Extended Family

The passing of my great uncle on Thanksgiving morning has me musing on families. Not wives, sons, daughters, mothers, and fathers. I've been thinking more about great grandparents, great uncles, etc.

Ordinarily, the "great" relatives leave this earthly existence before younger generations really have a chance to know them. It's the simple mathematics of average life spans. Many of us probably remember meeting a great relative in our early years. Meeting them is probably about all remember.

My Great Uncle Lec was just a few months shy of 100 when he passed away. To me, he was always the elderly relative who lived on the other side of town - or, after I moved, the relative in the other town.

Reflecting on his passing, I think I missed wonderful opportunities by failing to know him better. Opportunities to hear about life in the early 1900's. Opportunities to hear about relatives even more "great' than my great uncle.

It's not often we are given such an opportunity to learn history first hand. I regret letting it pass me by.

Rock Tour

We weren't exactly Sly and the Family Stone - but we were close, and I'm thinking we should take our act on the road. Fame and fortune surely await.

Well, okay, maybe not.

But our family sure had fun hanging out in College Dude's apartment over the Thanksgiving holiday. College Dude introduced us to the video game Rock Star.

Remember singing along to your albums, er-ah, eight tracks, I mean cassettes, as a kid? Perhaps you used a pencil, hairbrush, of empty paper towel roll for a microphone. Almost assuredly you played a wicked air guitar.

I must confess to being a lip syncing junkie in my teens. All of the skills I developed during those teenage performances were put to good use the past few days as I rocked the house with songs by Boston, Jethro Tull, Steve Miller, Queen, and more.

My family saw a side of me that I don't think they've ever seen before. I think I can say in total confidence that they were overwhelmed.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

It's been a rough year for many people. Here's hoping we are all able to spend the holiday focused on something, however small, to be thankful for.

As we offer up our prayers of Thanksgiving, let us include those in dire straits as well as the men and women in our armed forces.



I'll be away from the internet for a while. Look for a new post on Monday, November 30.

New Tradition

Along the turnpike and through the tunnel to College Dude's apartment we go.

Yes, it's a new twist on over the river and through the woods.

A new twist to the song is fitting because this year marks a new twist to our family tradition. Since College Dude's obligations prevent him from coming to us - Motivated Mom, Media Girl, and myself will be heading to him.

It's kind of exciting actually, like taking the first step on a new adventure.

The change in venue has me thinking about Thanksgiving evolution. For me, Thanksgiving memories begin with my grandparents' dining room table burdened with food and the smell of a slowly roasting turkey permeating the entire house. Later years saw my sister and I seated in my parents' dining room.

Thanksgiving then alternated between the families of Motivated Mom and myself. Now we are heading to our son's house. It occurs to me that, with a couple of exceptions, Motivated Mom and I have somehow skipped being Thanksgiving hosts. Perhaps our turn will come in the future - as grandparents. Now there's a scary thought.

Lights and Colts

It was a near thing today. My neighbor almost stole my coveted position of being the first person in the neighborhood to decorate for Christmas.

I had come home from work, popped a cold brewsky, and was settling in to watch the Indianapolis Colts hopefully continue their perfect season - when across the street there arose such a clatter that I sprang from my recliner to see what was the matter.

My neighbor was putting up his Christmas decorations.

Oh my, said I.
This cannot be.
Someone decorating earlier than me.

I turned from the window
Looked back at the T.V.
I sorely wanted to watch Peyton throw for T.D.s

But my decorating title was in jeopardy
There was really no choice
I cranked the volume so from outside I could hear the announcers voice.

Outside I hung colored lights from the eaves with care,
Fixing my neighbor with a murderous stare

I went up and down the ladder more often than I should
Sometimes to fix wires, sometimes to check the Colts were still good.

All in all it was a celebratory day
My title was not lost - though it now will be shared
My team marched onward with hardly a care.

Significant Absence

Motivated Mom is absent this weekend - visiting friends in the mountainous terrains of upstate Pennsylvania.

There's something about one's significant other being away that makes the house feel different. A quiet settles in that is both relaxing and unnerving.

The relaxation comes from things like choosing to wait for a couple hours after a meal to wash the dishes, choosing not to return the dozen decorative pillows to the bed after rising, or choosing to set the volume on the surround sound to levels that would preclude conversation if Motivated Mom were around.

Yet the absence of Motivated Mom's footsteps in the hall, or her yawn coming from the bedroom, or the fizzling in the kitchen as she pours Caffeine Free Diet Coke into a glass of crushed ice results in an unnatural silence. A silence so loud that I cannot help but realize an important of me is missing, that I am incomplete.

Pruning and Samwise

I was pruning bushes today. Today being one of my weekend days that isn't really a weekend.

While I was attacking the shrubbery with assorted shears, pruners, and clippers, I recalled a scene from the first Lord of the Rings movie. In the scene, Gandalf hoists Samwise Gamgee through an open window and accuses Sam of eavesdropping. Sam insists he was simply attending to his gardening duties - even though his eavesdropping takes place in the middle of the night.

I can't get that scene out of my head. So, now that dusk has fallen and I find myself alone in the house for the evening. I guess I'm going to have to drop the DVD in the entertainment system, crank up the surround sound, and lose myself in the goings on in the Shire.

When Weekends Aren't Weekends

It's a big adjustment adjusting to weekends not being weekends.

It's an even bigger adjustment when your spouse doesn't have to make the adjustment.

My world involves working Saturdays and Sundays on a regular basis while Motivated Mom still calls those days her own.

To me Saturdays and Sundays are now just other days in the work week. My days off in the week come one at a time - sometimes not at all. I carry a daytimer at all times just to know what time in the week it is.

It has given me a whole new appreciation of people who work in 24/7 service industries.

It has also helped me to appreciate that time is relative. One day blends into another, days disappear into weeks, weeks meld into months, and soon the better part of a year has passed without mile markers.

I know there is a holiday season approaching, I'm not sure if I will recognize its arrival.

Bespelled Geese

Sunrise this morning revealed a wispy haze swirling across the surface of the pond outside my window. Twelve geese stood like sentinels along the water's edge. They stood still as statues and equidistant from one another - as though they had been set in place by an unseen landscaper during the night.

The geese stood between me and the rising sun so that even though sunlight was reflecting from the surface of the pond, the geese themselves stood in shadowed profile.

When a golden sunbeam finally fell directly upon the feathered crown of the lead goose, he took a step forward. His companions followed immediately behind. I could almost have believed the beam of golden light had released the geese from a spell that had kept them locked in place throughout the night.

Meteor Adventure

I meant to check out the Leonid meteor showers early this morning. I had considered setting my alarm a little early so that I would have leisurely viewing time, then decided it wasn't necessary because I'm always up before dawn anyway.

Problem is, I forgot my brain operates on auto-pilot when I first rise. An earlier wake up alarm would have alerted my processors and synapses that something was different about today. Lacking that change in routine, I followed my routine and completely forgot about viewing the heavens.

Meteor showers hold the same fascination for me now as they did in my childhood. There's something about dozens of "shooting stars" slicing across the night sky that encourages my mind to unfold and view the earth, the sky, and the heavens in a different light.

Slouched in an Adirondack chair or lying on a quilted blanket and studying the stars while dew settles on the ground around me, I sense an adventure in the making. For a short while the work-a-day world ceases to exist and a step into another dimension does not seem far fetched at all.

Peace and Shadows

Time has gotten away from me today.

Here's a short meditation.

To find peace, one must step away from one's own shadow.

Mad Elf

I passed a sign today advertising Mad Elf Ale. I couldn't help but notice the neon-blue digital lettering in the gray light of another rainy morning.

I couldn't help wondering if Mad Elf referred to an angry elf or an elf that, well, wasn't quite right in the head.

Then I started contemplating whether the ale was a new North Pole enterprise or if it was being brewed in a more tropical climate like Rivendale.

The ale has to be a product of Rivendale. I can't see Mr. S. Claus being okay with the brewing of an alcoholic beverage on his home turf.

Perhaps I'm jumping to conclusions. Perhaps Mad Elf Ale has nothing to do with alcohol. Perhaps it's a beverage carefully blended to soothe the irrational tendencies of an irritated elf.

That would mean there are elves living among us, otherwise there would be no reason for the sign. Unless of course I wasn't meant to see the sign. Maybe the oppressively humid conditions altered the atmosphere just enough that I was able to see what is ordinarily invisible to the human eye. Sort of like a prism breaks a beam of sunlight into the individual colors of the rainbow.

Or maybe I'm getting cabin fever from days and days of endless rain.

Twenty-Third Year

College Dude celebrated a birthday on Thursday, his twenty-third.

Motivated Mom and I visited with him via cell phone. Part of the discussion included College Dude telling us that he and Language Lass have started exploring their home buying options. One of the options was building a house rather than buying an existing one.

Home buying? House building? College Dude? How did this happen? I can still clearly see he and I sitting on the family room building towers with blocks - suddenly he's talking about building a house - a real honest to goodness house.

Well, okay, it's not really all of a sudden. It has been twenty-three years in the making. But, hey, take pity on an old man, work around to this kind of subject gradually. I'm still adjusting to the fact that College Dude's mailing address doesn't match mine.

Next thing you know he'll be talking about marriage. Oh yeah, he's already done that. It was just about this time last year he proposed to Language Lass.

Well, he'll be talking about kids. Oh, ah, that subject has come up too.

I guess I can just wander down to the end of the dock with my fishing pole. It seems my work is done.

Things To Not Do

Most of us have an ongoing "to do" list. While I was out and about today, I started putting together a list of things to not do when a tropical storm is lingering in the area.

Do Not go up in a lift truck to repair the sign on the front of a coffee shop. Given that the sign was most likely damaged by high winds, hoisting yourself skyward in those same winds is probably not a good idea.

Do Not go hunting. Animals are smarter than most humans. Certainly they're smart enough to remain deep in the thickets and curled up in their burrows when rain is falling fast enough to sink a ship. Which means hunters are almost certainly going to return home empty handed - and a lot wetter than the animals they were hoping to catch by surprise.

Do Not ride a moped without rain gear and facial protection. With rain being blown sideways, simply squinting your eyes while trying to pull your neck down inside of your sweatshirt like a turtle retracting into its shell isn't going to get you where you need to go safely.

Gods and Horrors

The gods are angry. That's what has been going through my mind for the past two days as our area endures the remnant of Hurricane Ida that has stalled directly over top of us. It is now projected that by the end of the day Saturday we could see a total of fifteen inches of rainfall.
Roads are being closed and beaches have disappeared, chewed away by twenty foot waves. The bay to our west has met the ocean to our east turning the area into one enormous swimming pool. The governor has declared a state of emergency, schools have closed, and the few boats that are still in the water now look like orphans - the docks they are tied to having disappeared below the level of the rising waters.

Nearly continuous wind gusts of sixty miles per hour create a sound that has me picturing gigantic demons howling just beyond the walls of our house. Those same walls creak under the strain of standing against the unrelenting wind and suddenly our house seems less sturdy than it did three days ago.

I learned an important lesson today. Do not lean into the open trunk of a car during howling winds. A particularly strong wind slammed the trunk lid down onto my back earlier. I felt like I was in a modern day Little Shop of Horrors - being devoured by a metallic monster rather than a famished plant.

Weather Portal

We are in the middle of another interminable period of rain as the remnants of Hurricane Ida travel up the Atlantic Coast.

Our cats are unhappy, and frustrated in their efforts to find better weather. They seem to feel that the weather on the other side of the front door should be better that what waits beyond the back door and vice versa. When one door is opened, the cats puff up like a sponge in a bathtub and head for the opposite side of the house.

As much time as they spend patrolling the perimeter of the property, I would think that by now the cats would know that mother nature's offerings are the same front and back.

Perhaps our feline friends can't make the connection between inside and out. Perhaps they just don't understand that both doors lead to the same yard. Perhaps they expect one door to be a portal to a different weather destination.

Ah, if only that were true. I would come in the front door at the end of a work day, shed my insulated jacket, and head out the back door to enjoy blue sky, gentle breezes, and palm trees.

Chilling Hotel

I happened upon a television documentary about a hotel in Iceland that gets rebuilt every year... because the hotel is made from ice and melts with the arrival of spring.

Talk about an exercise in futility! Granted, a hotel of ice is a novel concept, but when the structure first melted with the arrival of above freezing temperatures it seems to me the designer and builder would have put their heads together and said Oops, bad idea, should have seen that coming.

Not so. The folks involved immediately started harvesting massive blocks of ice from flows that spring hadn't yet managed to thaw and putting the blocks in temperature controlled storage for the next year.

Now maybe I'm missing something, but if you're going to build a climate controlled building big enough to hold the ice needed to build an entire hotel year after year why not just construct the hotel the traditional way, build it only once, and install an air handling system that will take the indoor temperature down to twenty degrees?

Better yet, why not build a hotel that's warm? Personally I'm not keen on the idea of trying to fall asleep on an oversize squeeze pop no matter how many seal skins are thrown on top.

And as for honeymooning in an ice hotel (which some folks do) - well there's that whole issue of certain things failing to achieve a workable size when the body as a whole is turning blue from cold.

Flower of Sleep

First a big thank you to Matt, one of the readers of this blog, for the info he sent about flower extracts and getting a good night's sleep.

Another thank you to my acupuncturist, Gerry, who reminded me about the importance of the primary chakras in the body.

Combining Lavender oil and the Heart Chakra, I am once gain back to nights of seven and eight hours of sleep. A real treat after weeks of tossing and turning.

I didn't realize it at first, but the oil and chakra combination is a double whammy of flower power. Lavender oil is extracted from the Lavender flower and the Heart Chakra, I learned later, is symbolized by a lotus flower.

The info I received from Matt suggested misting my pillow with a lavender scent. I chose to place a few drops of Lavender essential oil (available anyplace that sells aromatherapy supplies) on my chest directly at my Heart Chakra.

The first night I tried this, I found the lavender smell to be rather weak - being as how my chest was buried under a down comforter - so I decided to place a drop of essential oil just below my nostrils as well. I was out within fifteen minutes and slept straight through.

So my advice to anyone dealing with insomnia is: get thee to a supplier of essential oils and let flower power put you to sleep.

Arm Signals

My work vehicle is beginning to show its age. The aging has become pronounced since the arrival of cold weather. When the truck is first started in the morning, it rattles like the proverbial bucket of bolts, puffy white exhaust billows out from more locations than just the end of the tail pipe, and the turn signals don't work until the outdoor temperature rises above forty degrees.

A new vehicle is not in the cards at this point, so I say a few extra prayers on cold mornings.

As for the turn signal thing, I guess I'll have to use the arm signals usually relegated to bicyclists and motorcyclists - for as long as the driver's power window works.

I'm shivering at the very thought of a winter of driving with an open window.

Maybe I should just get a bumper sticker saying Warning, vehicle makes sudden turns

Leaf Schedule

I've been raking leaves the past few days and almost feel like I've made a dent in the cleanup.

Despite the sense of progress, the unfortunate truth is that I'll be dealing with leaves for weeks to come.

Because not all trees drop their colorful foliage at the same time.

It seems to me that mother nature dropped the ball here. There should be a specific date - say November 5th - that leaves fall from all the trees. Then there could be a single massive cleanup campaign and the de-leafing of our lawns would be behind us.

Why November 5th? Well, as near as I can figure that's half way between the two equinox's occurring in the latter half of the year so it seems an appropriate date.

Hmmm... I wonder. If all the leaves fell at the same time would there be rumbling ground tremors across the continent? I guess only if someone was there to hear it.

Enlightened State Part 2

I was checking out some books in the the bargain bin of a local department store when I came across an oddly shaped book with a cover in the eye-catching color of brown mustard.

Lacking the pen I usually carry with me, I did my best to commit the title of the book to memory - and promptly forgot it when my senses were overwhelmed by the newest HDTV technology in a neighboring department.

I digress. The book title was something like 150 Indispensable Things You Need to Know to Be a Well Functioning Adult.

Thumbing through the pages I found references to truly important things: How to sew a button back on, How to jump start a car with a manual transmission, How to get a baby to go to sleep, and .... How to Roll a Joint.

I wonder if the author of the book lives in Colorado?

Enlightened State

Those of you who remember the television show Green Acres, please start humming the tune to the theme song as you read below:

Co-lorado is the place to be.
Co-ountry living is the life for me.
Plains spreadin' out so far and wide.
Keep big cities, just give me that countryside.

Okay you can stop humming now.

I decided Colorado is the place I need to be after learning of job opportunity there. A certain newspaper in that great state is looking for a freelance writer to review the state's marijuana dispensaries.

It seems the enlightened citizens of the noble state of Colorado have approved the legalization of marijuana in certain situations.

And at least one newspaper has decided they need a dedicated individual to keep tabs on how the process grows -er, ah, - goes.

Well move over Bob Woodward, I'm the man for the job.

Of course accurate reporting will require a certain intimacy with the substance in question. Which will make the job all that much easier. After all, who can't wax poetic after sampling some righteous weed?

Yep, pardner. I'm ready to stuff a change of clothes (along with a pack of rolling papers) in my saddlebags and set out for the great state of Colorado. I'm convinced the grass grows greener there.

Three Isn't Eight

I'm stuck in a vicious sleep cycle. Actually the correct description would be sleepless cycle. I fall dead asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow but wake up three hour later - and am awake for the rest of the night.

I'm one of those people that needs a solid eight of hours of sleep in order to function. I'm here to tell you that three is definitely not eight.

I'm starting to feel like a walking zombie. I've tried all sorts of home remedies as well as prescription sleep aids to no avail.

If anyone has a tried and true method to overcome sleeplessness PLEASE drop me a note at scripterbwk@verizon.net

Disappearing Carousel

I recently came across information about the slow but steady disappearance of the carousel (merry-go-round) from American culture. Of the nearly 4000 carousels that used to be scattered across the country only 150 are in operation today.

It's a sad statistic. If you think about it, carousels were engineering marvels in their heyday. There was an incredible amount of synchronization required in the gears that spun the ride while raising and lowering the horses. Then there was the musical wonder that stood in the center of the attraction. Tinny music blared through flared horns while drums and cymbals miraculously beat and crashed on their own.

As kids we would stand in line sizing up the different horses until the perfect specimen galloped into view. We would keep our eyes fixed on the object of our desire so that when our turn came we could race directly for the colorful stallion or mare before it was snatched by someone else.

Of the few remaining carousels in our area of the country, the accessory that has mysteriously disappeared is the wooden or metal arm that would swing out and dispense metal rings. Most times the collection of those rings got you nothing more than the chance to toss them back into a wicker basket at the end of the ride. But the challenge of balancing in one stirrup, clinging to the pole with one hand, and stretching out for that silver token added a special thrill to the spinning amusement.

Double Step Temp

I've noticed that people walk with an increased sense of urgency these days. I'm not talking about folks hurrying back from lunch or racing to appointments, but the dedicated walkers who get their exercise with daily laps around the block.

The change occurs this every year at this time. The casual stroll encouraged by warm summer temperatures is replaced by a hurried double step brought on by the November chill.

While the need for daily exercise still calls out, the call of indoor warmth is louder still. There's nothing like the lure of logs crackling in a fireplace or a teapot whistling on the stove to make us hurry back to our comforting homes.