise, in my book.) I much prefer the role of bodyguard, chauffeur and official denier/granter of permission to do stupid stuff.

As we were leaving Big Flat City yesterday, we passed a few less-than-respectable joints. I asked her if she wanted to stop at one of them and get a tattoo. I told her I’d even pay for it.

She declined.



This time.

Friday Cemetery Blogging

Ok, I need milk, bread, and...

Then it played La Vie En Rose, which always makes me laugh...

I have switched from Yoga to riding the exercise bike at five-freakin'-twenty in the morning. Yoga was really good for the blood pressure, but not so much for the cholesterol. It's not that I'm all concerned about my health or anything, it's just the M2 and I both have high cholesterol and I don't want her to beat me at the numbers game.

We tend to be a bit competitive around here, heh, heh. We compete over who has the lowest delinquency rate (she always wins that one) or who can put the most members of a certain pathologically obnoxious family in jail for Christmas or who can collect the most urine or make the most people cry in one week, etc. etc. I'd be ticked if she got her cholesterol lower than mine.

I have a recumbent exercise bike that works out pretty good. You don't actually have to be awake to ride it. I just set the timer, and snooze while my feets do all the work.

The only problem is that I like to listen to the I-Fraud while riding. (Hat tip to Cheesehead and her T-Faux.) I've really got to do something about the music on that thing. When it plays the theme song from Speed Racer (Go Speedracer! Go Speedracer! Go Speedracer! Go! Go!) right before Barbra Streisand singing "Papa, Can You Hear Me?" it makes it tough to keep any sort of consistency going in the workout.

And it makes you weird.

Friday Cemetery Blogging

My muse had her tonsils removed a couple of weeks ago. She's milking it for all she's worth and refuses to come back to work yet. Oh well, her sick leave will run out soon.

Until then...

You wanna know what I love?

I love and adore the Geico commercial with the caveman in the airport. You know the one - he's on the moving sidewalk, listening to the muzak and he sees the billboard out of the corner of his eye.

I love that commercial so much, it's embarrassing.

And my favorite part? That damn tennis racket.

Cracks. me. up.

Friday Cemetery Blogging

You gotta go with what you got, I guess.

Have a great weekend!

I don't even like Steven Seagal.

Last night I wandered into the living room. Jackson was watching TV.

"Whatcha watchin'?"
"Rent and the Weather Channel."
"At the same time?! I'd really like to see Rent, but preferably in its entirity."
"Ok." He switched the channel to CSI-New York. "Let's watch this and you can live vicariously through them and pretend you're an FBI agent."
"Why the heck would I wanna do that?"
"Ok, fine. You can live vicariously through Steven Seagal, then."
"Steven Seagal?? What the hell!?"
"Well," he said, then switched into his best Hannibal Lector impersonation. "How about Clarisssse?"

At that point, I got up and left. He went back to watching whatever he wanted.

Which was probably exactly what he had in mind.

Just Another Manic Monday

...and I've nothing, really, to say.

But honestly, when has that ever stopped me?

I took some time off last week and recharged my batteries a bit. That was good. Once again I've been struck by the baseball bat of epiphany and remembered that my attitude is what shapes my reality. Therefore I went back at work with a bit of renewed attitude today.

They hired a new secretary last week while I was away. She hasn't started yet, but I'm excited about it. We never have any 'new blood' here. No one ever leaves. Occasionally they die, or retire or even get arrested, but no one never just quits to take another job elsewhere. Our rookie officer has been here for five years. This is really good, because it means we generally all get along. It can also be really stifling because we all know every tiny little detail of our co-workers lives and we act like a big disfunctional family at times. There is a lot of the 'boarding house reach' here and occasionally someone takes an elbow to the nose. So, it will be nice to have a new face and a new perspective.

Someday I'll tell you about who died and who got arrested. Those are good stories.

Jackson is convinced I have some form of raging tuberculosis. He's already planning how to spend the life insurance money. I am clinging to life just to spite him. And the cough is getting better.

Rose returned a couple of books today that I loaned her months ago. I had totally completely forgotten about them. Which is way weird, because I am a complete nazi about loaning books. Surely I'm not getting all mellow about this. Strange...

Its beginning to feel like spring here. The trees are budding. My damn daffodils have managed to survive long enough to have some decent blooms. (I really hate those flowers.) And the tulips have grown enough that they aren't of interest to the rabbits. I need to get out the seed catalogue tonight and place my order. Gonna try to grow some peanuts this year. Just for laughs.

That's what I know. What do you know?

Friday Cemetery Blogging

Harley Davidson meets Rolls Royce*

This is my all-time favorite cemetery angel, so far. My friend C.Wright found this in Palestine. Palestine, Texas. When I made a pilgrimage to her place last month, this was one of the cemeteries on my list that I was dying to visit.

I don't know who the sculptor is. His/her signature is engraved on the teal-colored base of the statue. I couldn't read it and wasn't able to get a good photo of it in the fading light. The statue doesn't mark any single grave and there is no plaque giving credit for its placement to the Order of the Eastern Star or The Ali-Babba Temple of the Shrine. It's just there.

At the edge of the cemetery, at the end of a star shaped sidewalk (don't ask - its hard to explain and even harder to photograph) which leads to the statue, there is this stone:

Art for art's sake. We could use more of that.

Thanks to Miss Kitty for the title this week. She captured the exact feel of this rusting chrome angel.

Grandmother's Send Off

We had my grandmother's funeral today. She was a cool grandmother who'd lived a long life. A couple of weeks ago she decided she was tired of being here.

So she died.

And that's ok.

My mother and uncle chose to have a graveside service. Early in the morning we gathered around the open grave, huddled together in the rain and mist, singing Amazing Grace a capella.

That's my idea of a good funeral. It was a scene to make Edward Gorey proud.

I learned a couple of things from this particular funeral experience. The first thing I've come to accept is that I have become a social hugger. I'm not proud of that fact, but that makes it no less true.

I am not a touchy-feely person. Its just not my thing.

But this is the the south, and I'm a woman and certain things are just expected. Over the years I've given up on trying to avoid the contact while avoiding hurting someone's feelings. Now I tend to initiate it to try and get it over with. Especially at funerals.

Sunday afternoon we had a big ol' hug-fest at the funeral home, while the family received visitors. I thought I was prepared. I had my fake huggy-smile all cued up and ready to go. While this was certainly a somber occasion, it was not unexpected and not at all angst-filled or wretched. Unfortunately, the first person to see me when I came in the door was Aunt Louise.

Now, y'all all have an Aunt Louise. I know you do. Aunt Louise has a penchant for TV preachers and Eva Gabor wigs. She's as tall as I am and pretty thin and spry. And she is a hugger deee-lux.

I saw her coming and was ready to go with a quick, mid-stride side hug. Its a good opening gambit and a way to breeze through the feely formalities while not lingering with someone who tends to count the hooks in your bra.

I seriously underestimated Aunt Louise. She was in full tragedy mode.

She snuck in under my outstretched arm and grabbed me by the armpits, throwing me into her chest. I had to break stride to keep from falling on top of her. She bear hugged me so hard I gasped out loud and the reflexive inhale caused me to choke on my cough drop. She interpreted my subdued gagging as proof of my emotional upheaval and she hung on for dear life.

I managed to catch my breath and gave her a friendly end-of-hug pat on the back. Then I stepped back.

She stepped with me as if we'd been doing the tango together for years. She was saying something about how tragic all of this was and how she knew I'd miss my grandmother and whatever would we do without her beatific presence in our sordid lives.

I knew it wasn't worth it to explain that although I will certainly miss the person my grandmother was, she was ready to go and the greater tragedy by far would have been for her to have been confined to a bed in a nursing home for any length of time. I just smiled and nodded.

Of course she couldn't see me smile because her chin was still digging into my shoulder and her wig was getting in my teeth.

She finally released the bear hug, but clung to my arm and directed me around the room to the rest of the mourners. Thankfully, most of them were satisfied with a handshake.

I may have to rethink my social hugger strategy. Maybe it would be easier if I contracted leprosy.

Now, that is not really the story I intended to tell you.

I really wanted to tell you about English Pea Salad.

My family and I have always been connoisseurs of funeral food. In small towns out here, the preacher is always expected to eat with the family when there is a funeral meal. And there is always a funeral meal. In the small towns I grew up in, the population was aging rapidly and it was not at all uncommon for us to have two and three funerals a week. The only way my brother and I got lunch was by partaking with the mourners, too.

There are some certainties to southern funeral food. There are only three dignified meat choices: Fried Chicken, Ham and Roast. BBQ is fine for a wedding or a revival meeting or at a booster club fundraiser before the football game, but its generally considered bad form at a funeral meal. All funerals have at least two of those meat choices and any really good send-off will have all three.

There is always one lady in the church who is unofficially designated to bring deviled eggs. She is generally the one who received one of those deviled egg platters as a wedding gift back in '52.

There will be a prodigious amount of mashed potatoes, yet this will always be the first dish to run out.

Hot rolls reign supreme. Some of the more hoity-toity churches have women who will make them from scratch. The down-home congregations use brown-n-serve.

Then there are the side dishes. There are two side dishes that are present at each and every memorial meal. English Pea Salad and Carrot and Raisin Salad. Evidently, no one but a godless communist would consent to be buried without their family partaking of these death salads. They are an ever-present harbinger of loss, feeder of grief, and satiate to those who remain.

I've been espousing the merits and short-comings of funeral food for years. My friends have smiling put up with my exhaustive diatribes on the subject. I even like to go through the line at Furr's cafeteria and tell the server I want some 'funeral salad' to see which one they pick.

At Grandmother's funeral, I was reminded that I have some really good friends. C. Wright lives way out on the other side of the state. When she heard that my grandmother died, she immediately contacted DW, another good friend who put up with me as her office jester for the four years while I was in college.

I didn't see DW until we were about to eat. She snuck up beside me with a big grin on her face.

"C.Wright told me your grandmother died. We got together and made sure you had enough salads."

Sure enough, when it was my turn to wind my way down the pot-luck table, I saw their two dishes sitting side by side - Carrot and Raisin Salad and English Pea Salad.

We got our burying done right.

Friday Cemetery Blogging

Ok, so its only Thursday. But I couldn't wait.

Be sure to turn the music on when the titles start.

Triviality

Stole this from Reverendmother:

What time do you get up in the morning?5:15ish. My alarm is set for 5:40, but I usually get up earlier and do yoga or something.
Diamonds or pearls? Neither, really. Diamonds if I had to chose one.
What was the last film you saw at the cinema? I can't remember! And that ticks me off, because there is nothing better than movies in the theatre. I gotta work to change that, and today I'm taking Katie to see Bridge to Terabithia. (school holiday today.)
What is your favorite TV show? Dirty Jobs or pretty much anything on food network. I don't cook, but I love to watch people do it on TV!??!
What do you normally have for breakfast? Cereal or a breakfast burrito.
What is your middle name? Lei.
What is your favorite cuisine? Tex-Mex
What food do you most dislike? Institutionally prepared chicken breast.
What is your favorite chip? BBQ potato chips
What is your favorite CD at the moment?
What kind of car do you drive? Ford F150
What is your favorite sandwich? Roast, mashed potatoes and black-eyed peas with lots of mayo. Yeah, I'm a picture of cardio health.
Qualities I despise most in other people are? Giving in to baseless fears.
What are your favorite clothes? jeans and t-shirts
If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would it be? Europe
What color are your eyes? Hazel. Usually.
What is your favorite brand of clothing? don’t have one
Where would you want to retire? East Texas. Or the mountains. Or maybe Costa Rica.
What is your favorite time of day? Any time that I don't have anything I have to do.
Where were you born? West Texas
What is your favorite sport to watch? Football. I don't like watching any other sport on TV, but enjoy watching them in person. I like watching football in person, but its actually better on TV.
Sock Sock, Shoe Shoe or Sock Shoe, Sock Shoe? Changes from day to day.
Cash, credit card or debit card? Debit Card!!! I love, love, love debit cards.
Pepsi or Coke? Don’t care.
Cats or Dogs? Cats. Although I would like to have a grey hound someday.
Are you a morning person or a night owl? Morning.
Pedicure or manicure? Meh. whatever. or neither.
Do you prefer funny or mushy cards? Funny, of course. I'd like to hit that Helen Rice woman with my car.
Any new and exciting news you’d like to share with everyone? Not yet.
What did you want to be when you were little? FBI Agent
What do you have in your trunk right now? A sack of shoes I need to donate to the
Salvation Army and Jimmy Hoffa.
What is your best childhood memory? I have no idea. Lots of good stuff.
What are some of the different jobs you have had in your life? Fireworks seller, Grocery store flunky, Secretary, Probation Officer.
What is your favorite holiday? Halloween.
What is your favorite dessert? Cobbler with Ice Cream
Where is your favorite get-away? Mountains
Have you ever been to Africa? Nope.
Glasses or contacts? Contacts, especially now that I have double vision when I'm not wearing them. Yes, the eye doctor is running tests to try to figure that out.
Have you ever been toilet papering? Nope. Did plenty of other stuff, though.
Have you ever been in a car accident? Never, ever. (Knock on wood!)
What is your favorite day of the week? Right now its Sunday afternoon. We are trying really hard to have absolutely nothing we have to do on Sunday afternoons.
What is your favorite restaurant? Mi Mexico in Fake Cow County and Johnny Carino's in Big Flat City.
Favorite flower? Calla Lily
Favorite movies? Philadelphia Story, Bringing up Baby, The Maltese Falcon, oh, heck, this list could go on for pages before I even reach the 21st century.
Favorite Pastime? Reading, Painting, Drawing, Gardening
Favorite ice cream? Anything but chocolate, as long as it has something crunchy in it.
Favorite fast food restaurant? Taco Bell, Sonic
How many times did you fail your drivers test? Ouch. I failed it the first time. The dude made me parallel park first thing and that didn't go well. heh.
From whom did you get your last email? From Garrison Keilor. Yeah. We're buds. He emails me every morning. Sends me poetry and stuff. I know y'all are jealous.
Sandals or tennis shoes? tennis shoes
Which store would you choose to max out your credit card? Amazon.com
If the speed limit is 60, what is the fastest you normally drive? 65
What is your bedtime? 10:30ish
Last person you went to dinner with? Jackson
What are you listening to right now? A documentary about some woman who bumped off her wealthy husband.
What is your favorite color? Deep, Dark, By God-Purple. And Black
How many tattoos do you have? None. I know what I want, but I can't make up my mind where to put it.
Smooth or crunchy peanut butter? CRUNCHY!
What is your favorite drink? Margarita.

Friday Cemetery Blogging

Is this some kind of a threat?

The Case of the Dusty Paperback

I started something last night that I haven't done for years.

It may come as a bit of a surprise to you, but I was a weird kid. Yes, I know you find that hard to believe. Last night I started reading from a series of books that I started collecting as a weird kid.

One day when I was about ten years old, I found my dad watching an old black and white TV show. When I asked what he was watching, he explained it was a rerun of one of his mother's favorite TV shows - Perry Mason. That made me curious, so I stuck around to see for myself. By the time Mason used his incisive cross-examination to corner the murderer on the witness stand, I was hooked.

My dad told me the show was based on a series of old books and he just happed to have one in his stash. I devoured it. My little ten-year-old self was totally engorssed in the murders and the style and especially the characters. Did you know that Della Street is actually a speaking part in the books? I added Perry Mason to my list of people I wanted to be when I grew up.

We lived in a tiny town at the time, and when Dad had to make Saturday hospital visits, we'd all go along so we could eat out, watch a movie or maybe spend some time browsing the shelves of a bookstore. After reading that first book, I would collect my allowance and beg to be taken to the used bookstore to buy Perry Mason books. The books had been out of print for about ten years by the time I discovered them. The only place to find them was at used bookstores.

At first I could usually find 8 or 9 books at a time. I'd buy all I could get my hands on, then start reading as soon as I got back in the car. By the time we got home, I'd be halfway through the first book. When I decimated the supply at one store, I'd move on to another. I had the Big Flat Yellow Pages listing for bookstores practically memorized. My parents drove me all over town so I could find more treasure.

Most of the time I could sniff out the Perry Mason novels in a new store in a matter of moments. Since the books are little more than pulp fiction, they were often displayed next to the racks of used porn.

This was before the internet and there was evidently quite a market for used porn. But, I digress...

There are 86 Perry Mason books written by Earle Stanley Gardner. I have 85 of them. (There are also a couple of insipid pastiches written by Thomas Chastain which I also own, but they don't count.) It took me several years to amass my collection. By the time I finished Junior High, I'd pretty much completed it. I looked long and hard for the last book and could never find it. Then one day I just stopped looking. I didn't really want to find it. That would mean I was finished. The collection would be complete, entire, done. I just didn't want to be done with it.

I haven't read a Perry Mason book since my first semester in college. I didn't really read one then. I just skimmed a couple to refresh my vast store of previously useless detecitve story trivia, which I used to write a paper for my freshman comp class on the reasons for the popularity of characters such as Perry Mason and Sherlock Holmes.

I've moved a few times since then and always packed up my 85 Perry Mason books (along with hundreds of other books) and taken them with me. After the last time I moved, I considered getting rid of them. After all, I hadn't read one in nearly two decades. But I couldn't quite part with them.

And now all I would have to do is enter the title on the Amazon website, and within a matter of days I would be the proud owner of the final book. But I'm not sure if I want to do that.

Maybe I'll re-read a few more and then decide.

My favorite haunt for finding the books was at The Book Rack on Slide Road. I was such a regular customer that they gave me all sorts of freebies - mostly bookmarks and really cool padded, leather-looking book covers. I still use the bookcovers.

One Saturday I jangled the bell over the door of the Book Rack and made my way to the back of the store. The books I wanted were on the lower shelves. The store was dim and quiet. I was the only customer.

It was a good day. I found more than a dozen of Gardner's books that I didn't already have. I filled my arms and carried them to the front counter to unload. There was a young man, probably a college student, working the cash register. He scanned my piles of books, checking the prices. Then he looked over the books and down at me.

"You're that kid."

I looked at him quizically.

"You're that kid who buys all the Perry Mason books. I've heard about you," he said as he rang up the sale.

I grinned at him, grabbed my bags and rushed out the door. I hopped in the car and wondered what the clerk meant - was it a good thing or a weird thing to be "that kid"?

Then I opened up the first bag to get started on my reading. I found not one, but two brightly colored, padded, leatherish bookcovers. Score!

Bones of the Valentine

I got my valentine early.

And its already decimated.

Mindy's valentine swap resulted in a big ol' box of almond-cherry fudge from Zorra. Oh yeah, its just as good as it sounds. She also sent a really hillarious card. But did I mention the fudge?

'Cause there was fudge.

Friday Cemetery Blogging

Here are a couple more photos that I took in Huntsville.

The first one is yet another shot of the statue that I posted last week.

And this is yet another stone in the rainy darkness.

Have a good weekend!

This will make you say...

Whut the hell?!

Friday Cemetery Blogging

I was on death row last week.

One of the guys in my class works at the Walls Unit in Huntsville, which is where Texas kills people. There was supposed to be an execution that day, but a stay was granted and the warden had some free time. So, our classmate arranged a tour for us.

I don't know what I think about the death penalty. I am a fence straddler on the issue. Both sides have some valid arguments. And I am completely baffled by the opposition to DNA testing that might exonerate an inmate.

Texas prisons are immaculately clean. You could eat off of most surfaces. They still smell like feet warehouses, but they are clean. But the death chamber and its accompanying cells put the rest of the place to shame. It was laboratory clean.

The warden led us into a short hallway housing the four cells and a shower where the prisoner spends their last day and eats their last meal. On the wall opposite the cells was a table covered in a pristine white cloth. Spanish and English Bibles and other religious books were carefully spaced along its surface. At the far end of the table was also a guest register. There was no information in the book, just signatures of the Warden, the Lieutenants, the chaplain - evidently anyone who came onto the cellblock when a prisoner was present. A silent stream of witnesses to the presence of an unnamed guest.

The death chamber itself was much smaller than I thought. There was room only for the gurney and for us to stand shoulder to shoulder along the walls. The warden dropped his crusty, good ol' boy demeanor while we were there. He explained the very clinical process while my hand was on the dead man's pillow.

Everyone filed out very quietly.

The experience hasn't helped me come to any conclusions or have any great epiphany. But unlike other prison spaces, it was quiet and solemn. And respectful.

I'm still thinking.

Random Thoughts for Wednesday

This morning's local news show included a story about a day care in Big Flat City that stages a mock wedding for pre-schoolers each year after reading the kids several Bible stories about "husbands and wives". We're talking WEDDING here. In the church, with a minister. Gowns, tuxedos, flowers, candles, music and idiot, doe-eyed parents. Verrry creepy.

When I got home from my trip last week, Jackson was sick. He finally gave in and went to an urgent care clinic on Sunday. He has pneumonia. Not a cold. Not allergies. Pneumonia.

He's such a show off.

Speaking of ill - I had not one headache all of last week. The minute I walked back into my office, my head started to pound. I've now had this headache for 3 long damn days. I think I need to chuck it all and move to East Texas. How am I going to convince all my homies to come with me? And then we'll all be whining and wanting to move back when summer gets here. So much for that idea!

Does Forrest Whitaker creep you out? Or is it just me?

Evil Steve has abandoned my chair in favor of Jackson's. Evidently my blanket-free legs are not to her liking this evening. I have been most officiously snubbed.

Remember Mr. Hyhun on "Hey, Arnold!"? "Its very creepy!"

Yesterday Katie came calling at the bedroom door. She was creeped out because one of the cats had brought a rat into her bedroom. She found it when she dropped her watch behind the bed. The watch had landed on the "smushy, furry thing" and she didn't want to touch it. I cinched up my bathrobe and grabbed the necessary tools (broom and dustpan) and pulled out the bed so I could rescue the contaminated time-piece. I swiped at the furry carcass to maneuver it into the dustpan. The brown, hairy mass rolled over and grinned at me.

It was a dis-embodied Barbie head. Very creepy!

Friday Cemetery Blogging

Band camp is almost over. Its been really good. I've especially enjoyed learning about the difference in management styles between Gen X and the Baby Boomers. Lord, no wonder we can't just all get along!This is the sixth or seventh time I've been to Sam Houston State last 13+ years. I've only dealt with the Criminal Justice School and it is some kind of different. There is a constant cloud of artificial testosterone in the air. Its like smog



Those afflicted with artificial testosterone are pretty easy to spot. They always, always, always back into a parking space. Their shirts are heavily starched and cut so as to give the appearance of broad shoulders and a narrowish waist. They wear many bits of shiny metal - key fobs, over sized, function-stuffed wrist watches, bulky rings and metal-rimmed sunglasses. Their hair is very, very short. And stiff. The aren't able to wear their "side-arms" but they do make it a point to wear belts that exhibit visible wear points where the holster would normally hang. The opposite side of the belt supports the phone holster. The cell phone substitutes for the other substitute that they aren't able to wear inside the school. There is some sort of weird anti-correlation that results in the phones being quite tiny.


Plenty of women around here are just as bad as the smoggy guys. They can be kind of frightening, too.



If you look closely, there are lots of other men and women without the smog cloud. They're usually sort of scruffy.



I like scruffy people.

I like mossy tree branches, too.

This is one of my photos from the cemetery here in Huntsville. This is the statue I was trying to get a good shot of. I like this one, but its still not exactly right.

And this is a bit of the rainy cemetery.

Escape from Alcatraining

I sneaked (snuck?) out! Yup. Skipped the institutional-b-b-q dinner and went to the cemetery. And do you want to know how perfect it was? Do you really?

It. was. raining.

I get a little weird about rain. A slow drizzly rain lasting for days and days is my very favorite weather. When it rains, I want to be outside soaking it in. When I lived in town, if rain woke me in the middle of the night, I would go out for a walk. (No street lights in the country. And there's coyotes. heh.) I've been stopped by the police a couple of times when I was out walking in the rain at 2:00 a.m. They always assumed I'd been drinking. Hmm....

Anyway, the rain is also great for gorgeous color in your photographs, as long as you can keep your camera dry. This evening I went to the Oakwood Cemetery, which is where Sam Houston is buried. I've been there before and there is a statue there that I've never been able to satisfactorily photograph. There was not a lot of time before the light gave out, but I think I got some good shots.

And now, I should be doing my homework. Something about assessing my strengths as a manager. I guess I'll quit writing and do something im.por.tant. Is there any way to frame procrastination as a strength?

At Band Camp

So far so good. The trainer is a lady I've heard before who is way cool. She's energetic and funny and she refuses to use power-point because it is usually a cover for lack of quality information. A woman after my own heart!

She talks a lot about Generation X. I like to think I am my own person - original, unique, and unexpected. Hell, no, I'm just the poster child for my generation. Sigh...

This is one of those trainings that embraces the concept of networking. We eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner together. We spend the day in a classroom together. And last night we were all at Wal-Mart together picking up those gels, aerosols and liquids that we didn't bother to bring on the plane. They want us to bond.

I'm not into bondage.

I want to run back to my hotel room as soon as they will let us out the door, so I can grab my camera and go to the cemetery before the light is gone. All these damn trees get in the way of the sun and it gets dark way before supper is over.

But I'm going along for dinner. (Partly because I'm trying to do the right thing, but mostly because its too much trouble to explain why I want to go to the cemetery.) I'm even making an effort to speak to my fellow trainees. Y'all'd be proud of me. Normally, when I'm with people I don't know, I sit down, break out the pencils and sketch book and draw and doodle my way through the day. I focus on the speaker and eavesdrop like crazy, but generally don't hook up with anyone else.

I converse for a living and at times like this I enjoy the opportunity to spend an entire week without speaking to anyone other than waiters.

It snowed.

It snowed 4 inches today. Most of y'all are gonna laugh, but that pretty much closes stuff down around here. It doesn't happen very often, but it does happen every 2 or 3 years. What was really embarrassing was the reaction that people had even before anything happened. There was a run on bottled water at the grocery stores. Wal-Mart was packed with worried people throwing fits over energy bars and pretzles like they were the last Tickle Me Elmo to be found in creation the weekend before Christmas. Some schools chose, on Thursday, to close on Friday. Even though there was no snow until late Friday afternoon, and the roadways stayed clear until late in the evening. It was like we were facing our own private Katrina. Embarrassing.

Of course, I may experience my own little freak-out tomorrow. I have to leave at o'dark-thirty to catch a plane. I have never flown in the snow before. Lucky me.

I'm going to Huntsville again. For an entire week of middle management training. An entire week. Of middle management training. Its so boring that they couldn't even think of anything snappy to call it. Just Middle Management Training.

And the hotel? The first thing listed on its website under amenities is "Elevator: yes." This is followed by Public Phones and Ice on Every Floor.

Y'all are all jealous. I can feel it.

Friday Cemetery Blogging

What's wrong with this picture?

Tomorrow...

Tomorrow we don't have to leave the house.

That's a good thing!

And just for laughs, here's more Maddie:

Attack of the Killer Kitty!

Friday Cemetery Blogging

Today its all about the names. I found some interesting ones last week.

Phoebe P. Mick just makes me smile.

Richie Rippy. Doesn't he sound like a character in a 1940's war movie? He'd be the shiny, happy, slightly naive guy who was one of the first to die at the hands of the bad guys. And then at the end of the movie, all the heroes would gather around his grave and have some sort of deeply meaningful denouement and Richie's girlfriend would marry the main character or something like that.

And then there's Hazel. Her name is interesting, but I'm more interested in the stone's style. I love anything that's even remotely Art Deco. And the shiny nameplate on this concrete stone is actually a mirror. Never seen that before!

Hope you have a good day. I am taking a day off for my birthday. I didn't plan to, but if I don't do it today, I'll lose it. And that would be stupid. So, enjoy your Friday and I'll enjoy mine.

Community Supervision and Corrections Department

Diesel asked where I work that I was able to get a day off for Ford's dignified demise. I work for Fake Cow County Adult Probation. Except that Adult Probation is entirely too self explanatory, so they changed our name to something long and convoluted and completely affected.

Generally I love my job, but not all the time. Right now it is being a teensy bit stressful. Stressful like oral surgery stressful.

The upside is that when the going gets tough, the weirdos get busy.

Mindy: "I think we should play with Nunzilla. Do you think she could spark a fire?"

Rach: "Nah, I've tried it before."

Mindy: "Maybe we need some sort of fuel. Like hairspray or something?"

Rach: "Oh, good idea!"

I sent an instant message to ChevyPickup: "Do you have any hairspray? Preferably aerosol?"

CP: "Yes. Why?"

Rach: "Just bring it down to my office."

She did.

I wound up the nun and was about to set it loose on my desk, when the Boss stopped in my doorway.

Boss: "What are y'all doing?"

Mindy: "We're going to spray the nun with hair spray to see if we can get it to flame up when the she sparks."

Boss doesn't say anything for a moment. Then: "I think I'm going to leave now. And not come back."

Mindy: "Bye."

So, I sat the nun down and she did her spark-ly best while CP sprayed her in the face with flammable styling product.

Absolutely nothing happened. And now my desk is sticky.

But I feel better.

Friday Cemetery Blogging

We actually got the day off on Tuesday for the Ford funeral. It seemed only fitting to spend the extra time off prowling around a cemetery. I went to a small town northwest of here. It was freakin' cold. They still had snow on the ground from last weekend's weather. After about a half hour of roaming around the frigid marble, my camera shutter began to freeze up. A sure sign that it was time for lunch. Before I left, I got some interesting photos.

I though Little David would appreciate this one. It has the Hawaii State Flower, the hibiscus, on it. If you look closely, there is also a Hawaiian inscription:

The English translation was on the bottom half of the stone, but I forgot to photograph it. Anybody want to take a guess as to what it means? According to my cemetery field guide (thank you C. Wright) the hibiscus is often seen on tombstones in the Pacific islands. The flowers are only open for a short time each day, which is symbolic of "the brevity of our time in this realm."

There were some really nice marble headstones in this cemetery. Like this one, for instance.

More to come...

Chrismas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree, wherefore art thou, Christmas Tree?

By nine o'clock on Tuesday the 26th I had the Christmas detritus packed up and gone. I'm not a total Scrooge, but at 12:01 a.m. on the 26th, Yuletide Decor officially morphs into Seasonal Craptacula. I like putting up the tree the day after Thanksgiving but I like taking it down the day after Christmas even more.

We finally bought a new tree this year. It is a little smaller and a whole lot easier to deal with than the old one. The old one was retro cool. That's not really true, it was just old. And bulky.

I was sort of dreading putting away the new tree. We hadn't gotten rid of the old tree. It was still in the living room coffin where it is stored for most of the year. I was excited to be rid of the tree and the stockings and the garland, but I really didn't feel like boxing up the old tree and taking it the Salvation Army. I also felt a little guilty because I really meant to take the old tree over there much earlier so someone could actually use it during the season. The road to hell..., eh?

The stocking were removed from the chimney with care and the skirt of the Christmas tree cleaned of cat hair. The ornaments were nestled all snug in their boxes and we got prepared for the next equinoxes.

(Nothing, nothing! rhymes with boxes. Except foxes. And maybe axes.)

Finally, I could put it off no longer and had to open the coffin. Opening the coffin with the old tree in it is a decidedly Fibber McGee experience and usually results in some sort of body piercing by plastic pine parts. But not this time!

The coffin opened and nothing fell out. It was empty! I was very pleasantly surprised and thought nice things about Jackson who had obviously already dropped off the old tree at the collection box. He was still asleep, so I didn't thank him for thinking ahead. I didn't think about it again, until

yesterday. Yesterday when Jackson asked me if I'd taken the old tree to the Salvation Army or if I just threw it away.

Yeah.

He didn't take it anywhere. I didn't take it anywhere. We have no idea what happened to it.

Its just gone.

And that's kind of spooky.

2006 is giving me a headache.

Ten o'clock. I have a cat on my feet. The really whacked movie on the Independent Film Channel channel is done. Jackson is scrounging through the kitchen, looking for munchies. He's not likely to find any.

This is not exactly how we'd planned to spend New Year's Eve. But it's emblematic of 2006, which has vaguely sucked.

Jackson and I had planned to have a New Year's Eve party, but we never had the chance to make any plans or get anyone invited. Katie was with her "other" family so we decided to get a room in the Cool Little City to the North and go find a jazz combo or pub band to ring in the New Year with. Hinder was playing in town, too. There were lots of possibilities.

We packed our little bags and drove away in the bright, cold sunshine. The wind was howling straight out of the North and chapping the roadways, drying them off from the rain and ice we'd had a couple of days earlier.

When we arrived at the hotel, the lobby was packed. And the people were grumbling. We had no idea what was going on. A harried desk clerk was yelling out to anyone who came in the door.

"If you don't have a reservation, we're sold out!"

The loud-mouthed lady about halfway back in the line explained all. I-40 was closed starting a quarter of a mile to the west. She said the next over-pass past the hotel was a solid sheet of ice and that continued all the way into Colorado. Another interstate, running through Oklahoma, was closed as well. A lot of people had come south to take I-40, hoping it would be open sooner. No such luck.

Of course, the hotel lost our reservation. Naturally there was no way to get a room anywhere in town. But, what the hell, we could go sleep in our own bed after nothing more than an hour's drive south. These folks couldn't say that. Jackson said he thought this 'no room at the inn' bit was a Christmas thing, not New Year's.

So, we went shopping, ate BBQ and went home to another lovely Netflix New Year's. (After watching the IFC movie, we watched Sin City. Which was pretty darn good, but then I nearly always like Robert Rodriquez movies.)

Before we left CLCttN, we went to the mall for a bit. Jackson sat out in the hallway while I spent the Hot Topic gift card Katie gave me for Christmas. I had my bag that's made out of this material with me.

The girl with the green hair and huge tattoo across her naked back and the multiple facial piercings said she really liked it. I felt so proud. This may be the first time they didn't think I was a narc.

And since we are at home, we can have my favorite Trailer Trash New Year's Meal: Jackson's Super-Sweet Cornbread, black-eyed peas from my own garden and a whole can of fried Spam. Yessireebob - we are such gourmands. We'll save you some left-overs!

Friday Cemetery Blogging

It's raining.

There is no better way to get ready for work than to do it to the rhythm of the rain on the bathroom skylight. Its even better if that rhythm can lull you to sleep. Or if you can roll out of bed, put on some old clothes and head outside for a wet walk.

I've always wanted to live someplace like Seattle or London where it rains so often that you might actually wear out an umbrella. Is there some sort of condition, opposite of Seasonal Affective Disorder, whereby you become depressed by too much sun and heavy grey clouds leave you feeling energized and wanting to work outside?

Maybe this is all just a side effect of growing up in the desert south.

In Memorium

Caution: If you are one of my IRL friends, please note that this post will discuss matters that will once again remind you of your advanced age. (All my friends are way, way older than me and some of them find it painful to be reminded of this.) (Congratulations to C/P who has tipped the balance and now the majority of my IRL buddies are grandparents. My lord, do you realize how freakin' old y'all all are??)

Hee hee.

I have nothing of any real value to tell you, except to share my one memory of Gerald Ford. When I was just a wee little 4 year old kid, I remember sitting down in front of the TV during the evening news. My mom was in the kitchen cooking supper. I watched TV for a while and they kept showing some tall, bald man and talking about what the president did and what the president said and many, many other things about the president. I yelled to my mom in the kitchen.

"Who is the president?"

Mom evidently thought I asked 'who is the first president' because she said

"George Washington."

It was years - YEARS - later before I learned that George Washington and Gerald Ford were two different people.

This is Madeline

She's thrilled to be here.

Merry Day After Christmas!

Evil Steve sez...

You can't see me.

Friday Cemetery Blogging

Death...

the great equalizer.

Random Useless Stuff in my head.

RUS = Random Useless Stuff. I have a head full of it.

I got to work today and discovered everyone else is in the same craptacular mood as I am. We are generally pissed off and wildly stressed. We decided screw it - we ain't comin' to work tomorrow. And hell, we may not even come back till the middle of next week. The boss, or Firestarter Bill as I like to call him, pointed out that 2006 has generally sucked. And not just for us or for probation or for Fake Cow County in general. 2006 has been a predominantly crappy year for pretty much the vast majority of the human race. We all agree that 2007 will be better. But we still aren't coming to work tomorrow. (Thank god for county holidays!)

This my first post on the new fangled blogger.

I am totally in the mood to paint (while wearing my nifty new day o' the dead suit of not-quite-armour that Mindy made for me) but I have no ideas for subject matter. Anybody got any ideas?

Last week Jackson asked if I could paint him a replica of the part of the Sistine chapel where God reaches out to Adam. HA! As if! (It was pretty cool that he actually thought I might could do that, though. I think he may be tired of the fedora paintings that are all I seem to be doing lately. Who the hell paints fe-freakin'-doras?)

...and everything I paint is purple.

There is probably some sort of Freudian sense that could be made out of that, but I'm not going to try to do it.

We have a fraidy cat at home. Evil Steve has scared the holee hell out of Madeline (formerly known as Mathias) to the point that the cat will not come out from under my great-grandmother's chair. She lives there, day and night, slipping out now and again for sustenance and an attempt to make it all the way to the litter box before Evil Steve catches her again and makes the litter box unnecessary.

My friend C. Wright sent me the coolest book EVER. Check it out. You should also buy many, many books from this store. The owner is a member of C. Wright's Collection of Weird People. C. Wright has a pretty extensive collection of odd and assorted people and she lurks on all your blogs. You may be a member of her collection and not even know it.

Dr. McCoy is the patron saint of the C. Wright Collection. Someday when I have more time I will tell you why.