Zen by Default

Photo-Daily Mail

My job of these past six months or so has maybe been the biggest surprise of my life. I never saw myself as able to give to other people in any unusual or extraordinary way. I've always secretly been disturbed by what I viewed as having a closed up nature . A hermit by choice all these years, except for raising my children of course -but caring for one's family comes easily and on some level doesn't count in the big picture I'm thinking of. Even animals take care of their young ones.

In working with geriatric patients of all backgrounds and various degrees of health, I've learned more things than I can comprehend or relate to anybody. I'm still sorting the data, still putting the puzzle together. A culmination of tiny things learned here and there, til one day they mount up and I feel a slight shift on the inside, somehow.
I have changed more in the last six months than in the whole of my previous life put together. I'm not any good at explaining how, either- it's like standing on the surface of the moon, trying to describe the sensational rocks and stark, back-lit craters to somebody over the phone. The listener on the other end makes all the appropriate noises, but in the end, they're secretly thinking that the space capsule was probably cold, the journey endless and that those prepackaged tinfoil meals were tiresome after the first few days.
It's true that the nuts and bolts of caring for sick or elderly people doesn't make for fascinating copy. But somehow, there is a luminous glow to this job that is invisible to the casual observer. It's the unseen gift that allows it's recipient to constantly grow and stretch, round out their sharp edges and become somebody they never realised they could be.

Claims Adjuster On the Roof Again

cnn photo

...in a week or so, if the local weather guys are right. After last year's ice glazed end to January, hundreds of local houses were damaged or crushed, roads blocked by hundred year old downed trees and the stores -if you could get there -were filled with empty shelves. I don't think there was a D battery or a generator to be had in three counties. Lowes ordered more chainsaws and often the truck would be met by customers, lined up out in the cold. Some had gotten a ride into town by hiking across a pasture to the neighbor's house, who was lucky enough to have a vehicle without a tree sprawled on top of it.

Here in town, those of us with any kind of fireplace fared a little better.
Kind of.
It's 18 degrees and snowing again. We are hunched around our dining room table in heavy parkas, faces in the flickering light. Here on our street it's 1880 again, and one walking into the room would have the impression of shaggy, unwashed creatures sitting in the dark, maybe nawing on bones or a small rodent who strayed in out of the cold. No street lights anywhere; awesome in it's way , because if you were driving by on the interstate, you'd not guess there was a city of 60,000 just a block or two off the ramp - the place completely swallowed up in darkness, save the red glow of a fireplace here and there, or the occasional feeble beam of flashlight. Patrol cars slowly cruising the neighborhoods, using search lights.

By the first of the week, though, the sun was out and the ice was melting -but the town had been hit by an atom bomb. our yard sustained alot of damage, and we lost some much loved trees, some older than the house, which was built in ice wagon days. Parts of the 8 foot privacy fence gone, the storage building caved in and by looking at it sideways for a minute, like a dog - suddenly it would dawn on the viewer that there was a riding lawn- mower shaped mound underneath. So many huge branches in the yard it took six guys with chain saws four days to clear the bulk of it away. But the insurance guy came out, walked the property, made a bunch of notes and the next week we had a sizable check in the mail.
It all turned out alright, and nobody was hurt- even when the side of the house caught fire and we had to evacuate. No power for days and days -weeks for some folks.

And now they say it will be here again tomorrow.
Please be wrong, local weather personalities with blinding-white teeth.
Please.

Remembering the Spub

...was difficult for awhile. He was a good cat, cut down in the prime of his sleeping and eating career by a malady common to male Ragdolls -kidney problems. Here he is pictured during the glory days of tormenting Lucy, the young prisoner shown behind bars .

As she got older, he was not above waiting for her to pass by then swatting her on the butt. At times they would both raise up on their hind legs, wrestling like small polar bears in the living room. it's true that we around here are easily entertained, and now all we have to watch is television. They were our own reality show, complete with fist fights, ambushes and making -up sessions.
I miss seeing him sit on his skate board, waiting for somebody to give him a push. I miss his fishy breath and chainsaw purr.
Rest in peace, Pal. You were a man's man, and everybody knew it.

Hide that Coffee Pot

...They're at it again. If only one could harness that energy to... say, run the dishwasher or defrost car windows.

otterbeone uploaded a new video (21 hours ago) Friend of the Devil-Greatfu... Lightnin Bug playing our most highly caffeinated tune, Otter on Banjo, ... more Lightnin Bug playing our most highly caffeinated tune, Otter on Banjo, Mic on La Gloria Torpedo cigar box mandolin... See what too much coffee will do to ya...'-} http://www.muttmo... less

A Shortage Of Pith

...exists in full swing at my house, so instead I'm posting this attractive photo of my friend John's other friend Boogie.

[photo -John Cook]
Somehow I'm finding out that prints of the drawing behind him exist all over the country -not in abundance, certainly, but in enough numbers to make me wonder how they sprang up like mushrooms.

Pith, once a divine dessert in my life [ living in the backwoods as I do] was always in short supply and I lived in constant search of it -always on the lookout for the droll mail carrier or the cut up who sacked my groceries. Once in a while a true Pithian Knight would materialise and I would be in my glory, sopping up the arcane humor as it came off the conveyor belt, even storing small scraps for later, perhaps to hold in my cheek like snuff for when winter came and all the real jokesters had gone back to the city to write comedy for paychecks, I was left to play straight man to an army of straight men.
Now, because of the internet, I find myself surrounded by a buffet of rabid wit every morning from Kingsbury to Sherman Oaks -urban rancor, southern impishness and enough DC crispy political banter to make the grease crackle in my head.
I always thought that's what I wanted most, during those years of the long cleverness famine. But I was young.
Now it's nice to just hear somebody say 'pass the toast' with no english to it, no particular spin except for the toast passer to worry about whether I have enough butter or if my coffee cup is empty.