Greasy kids stuff


This is how you do a trick that I used to do as a kid but have been unable to remember by myself. So if I found this video to help me:

Let's Active

I suspect that these guys are over-caffeinated.

I've got a bike you can ride it if you like

It can seem like an eternity since the time I thought I was capable of anything. It wasn't like I woke up one day and decided that I couldn't attain all that I dreamed of, but the quotidian richness and demands for time and energy has distracted me from the type of dreaming I did in high school. But truth be told, it was a delusion that I was capable of anything. Or to put it more accurately, I wasn't capable of everything because a steadfast devotion to one pursuit or ambition would inevitably render other dreams unattainable.

Yet the recognition that I didn't pursue some dreams and realization that it's OK allows me to appreciate the fantastic achievements of others, such as Danny MacAskill's bicycle acrobatics:

I headed west to grow up with the country

The national professional association for my profession recently met in our fair city. During one lunch I sat between one gentleman from Missoula, MT and another easterner who had ventured west in the '70s after his stint in the Army. They traded stories about the old and current days, skiing, places long ago, etc.

And then strangely I, a skinny little boy from Cleveland, OH, was able to swap some stories as well. I realized that starting with age 15 I spent some or all of my summers out west. In '81 I went hiking with the Boy Scouts in NM; the next year was a time in Utah working on a restoration project; and in '83 I found myself as a "ranchhand" at a camp in Steamboat Springs. During these trips I discovered Jack Kerouac, "Siddhartha", and that some women sprout hair from their areolae.

Dark side of the moon

Lately I've stricken in an area of my body that is the source of 90% of the jokes of boys age 3 to 15 and South Park fans of any age. While I've relished the ability, with my special credentials, to add to that voluminous body of scatological humor, I've resisted adding my special stamp to the genre.

'Cause it really does hurt. I've hurt off-and-on since mid April, with minor surgery planned in a few days. So in one sense I'm dealing with my mortality and it shows most acutely when I go for appointments at my special doctor. I pull into the parking ramp and the parking ticket is spit out of the machine. I wait for the lumbering elevator impatiently in the quiet hallway with dingy carpet. I enter the hushed waiting room and hand my parking ticket to the receptionist to be validated.

I feel like Jack Lemmon in one of those Florida retiree movies. Except I don't have a big space egg growing in my indoor pool. Instead, it's growing in my... oh never mind.

He lived on the outside of town

There seems to be Hollis Browns popping up all over.

Drinking Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee

Ma Bim is coming to visit this weekend. She asked me what she should bring to wear to K's 6th birthday party. So a conversation about what to wear turned into a conversation of the most appropriate wear based upon what one was drinking, which morphed into a walk down Liquid Lane circa 1958:

"At Sweet Briar [College in Virginia] I learned to like beer and preferred scotch. I wore skirts for most dates, or Bermuda shorts, which could be no more than three inches above my knees to comply with the dress code. I didn't own a pair of jeans. The college allowed us students to drink only 3.2 beer, and only off campus. I drank scotch on weekends at U. Va, at fraternity houses. It was BYOB. For my Sophomore year my usual date had rich parents and we drank good scotch.

[While at Tulane] I drank a variety of things in New Orleans with the French Quarter so handy. It also depended on who I was with and their financial situation. I especially liked one medical student with whom I drank mostly beer. I remember liking Singapore Slings, Moscow Mules, Pousse cafes, and an occasional Hurricane at Pat O'Brians. EitherTom Collins or gin and tonics, I forgot which, were $ 1 at "Breakfast at Brennan's". I drank beer at the Napolean House."

I'm a safe surfer, darling

I'm riding the crest of trend!

Wednesday's worse and Thursday I don't know

Started off Monday morning with news from the dentist that I needed a root canal.
Then Tuesday the office manager called me and said he was cutting me to half time.*
I can't wait to see what happens today.


*In reality, if I can bill hours I'll get paid for them- I'm just in a more tenuous position.

The Christmas song

While we at the Emporium generally hew to the secular and not get too involved with pagan gatherings and events, we do recognize that Christmas does represent something special to our patrons.

So, in the spirit of unity and financial dissolution, I offer a Merry Crisis and a Happy New Fear to all.

Sweet Leaf

In a blow to Mr. Palin's status, archeologists discover First Dude.

We gotta clean up the human being side of town

Though the outcome of this year's presidential campaign hasn't been decided, I really hope that one thing has been revealed: Campaigning for the 51% win isn't a way to lay a foundation for effective governance to address the massive changes we need to make as a nation to maintain any semblance of the quality of life we currently enjoy.

Though we may never reach the people who don't want to be reached- the 29% who think Bush is such a peachy keen Prez of the Ages and the fringe lefties whose identity is consumed by the need to oppose the mainstream no matter where the stream diverts itself- I truly believe that we need to have some sort of consensus to move forward and re-invent the American Dream(s) so that is attainable for a majority of citizens and is less energy and resource consumptive.

This also requires us to redefine economic indicators so that our economic health isn't measured by how severely we bludgeon the earth and deplete valuable resources. Current indicators trumpet how many cars and houses the sausage factory spit out last month to maintain our Sprawl Life, and leave us anxious if the earth had a good month. A steady state economy may seem far-fetched right now, but eventually it may be the only choice we have left. But we have to chose it- more than 51% of us.

I found a reason to keep living

It comes from a quote attributed to John Maynard Keynes: "Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assaults of thoughts on the unthinking."

A connecting principle linked to the invisible

I don't know if it's just me, and this sort of stuff happens to everyone but they don't make a big deal out of it, but my life is littered- heavily laden I tell you- with coincidences. While I haven't done any statistical analysis of this phenomenon, it appears that simple conjoining of random events could produce this string of events, all of which have occurred in the last week or so:

--I notice that the publisher of one of the kid's books is Troll Publishers. That's odd, I think, because that's my grandmother's maiden name and it does not have wide currency. (Dear Reader, I can see you smirking out there and asking when we moved out from underneath the bridge. It's a German name and we pronounced it "trawl." So there.) I wonder if it's a family business and if we're related to that family. The next day I do some research and find out that Troll Publishing has been absorbed by the Scholastic Book empire. Then the day after that, the kids bring home a Scholastic Book catalog.

--On the iPod I hear Dylan doing "This Land is Your Land." The next song, randomly played from a set of over 10,000 songs, is Woody's version of the song.

--I come from a humble suburb of Cleveland. On a single day I read the name of the suburb in a mid-90s American novel and a research paper on transit-oriented development.

--I've thinking lately about how I used to travel the Money road, which folks said at night was a dangerous road because of the risk of running into a drunk driver. (Money, MS was where Emmitt Till met his tragic end.) So today I read that the town is in the news again because to some folks what happened in 1955 still makes them uncomfortable.

See what I mean? Is it just me, or does this regularly happen to everybody? Well, I guess it happened to Jung with enough frequency that he developed his concept of synchronicity around it.

I'm out on the lawn watching a hundred typewriters soaked in green paint

It being something of the zeitgeist- and I'm all about contributing to the spirit of the age- I decided to pursue some turf change I can believe in. So I ripped up the front yard, filled in some hollows with dirt from the patio excavation, and planted grass seed. I felt like Blind Bim shaving the earth dry and regaining some of the Lost Farm.

(I especially liked the 19th C yeoman's tool used to remove the old sod. The Maine Woods Thoreau essays I've been reading put me in the proper mood to slave away on that implement that resembles a medieval torture device. )

Been too long at the fair

"I'm all out of sick days. Next time I'm calling in dead."
"Not as lean, not as mean, but still a Marine."
"The Bible talks about St. Paul but doesn't mention Minneapolis"

-t-shirts seen at the State Fair

Hey, that's no way to say goodbye

I was out of phone reach last weekend attending a wedding in Maine. But, frustratingly enough, every now and then my phone would alert me that I had voice mails from Mrs. B. As three voicemails piled up in one day I thought: What is the deal, did someone die or something?

Well, sadly, that turned out to be true.

I've known Indian J since the second day I started attending school in Madison in 1985. By coincidence we sat next to each other at an orientation session, which was quickly followed by beers at the lakefront student union. At that time he was extracting himself from the wreckage of a premature marriage that had produced two toddler boys. Through the college years we weren't consistent running pardners, but our friend circles intertwined and we shared a couple girlfriends (though not at the same time- well, almost once) and were even roommates during senior year.

After I had left Madison for frontiers beyond what a liberal midwestern college town could offer, Indian J and I kept in touch. He remained in Madison and I periodically returned to visit- which included a couple month couch-surfing stint one summer- and eventually we found our life partners.

Indian J had found F., a native of Die, France who taught school. I didn't see them much, but understood something of the dynamic where she wanted to start a family and Indian J was reluctant: he felt burned by his first experience and he didn't know if he could devote himself to the project again. But divine intervention occurred and they decided to bring forth Little M into the world in '01 and were wed in '02. I watched as he joyously danced with his little daughter at the barnyard reception.

I'm a little hazy on the chronology, but F. was diagnosed with cancer around '03. She doggedly pursued treatment and was able to continue with a somewhat normal life for some time. But her health began to decline over the last couple years. By last fall she was spending some time in a wheelchair and was incapable of working. I saw her again several weeks ago and she was largely bound to a bed, but she could still hold a conversation. She wanted to hear about my world, and I kept my questions about her to a minimum. I had already sat with Indian J and asked how he was doing. "It sucks watching your wife die." I didn't need to ask her to explain how she was doing.

Shortly after my visit, her condition began to rapidly deteriorate. She needed professional help and was moved to hospice, where she lasted another week.

In the spectrum of human tragedies, individual deaths are the equivalent of a calendar year in geologic time. They don't really register as a blip when measured as a part of the whole. But as we live through our lives, we don't have the luxury of that larger perspective. The most minute events are often the most painful and medicine has yet to concoct ways to heal the wounds that need the most immediate attention.

I use the word "tragedy" because I witnessed Indian J, having reached for the brass ring of domestic felicity long after cynicism and resignation from a failed first marriage should have kept him on the sidelines, find that his grasp could not hold on as F.'s body failed her.

Indian J and Little Miss M will continue on: she to second grade and he back to his high school counseling duties. From my outside vantage point I can't escape seeing his life as a story flavored by the cruellest of ironies. It is a story of a runner who stumbled once, then rose to race again, only to find that the location of the finish line had changed.

In tall buildings

One of my favorite albums (does it rise to the level of a Desert Island Disc? I dunno- I've never counted to 10) since time immemorial- or at least since I was a 17-year old pup working at a Colorado summer camp- is John Hartford's Aereo-Plain.

Spun from Hartford's eccentric prowess and David Bromberg's perpetual irreverence, the album must have seemed when it came out in 1971 like some unwanted hippy crapgrass encroachment on idyllic bluegrass turf. But I love it and have a cherished memory of streaking through a girl's locker room at the Colorado summer camp to the sound of "Boogie" coming from a shoulder-perched boombox.

So, aided by the recent uncovering of a 1983 UW-La Crosse solo recording, John Hartford has been in my ears and on my mind lately. One of the songs he plays- though it's not on Aeroplane- is one where the singer laments a change in life where he submits to a lifestyle where economic burdens and a quotidian schedule frame his existence.

..."Someday my Baby when I am a man, and others have taught me the best that they can, they'll sell me a suit and cut off my hair and send me to work in tall buildings. So it's goodbye to the sunshine, goodbye to the dew, goodbye to the flowers and goodbye to you. I'm off to the subway, I must not be late, I'm going to work in tall buildings. When I retire, my life is my own, I've made all my payments, it's time to go home, and wonder what happened betwixed and between, when I went to work in tall buildings."

Our firm recently moved its offices and I now work on the 15th floor.

Time

So, back home from our lovely wedding weekend in Madison, I picked up the shovel to continue my Herculean labor project for the summer: excavating some 120 cubit feet of dirt so we can lay down a patio and a back walkway for our 103 year old house. As I began laboring, K came out of the house, excited about the prospect of finding buried treasure. "We can find a treasure chest. And we can put a storybox in it!"

Yeah, right kid, I thought as I sweated in the 86 degree heat. After I had wheelbarrowed a large dirt pile to the rear garden and began digging about 6 inches down on one side, I hit some stray pipes. Then I began to reveal some ceramic shards, rusty nails, and burnt wood. Obviously, I had hit a trash pile that workers had buried there. I turned over a little more dirt and found a small clear glass bottle imprinted "Frostilla" on one side and "Fragrant Lotion" on the other side. Maybe K was going to get his treasure after all.

Next in the dirt I picked up a small coin or token that was octogonal in shape. K quickly grabbed it out of my hand and he washed in the hose that he and L had been playing in. The coin said: "Crescent Creamery- redeem with empty bottle for 5 cents."

I looked on the internet and found that Frostilla was a skin cream- made in Elmira, NY where we used to go for neo-natal checkups before K was born- and the bottle is probably from 1900-20. The Crescent Creamery operated from St. Paul until it was bought out in 1961 by Kemp's, whose milk we buy every week. The Crescent Creamery also employed a Greek immigrant who ended up being the father of the Andrews Sisters, who first came to fame in 1937 with their recording of "Bei mir bist du schon," a song the bride sang to the groom at the Madison wedding reception.

It's a small world and a small clock, afterall.

Summertime ain't coming but it's always on my mind

It's almost mid June and I haven't even gotten the kiddie pool down from the garage rafters. We have not had sweltering days that swell the corn and bake me on my daily commuting bike rides. When will summer come?

I'll save you the predictably jokes about Al Gore not doing enough to cause some real global warming.