Reprint from a March Xanga Entry

It's been a long week, with our monthly series of day-long management meetings, so I've been neglecting this blog. I've decided to reprint an old entry on another blog of mine, which actually got a nod of approval from an author who has published many books in the horror/fantasy genre, and at one time or another has been an editor. I respect her judgment, and she can be harsh.

By way of introduction, because this is merely one episode taken from the middle of a serial, if you will, our hero is a mentally disabled 29 year old male, who's on all kinds of psychotropic drugs, with an IQ of 79. He thinks that means his intelligence level is C+ to B-. He's on the government dole for his mental disability, and fancies himself a phenomenal horror writer who just doesn't get the respect he so richly deserves from the Horror Writers of America, of which Mary SanGiovanni's president.

He lives in Illinois, alternating on and off with a roomie in an apartment, his granny's basement, and the mental hospital. Nobody would make fun of him were it not for the fact that he makes it his business to be obnoxious, send people (including me) idle death threats for not liking his fiction, which is so riddled with spelling and grammatical errors as to make it unreadable. He gets kidded all the time about being gay, because he's so vocal about his homophobia. The story is fiction, but the hero is, unfortunately for society, very real. He looks very much like this:


And now for the story.
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Friday, March 24, 2006

New Nicky Adventure ...the last time we saw Nicky, he woke up back in his room at Lakeview Psychiatric Facility to find Melny standing over him, offering him some tea. He didn't want it so she set it down and left the room, closing the door behind her. Scene 1: Nicky drifted off back to sleep. He slept like Rip Van Winkle. He needed it. When he awoke, he tossed off the blanket, got up from the sofa, and looked at the teacup. It was disgusting. Half the liquid had evaporated, and it was crawling with fruit flies that were after the sugar. "Fuck you, Melny! Never put sugar in my tea," he screamed to nobody in particular, since he was alone in his room. He walked out into the hallway to see if any of his old friends were still around. They were, but they were mostly juveniles with whom he had no patience. Very few were his age, give or take. Still, he spotted Mina down the hall. "Mina! How the hell are you? Where have you been? I haven't seen you in the longest time." "Nicky, it's nice to see you again. Where have YOU been? I've been here the whole time. The staff told us you were really sick, and not to bother you." "But Mina, I'm perfectly fine. How do you get an appointment with the doctor to prove it? "Oh, you just fake some stomach illness or say you have diarrhea. Then they'll let you see the doctor." Scene 2: Nicky picked up his room phone and called the front desk. "I'm having severe intestinal cramps and the runs. Can you send someone here pronto? This is really awful!" "Yes, Nicky, just hang on. Melny will be with you in a minute." "But I don't want Melny! Send someone else!" "May I ask why?" Nicky replied that she "put sugar in my tea, and it was really gross with the fruit flies swarming around it...oh, nevermind...just send somebody." "I'm sorry, but Melny's the only one we have available at the moment. "Alright, send her, but I hate her!" "Look, I'll see if the attending doctor can see you, and if so, I'll just have Melny bring you to see him. His name is Dr. Fielgut." Nicky replied "I like that doctor! When can I see him?" The receptionist put Nicky on hold and knocked on the doctor's door. "Within the next hour," replied Fielgut to the receptionist's inquiry. "I'm busy at the moment, but I'll let you know when to send Melny there to bring him back to see me." "Nicky. The doctor said it should be within an hour, and he'll let me know when he's available. I'll send Melny down to get you then, okay?" Scene 3: Fielgut saw it was obvious that Nicky was off his meds, and wrote out a new prescription for lithium. He told Nicky that if he got back on his meds, he might be allowed to join the field trip to the local bowling alley next week. Nicky was ecstatic. This was his chance to beat Mina. He lost to her playing Space Invaders last time they went on a field trip together; she got 168, and he got 150. For Nicky, 150 was pretty good. But still, it really sucked losing to a girl, and he wanted revenge. Nicky obediently took his meds, because he knew the staff would be taking blood tests to be sure he wasn't cheating. He just had to be allowed to go on the field trip. One morning an older, matronly looking attendant showed up and took a blood sample. Although Nicky had donated blood in the past, he hated needles. It made him feel a bit green around the gills to see his blood oozing out into a tube or syringe. "When will the results be ready? And can I have about a tablespoon of it back to use for my book signings?" asked Nicky. The attendant replied "Later this afternoon, I should think. Don't worry, the field trip's tomorrow, not today." She didn't answer his question about the book signing. He didn't press the issue. "Can someone call me when they're ready, to let me know?" he asked. "Sure, Nicky. I can arrange for that. Don't worry." Nicky spent the rest of the day in his room updating his many blogs and firing off nasty email to all the people who have ruined his book sales over the years. To: Burkeman From: Nickolas Ablert Pacoine Subject: E-pirating Asshat "Burkeman, fuck you! You e-pirated Tabloid Purpothes II. I know you did. Don't deny it douchebag. I know you're the one who did it. Then you emailed copies of it to Mary, Jean-Loup, Dan0oo, Truth, and SamYoung05. Oh, and that Phag bitch, too, and SirOtter, AlKilyu, and Janrae. You'll pay for this if I have to come over there myself and set your house of fire before I drag you out in the street and throw you in front of a speeding garbage truck. That's where you belong--in the back of a garbage truck with the rest of the rubbish. Do you hear me!? Capiche?" To: Mary SanGiovanni From: Nickolas Ablert Pacoine Subject: E-pirating Asshat "Mary, fuck you! ...Burkeman...Capiche?" To: Jean-Loup From: Nickolas Ablert Pacoine Subject: E-pirating Asshat "Jean-Loup, fuck you! ...Burkeman...Capiche?" To: The Truth About Dick From: Nickolas Ablert Pacoine Subject: E-pirating Asshat "Truth, fuck you! ...Burkeman...Capiche?" To: Dan0oo From: Nickolas Ablert Pacoine Subject: E-pirating Asshat "Dan0oo, fuck you! ...Burkeman...Capiche?" To: SamYoung05 From: Nickolas Ablert Pacoine Subject: E-pirating Asshat "SamYoung, fuck you! ...Capiche?" After typing out the same text over and over, Nicky hit on a brilliant idea. He could simply copy-and-paste the text from one into the next, but he still had to type out the To: field for each one, and take the recipient's name off the list in the text and replace it with Burkeman's. To: Phag... To: Janrae... To: AlKilyu... Nicky thought he'd covered everyone on his shit list, except Poppy Z. Brite, who he fervently hoped died in Katrina. He started to daydream that he was big enough of a man to throw her a life preserver as he zipped through downtown NOLA in his chartered yacht, looking for people to save. He pictured himself to be an Italian version of that excellent news reporter, Geraldo Rivera. He chuckled to himself at the thought, and let out a hopeful sigh. Nicky was jolted back to reality when the phone in his room rang. "Hello." he said. "Nicky, this is the front desk. Your blood test results are back. You passed, and have the doctor's permission to go on the field trip tomorrow. Be ready by 11am by the front door, where the van driver will pick up everyone who's going." "Whee! Thank you so much, and thank Dr. Fielgut for me, will you?" he squealed with delight. Scene 4: Nicky wolfed down breakfast at 9:30 am on the day of the field trip, and could hardly contain himself as he tried to figure out what to do for the next hour and a half. He was sure his strength would be up for bowling. He had eaten two fried eggs, hash browns, six strips of bacon, and two pork sausage patties. He would worry about his cholesterol later--for now, strength was the main issue. He had to beat Mina. Manhood points were at stake. He prowled around his room like a nervous cat, and kept checking his email. Nothing. Surely someone must have replied to his hateful email by now. It was almost 11:00 when he finally got an email. Indeed, it was from Grammy Surely. She wanted to know how he was doing. "Later, Grammy" he thought to himself. "I have to run now, but I'll reply when I get back." Nicky and Mina were standing around with the others by the front door waiting for the van to arrive. They were getting all excited about their big day out on the town, instead of being locked up as usual in a converted monastery with a bunch of other cuckoo birds. The van arrived at 11:03. Mina was first on line to get on. She paused a moment, though, because she didn't recognize the van driver. "Who are you? I don't believe I've ever seen you before. Are you new?" The driver replied "My name is Horst. Yes, I just started working here this week. And your name is...what?" "Oh, it's Mina, and this here is Nicky," she said as she grabbed Nicky's arm and dragged him next to her. Nicky was a little embarrassed by being manhandled like that by a woman, but he almost fainted when he looked at the man. It was Horse. "Horse, is that you?" Nicky asked in a quavering voice. "Yes, it is, Nick. Hop on in and we can talk later. You're holding up this field trip. We booked the lanes for 11:30, and have to stop by the desk to rent bowling shoes for everyone" said Horst. Nicky was in a daze, but he climbed in, followed by Mina, who sat next to him, then the 10 others. He was dead silent during the drive, and stared distractedly out the window. Mina knew better than to try to talk to him when he was like this. Scene 5: They arrived at the bowling alley and got out of the van. Horst led them in, paid their fee, and shepherded them all over to the shoe rental desk. Nicky was a little embarrased to request size four men's shoes, but they had them; sometimes the lanes hosted some kid's birthday party, just like the roller skating rink down the block did. They all put on their rented shoes, and paired up with each other for the six lanes they had rented. Mina and Nicky paired up together. This was going to be a death match, as far as Nicky was concerned. He was not going to lose to a girl. Nicky went around picking up bowling ball after bowling ball, trying to get one that felt heavy enough. When he thought he had a candidate, he took a backswing to get a feel for it. It wasn't quite right. Next, he found a blood-red one that seemed a bit heavier, tested it out, and liked it. It weighed 14 lbs. Mina picked a powder blue one that was much lighter. They were ready to rock and roll. Mina grabbed a score sheet, and they went over to lane 6. This bowling alley was too ancient to have electronic scoring. She went first. She took out six pins, but left herself a tough second try. She nailed the 4, 5 and 7, but left the 10 standing. Nine for the frame. Nicky swaggered up with his blood red bowling ball, and took a low slow backswing, but turned his wrist on the forward delivery, and got a gutter ball. His second try was a bit better--he knocked over the 1, 2, 4, and 7, and left the rest standing, which is not that easy to do. Four for the frame. Nicky was just warming up. "Mina, that was just a practice frame, okay? "The hell it was, Nicky. You know better. Just bowl better for the rest of the game!" she replied. Mina stepped up with her flyweight bowling ball and sent one right down the middle. It took out all but the 7 and 10 pins. She knocked over the 7 with her next bowl. Nine for the frame. Nicky stepped up next and rolled a spare with his two balls. He got another roll. Gutter ball. Ten for the frame. He was feeling pretty cocky because he'd just won a frame. During the course of the next few frames, Mina hit a few strikes, and spares, and got her extra rolls. She ended up with 205. Nicky had way too many gutter balls. He ended up with a score of 87. That was humiliating to him so he challenged her to a game of Donkey Kong, over in the arcade area. He bought himself a slice of pizza at the food counter along the way, but made her pay for her own soda pop. Ever the gentleman, he did pay for their arcade games, though. Pacman was first. Mina clobbered him on the first try. Looking for something a little more difficult, Nicky next selected Donkey Kong. Mina won by 26 points. Furious, Nicky moved on over to Centipede, and told her to get that worm up her nether parts. She laughed. She won. At 1:00 pm, Horse showed up with the van to pick them all up. He had to walk in there and stop the squabbling, and make everybody return the rented shoes and bowling balls. "No, you may not take those back with you." he explained. As he let off the field trip group at Lakeview, he asked Nicky if they could possibly meet out back somewhere for their talk. Nicky immediately said "Yes! But I don't know when I can escape. It's up to the doctor. How did you find me here, anyway?" "A little birdie told me you were here, and I got to missing you, so I applied for an orderly's job. Luckily, I got accepted. Anyway, we'll talk later." ...to be continued

Dinner was Chinese, but the implements were my own silverplate Korean. They're kind of flat, like linguini. If all else fails, stab your piece of chicken or veggie! Nobody's watching. Bullshit. They are, but they're chuckling, because they do it too. I love these chopsticks! And I like it even better that I get to use them in private! Don't even go there--filthy minds are welcome, but not mixed with dinner.

This entry was inspired by C-Mac at "Bored at the Beach." You can find him on my "Links" list on the sidebar, if you scroll down. School is now officially out. Actually, I think it ended yesterday in NJ, because there was no crossing guard by the high school today. To me, this is significant, because it means no more getting stuck behind school buses as they're pulling out in the morning from the bus yard on River Rd. to make their morning pick-ups. The bridge by me has been out for reconstruction since before the school year began late last summer, so I've had to take the detour on River Rd. past the bus yard, and all the landscaping contractors. The latter will be out in full force all summer long, but the school buses will be gone. Yea!

When I was in school, I never got to take the school bus. My parents chose a location that was precisely one block shy of the distance limit for taking the bus: 0.8 miles for grade school, and we were 0.7; 1.0 miles for junior high, and we were 0.9; 1.5 miles for high school and we were 1.4.

It really pissed me off that the neighborhood kids I used to play with after school and on weekends could take the bus, while I always had to walk, no matter what the weather. Even during Nixon's daylight/standard time switcheroo, when mom sent me to school in the morning with a flashlight because it was still dark. Our town had no sidewalks. Some streets had cobblestone gutters in which we could walk. On others, we had to walk in the roadway itself.

Their town is still like that; my town is largely like that as well, but nobody walks anywhere anymore, unless they are taking the dog out, or the kid in a stroller. My town has no downtown village area; one small strip mall about three miles away, uphill all the way, is the only commercially zoned area in the entire town, so we either drive there or shop in surrounding towns that actually have downtown retail areas. You can't even get a newspaper within reasonable walking distance without having it home delivered. But at least in my parents' town, there's a small village shopping area, and extremely upscale mall, and a larger downtown shopping zone, within easy walking or bicycling distance (think two miles or less).

These are the days of one car per household adult, so nobody has to cadge a ride off another family member unless they're under 17, or physically too immobile to drive. In my day, high school seniors were given Camaros by their parents for high school graduation presents, usually well before graduation. Now, the kids get Jeep Wranglers.

But when I was in school growing up, it was one car per household, so unless it was a family outing to church or some family friend's holiday party (yes, bring the kids!), we either walked everywhere or rode out bicycles. It's a habit I've never really outgrown. Even in Manhattan with public transportation, I get annoyed with people who want to waste subway fare on a ride for one or two stops, then still have to walk a few blocks. If it's within a mile and a half, I just walk it--I can do it within 20 minutes, using my power jaywalking skills. I walk fast. Very fast.

I've strayed from the school bus/school days theme, but walking vs. taking a bus or subway isn't that much of lurch. Have a good weekend everyone, if I don't see you until Monday.

Geek Chic Goes Cutesy

I could see where this little invention might scare small children, or even worse, fascinate them. It's a USB thumb (aka flash) drive, dressed up to look like a teddy bear. Pop its head off, insert it into a free USB port, and voila, you have portable storage space. Umm . . . there's HUNNY in that thar USB port, and I gots to get me some.

Personally, I think it's hilarious. But I probably wouldn't hang it off a clip on a briefcase or backpack (too easy to lose the body, and end up with just the head still attached).

This one's up there with the iPot for hilarity, but is far more useful. Still, I won't be sewing a little bear suit for my thumb drive. It does get pretty warm after being plugged in for a few hours, and I wouldn't want it to overheat and die on me. My thumb drive is company-issued, and although they're not expensive anymore to replace, why chance it?

I use the generic version. It works just as well, for at least half the cost. I have one of those nasty summertime colds--sneezing, sniffling, coughing--you name it. This is the only thing that keeps me functional. Goodnight, everyone.

Dan Rather finally left CBS after 44 years, 24 of which were spent in the anchor chair. It was an acrimonious divorce. Dan the Discredited was forced out of the anchor position after the story he did on Bush shirking his military duty based on forged documents. CBS basically pushed him aside and gave him little to do.

Susan Estrich, she of the Carol Channing voice, wrote a puff piece for FoxNews.com bemoaning the fact that CBS treated him badly after so many years with the company, calling it no less than age discrimination. How could they possibly do that to her kindred spirit buddy who treated her nicely when she was running the Dukakis campaign, and took such delight in covering the downfall of Nixon. I have news for you, Ms. Estrich: companies do stuff like that all the time, and age has nothing to do with it if the employee is prominent enough. Charles Gibson would never have been given an anchor news job, moving from "GMA" if youthe were the key. They do it to middle management and upper management alike. They outright fire lower level folks, instead of trying to force them to leave on their own.

If Dan the Discgraced had been a cub reporter, you can bet he probably wouldn't have been allowed to run the story without more thorough checking by the news division, but if he had, he would have been fired the moment the story was revealed to be phony. Estrich runs on and on about his loyalty to CBS going unrewarded. Gee--that sounds an awful lot like Corporate America. Oh, wait--CBS is Corporate America.

Estrich is missing the entire crux of the matter. Dan the Discgraced had become a liability to CBS after that reporting scandal. Further, network news in general has been moving away from the format that has a single authority figure, in the mold of Walter Cronkite, as anchor, for a long time now, but Rather was stuck in that era. His insistence on doing the news his way and being left alone to go do it didn't sit well with his new boss. We all know that newscasts have become a bit more folksy and filled with opinion, but the opinion isn't disguised and presented as hard news. Facts are given, and possibly some personal opinion, but it's presented as such. That wasn't Dan the Disgraced's way at all, and he'd have none of it. He didn't take direction well, so CBS left him to rot. Welcome to Corporate America, Susan! You completely missed the point with your serving of tea and sympathy. I wouldn't have expected any less of you.

So we activated our missile interceptor system. Since Korea is something like 14 hours ahead the East Coast of the U.S., I can't be too worried about it. Yet, better safe than sorry, as the saying goes. If this maniac's missle can reach Manhattan, well, the entire world would be shocked.

I think the guy's bluffing that he's actually going to launch it. So do most Korea experts. But he's not known for mental stability. Most South Koreans think the guy's a punch line, just like we do. The last time he launched a missile for real was back in 1996, and it flew over Japan, then landed harmlessly in the Pacific Ocean.

Personally, I think the megalomaniac's just miffed that Iran's nuclear capability had been getting all the press until the last week or so, and decided that the situation was not acceptable to him. After all, he deserves more attention than some Middle East country, because he is the all great and powerful Oz!

The Midget With Nukes

"I starve my own country into poverty, and treat suspected criminals like animals, but I'm ready to blow up your country! Why? Simply because you have more goods than we do. We don't actually want them. We've never had such goods, let alone much in the way of electricity or plumbing, but we don't want you to have them either. This is why I'm standing here stuck in 1972, looking like an extremely unfashionable gonzo with these silly glasses frames and awful outfits, telling you where you can stick it. You'll believe me once I blow up Oahu or Barrow. No tourism. No hydrofuels. Your economy will tank within a week. Believe me . . . believe me . . . (blip)."

(. . . did you hear that farting noise too, or was it just me?)

This is a horrible picture, but subsequent tries were even worse. It's the worst artwork my house contains. I made this brass rubbing back in 1976 or 1977 in the basement of a church just off Piccadilly Circus. I think it cost me 6 pounds sterling for the permission and materials. I made many others like it, but from smaller brasses, so I'm really glad that my parents didn't frame and give away this one to any of their friends or our relatives. It's the last one of its kind in my family. They framed it for me, and I hung it on the stairwell landing for over 10 years before it fell off and crashed to the landing, and onto the bannister one day while I was a t work.

I had to take it to a framer to have it reframed. There was nothing they could do to repair the small tear in the corner that happened as a result of the crash/bang fall from the wall. But they did a superb job of reframing it, in a gold-tone frame that matches the gold colored wax better than the original frame ever did.

I really like this piece of crap art, not so much because I made it myself, but for the inscription below the images of the dead people. It reads:

Mr. John Gvnther & his wife Alice being fvll as of yeares so of bovnty & charity are gathered to their fathers in peace. Shee was bvried 18 Martii A.O. Dni. 1626 aged 86 yeares. Hee was bvried at Kyntbvry in the covnty of Berks with the like monvment 2 Ianavaryii A.O. Dni. 1624 aged 89 yeares. Ios plat ar eorvndm, gener et ex execr hoc posvit.

To me, this gives an excellent language lesson in English regarding its evolution over the centuries. It's easily translatable to me (just replace every v with a u), and even Kyntbvry is recognizable as being what we call Canterbury. The Roman element is still very much alive in terms of spelling. No doubt the "hee" and "shee" are phonetic spellings that were perfectly acceptable as correct back in the 17th century.

There was no OED back in those days. Alice Gunther was buried on March 18, 1626, and her husband, John Gunther, was buried in Canterbury on January 2, 1624. Alice was 86 and John was 89. That much is obvious to me. I don't really need a translator for it. But I find the language fascinating. Although English is a Germanic language, it's clear that there's a Roman influence that lingered long after the Druids, Angles, Saxons, and Picts.

The iPot

Trust The Daily Mail to feature a story on this little beauty. No, it's not really called an iPot; it's an iCarta (iFarta?). Remember in the good old days when you'd hit the head in a friend's house, and there would be a magazine rack in there next to the toilet brush? Those days may be gone forever, mes amis.

Well, move on over, magazine rack. Make way for the iPot! Okay, maybe not. The magazine rack could still sit on the floor below the iPot. Now you can read and listen to tunes while you take a whiz! Oh, joy!

The article talks about listening to tunes while you shower, assuming you can hear the darn thing over the running water and presumably closed shower door. A bubble bath makes more sense. Still, as a kid, I don't recall seeing magazine racks in any of the normal bathrooms in friends' parents' houses; they only ever appeared downstairs in the powder room (aka "half bath" in realtor-speak).

If you're taking a bath or shower in a room that contains basically a toilet, a mirror, and a vanity with a sink, you'd darn well better be the size of a hamster. Failing that, and you're in there that long for a different reason, I'd say reach for the Milk of Magnesia or Ex-Lax, and try again in a few hours.

This article from Rupert Murdoch's Sky News/BSkyB isn't very good reporting, inasmuch as the licensing restriction for buying perfume is clear as mud, but it's nonetheless funny:

From next month all perfumes and cosmetics will require a special licence to stop them being used as a cheap alternative to vodka.

Russians may be known for their love of vodka but for decades poverty meant many were prepared to down anything from nail polish remover to toilet cleaner.

Now the head of the nation's consumer watchdog has announced that all perfumes and cosmetics will require a special licence from July 1.

Gennady Onishchenko said he hoped this would price out of the market unscrupulous traders who sell cheap perfume to alcoholics.

What is totally unclear is whether the seller or the buyer needs a license for perfume. For all I know, it could be both parties. I love this one woman's quote:

Moscow cosmetics shop owner Nadezhda Ivanova told the Telegraph: "Just because my husband is fool enough to drink brake fluid, why should I be deprived of the pleasure of wearing Chanel?"

Only in Russia, folks--only in Russia. At one point in time, Russians were notorious for spreading shoe polish on toast and eating that to get their high. Sure, you can joke about it, but it's really sad. I do remember touring St. Petersburg (which was called Leningrad back then) and Moscow in 1977. There were very long lines outside the liquor stores for Russians, although foreigners didn't have much of a wait to buy a bottle of Stoli if we wanted. Foreigners didn't have much of a wait to buy anything because hard currency was at a huge premium back in the iron curtain days, but we all knew the KGB was keeping tabs on us, and simply took it for granted that our hotel rooms were being bugged. Those days might not be as different from now as I think, given this news article.

http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/28-06132006-669707.html

You don't know how much I love this story:

Activists Jeer Clinton Over Iraq Stance

By DEVLIN BARRETT
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Anti-war activists at a liberal gathering booed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday for opposing a set date for pulling U.S. troops from Iraq. Facing down the jeers, Clinton said Democrats need to have "a difficult conversation" about the war.

Another potential presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry, spoke to the group later in the day and offered an emphatically anti-war appeal.

Oh my god, is this good. Hillary's own support base is deserting her. Obviously, she can't be all things to all people, but when she starts driving away her own constituency, it can't be good for her. The thing that's odd is that she's still every bit as liberal as they are, but is trying to portray herself as more mainstream than she really is to get more votes than a fringe candidate would. The only people she seems to be fooling are her own voters.

As for Kerry, he's a mere blip on the radar. He can't even pretend to claim that he lost the last presidential election because of a constitutional technicality, like Gore did. Perhaps he's learned by now not to post pictures of himself sailboarding or doing a really insane job of learning how to flip a damn pancake, but I don't see how that would really help his chances.

Okay, this isn't as good as the West Milford ginger tabby cat named Jack that treed the black bear twice, but it's up there for sure on my list of "bizarrely interesting news items."

Okay, this story made me laugh. A ginger tabby named Jack chased a black bear up a tree in its back yard, not once, but twice. The owner had to call the cat back to the house to allow the bear to make its escape back into the woods. Yes, we do have black bears around here, and it's the time of year when the older males kick out the younger ones to go seek their own territory and mates.

They usually leave you alone if you leave them alone, but this is the first time I've ever heard of one running scared from a pet cat. Kudos to the quick thinker who managed to snap a picture of it.

Animals Always Obey Me

My own cats have always been trained to obey basic commands: here, fetch, and sit. The vet thinks it's funny, because he's not used to seeing cats act like dogs. He had both cats and dogs when he was growing up in Texas.

My dad adores cats, because he used to have a few on the farm in Dubuque on which he was raised. My mom never let us have any critters that didn't live in a fishbowl when we were kids. I don't think she actually hates animals, but she sure as heck won't be responsible for taking care of one, even though she had a few when she was a kid.

My next door neighbor is on her second dog since I moved in, back in January 1994. Her first dog, a golden retriever, loved me from day one, when he was still a puppy. He was suspicious of males, though, until he got used to Steve. Still, my neighbor never could control a dog that weighed as much as she did; I don't think she ever tried. Murph knocked me over a couple of times in his tail-wagging enthusiasm, but there wasn't a mean bone in his body.

Her second dog is a mutt--half black labrador and half Shetland sheepdog. Bailey's the size of a sheltie, but looks like a lab. She'll bark up a storm and try to herd me. Her owner thinks she's afraid of me, and is acting as a guard dog for her. Bah! Bailey drops the act the second I point to the ground and say "stop it!" to come on over and sit by my feet and get a head smooch. Her owner can't get her to do that.

Steve and I once stopped dead in our tracks on the Douglas Trail to let a doe gallivant in front of us, and waited for her two newborns to follow. Deer are relatively harmless compared to black bears, but still, they can kick your teeth and the rest of your face in, if you're stupid enough to mess with them.

Moving on to the black bear incident . . . we saw one within 50 feet of a tent campsite a few summers ago, when we were hiking to Sunfish Pond to get wild blueberries. We stopped to watch it. It wasn't interested in us; it was too busy snorfling around for grubs. I didn't have my Nikon digicam with me at the time. Bummer, but we later got half a gallon of tiny wild blueberries, which was our original mission. Some Brit hiker asked what we were picking, and tasted one himself, but had to run along with the rest of his Adirondack Trail tour group.

I've seen coyotes and foxes in my back yard, but they never really seemed interested in coming on my patio to bother me. Other than pausing to note my presence, they just mosied along their merry way at a leisurely trot. Apparently, there are enough rabbits and other small critters around here to keep them well fed, so that I don't look like a good meal.

My mom was complaining the other day that she missed all the fun when animal control had to shoot a small male black bear a couple of houses up the street from her. This is the time of year when the older males kick the young ones out, and make them go seek their own mates and territory. It was a shame that one had to die, but suburbia's no place for a black bear. Around here, on the edge of exurbia, it's a lot easier to just nail them with a tranquilizer dart, and relocate them to the woods. My parents are in true suburbia, with no woods and only a couple of ponds within a block of their house. Deer are their main complaint, when they devour half the garden in dry years.

Talking in My Sleep

"Do you know what you said in your sleep last night?"

"No." I replied. "Was it anything good?"

"Not really, but it was funny." He made a few kitty cat chops licking noises after that, just to taunt me.

"Alright, spill it. Just tell me what I said in my sleep."

"Are you ready for this?" he asked.

"Yeah. No. I don't really care. I've talked in my sleep since I was a kid. None of it's ever been incriminating. I got over the embarrassment factor at least three decades ago."

"You said 'numbers, Craig!' that was all--besides the chop licking noises."

"Oh, that's pretty funny that I'm talking to my boss about office work in my sleep. It just shows how badly I need a vacation."
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Addendum (trying to turn it into a story beginning):

Ilana just walked out of a movie theater in Madison, having seen Lord of the Rings: Return of the King with her boyfriend. They both were hungry, so rather than walk back to her car and drive straight home, they decided to walk around town a bit. They window shopped with disinterest looking for a good place to find food, until she saw the ratty old-fashioned velvet jacket on a mannequin in front of a thrift shop.

She dragged her boyfriend in and made him wait until she tried it on. She also tried on a flapper dress from the 1920s that was red satin and black lace that she had spotted on her way through the store. The flapper dress was a size large, and the velvet jacket was a bit narrow in the shoulders, but she bought both anyway, just because she loved them.

After that, they went to Village Pizza, but Ilana vowed to bring Steve back to eat at L'Allegria a few times, and pay for it herself.

"I swear I'll wear that velvet jacket when we go to L'Allegria. Deal?"

Steve replied "Deal!"

Months later, they showed up at the restaurant not quite looking like vagabonds. The coat check guy had to take the fur coat, and issue a tag number for it, but when it came to the ratty old velvet jacket, no dice.

During dinner, really weird things started to happen. The wine bottle started leaking. The gorgonzola pizzita shattered. That was just the start of it.

Now listening: Rose Reiter, What I Don't Get.

Fair warning: all die-hard liberals please hit the back button on your browsers, unless you have a passion for getting all ferklempt.

Alright, stateside folks, we need to support our troops. No, not by waving flags, not that that's a bad thing, but by sending them stuff they'd otherwise have to pay for, out of pocket, and either can't get at all, or would really miss. Anti-perspirant and strawberry fruit leather chews rank way up at the top of Tim's list. Don't ask. I still need to get the APO over there in Iraq for him, which even Tim wasn't quite sure about when I asked--he has one, but didn't know it when I asked.

Please don't mail me anti-perspirant and fruit leather, although if you do, I will send it along, once I know the proper APO. I'm thinking that excess inventory items would be good for barter: one anti-perspirant might equal $10, 3 CDs, or whatever the exchange rate is, for a rare commodity. My mind may be way off base, but hey, I try.

Anyway you slice or dice it, I support our troops. DO something--the peanut gallery is nice, but in the end, it won't be of much use if it doesn't pitch in to cover what the army won't.

Thanks, Tim, for the reality check.

Okay . . . rant over.

We have "Summer Fridays" during which we rotate with other members of our respective departments regarding who gets to leave the office at 1:00 pm, and who has to stay until 5:00. One guy doesn't work on Fridays, another took today off, so that left three of us, with me holding down the fort. The saleswoman who thinks she now owns me works from home on Fridays (most Wednesdays as well), and is thus that much peskier on those days than when she is not physically in the office.

She called me and left a message after 1:00 pm. I ignored it.

Personally, I could not stand having a job that requires me to be on the phone half the time, and email the rest of the time, then waste even more hours logging my calls and emails for each and every client and coworker in a Word document, just to provide a paper trail for the CEO to cover my own ass, to prove I'm not goofing off, while I'm nowhere near the office. Sales people do that. But the rest of us will not cater to it, because our livelihood doesn't depend upon marching to the beat of their drummer, so to speak, especially if we are of equal rank on the corporate ladder.

I'm not going to let this woman suck me into her salesperson life. She doesn't outrank me; I don't outrank her. We are on the same corporate ladder rung. There's a reason--and a very good one--why I'm not in sales and client services. Fortunately, our CEO knows that I'm focused on doing actual work, along with my staff, and can be of limited use to the company in general, if my expertise is not used, at least minimally, to guide my staff, while I have free time between bullshit meetings, and pitch in to help them get the work done.

She has no clue which individual or two in my department is on duty on any given Friday afternoon until after Labor Day, so when she called me after 1:00 pm this afternoon, I let it go to voice mail and never even listened to it before I left the office.

Crabby Cows, if you'd like to rip this blog entry apart, please do so. It's not fiction. I know damn well that I can't write anything other than technical statistical methodology papers, so rip away!

Got stuck in a bit of a late afternoon crunch around the office, and left late. Caught a local train, so by the time I got off, the parking lot was half empty. It should have been no trouble to find where the valet parked my car. Wrong.

I walked all the way up one side of the parking lot, and back down the other, looking side to side to see all four rows of cars on both "aisles," if you will. Didn't find it, but I do remember seeing an occasional car with an NR (non-resident) permit parked in the resident lot. So I went back to take a look there, and sure enough, I found my car . . . parked in a "handicapped-only, others will be towed away" space. Great.

Fortunately, I didn't get a ticket. The valet service works closely with the police in town to temporarily allow it to use spaces allocated for residents only. But a handicapped space!?!? That's a new one.

Aside from the bizarre handicapped parking space today, I have a few random odds and ends:

• Blogger was out for the count earlier this evening. It seems to have become an increasingly common occurrance. It's been two or three times in as many weeks right about when I had time to make an entry, but no dice. At least it came back on within a few hours this evening.
  

• Welcome to Stranded in Suburbia! Thanks for stopping by to comment in return to mine on your blog. You're welcome for the link--it's my pleasure.

• Got my laptop updated with a combo subscription to Norton Internet Security 2006, which includes the firewall and the anti-virus, and added System Recovery for a nominal extra bundled fee. My tower model is up to date with the same stuff for the 2005 version, but I never really got it installed properly on the laptop with 2005, and just decided to go for 2006, and start fresh. But I really hate the myriad reboots that are necessary along the way to get everything up to speed.

• Found an old pair of black patent leather high heels that I brought into the office. I'm not really used to wearing 2.5" heels, but these have a well balanced heel that aren't difficult to wear. After pounding concrete and asphalt in them for many blocks, my feet will start to hurt, but they're fine for just walking around the office on carpet for client meetings, and look a bit nicer than deck shoes. I probably should bring the slingbacks with a similar heel into the office. I'll never wear them at home, but will at work. I'm mostly a desk jockey, so I'm not really on my feet all that much during a typical work day. But I normally wear comfy flats, unless I want to intimidate short guys.
  

Today was primary day in my state. Normally, I vote in the morning before going to work, but I didn't make it out of the house early enough to do that, so I had to leave the office right after a meeting ended at 5:15 to catch a 6:00 train and make it to the polls by 7:00 pm. We have a lot of retirees in my neighborhood who can vote any time they feel like it during the day, so there are almost never lines, except when I have a school budget vote for which the high school is the only polling place in town. This was for senator, my congressional rep, county freeholders, and a few local township positions.

Nine people wanted my vote for freeholder. I got to select three. Most of them never bothered to send out any literature, and a few didn't even bother to leave a pre-recorded message on my answering machine. If you want my vote, you can darn well at least introduce yourself and state your positions on a few issues on a large postcard. Failing that, my introduction to you shouldn't be a call from your wife "reminding" me to vote for you.

Six-six-six. The sign of the beast. Today is my five year anniversary. The date is technically off a day, but I started the Tuesday after Memorial Week, so the day is correct. Funny. It was also one of our sales rep's anniversaries--one year for her. My five years seems like 25 to me, but her one year seems like six months. I've only once before stayed with an employer for longer than five years. In advertising and related businesses, it's not unusual to move around every few years until you hit senior management.

Stayed at Bozell for eight years, and in retrospect, that was two or three years too long, considering that when I left there eight years ago, I wasn't making a heck of a lot more than entry level kids get now . . . it required moving a few times to get my salary back up to par with my colleagues with similar experience, and regain a little sanity with nine hour work days instead of 12 hour ones. Nine-to-six isn't bad, but with a round trip commute of anywhere between 3.5 and 4 hours, nine-to-nine is awful, especially when you know you're being severely underpaid vs. colleagues your age who are on all the same industry committees.

Had our little department meeting with our CEO today during lunch hour, even though he had already stopped by my office beforehand to chat in private. We ran through our project list item by item, going through who was going to cover what aspect of it in the absence of 40% of my staff come another few weeks. The scary part is that he and a woman in sales will take over some of the sales proposal aspects and client support aspects of it. Okay, but they better darn well consult me when it comes to proposals that include loading proprietary databases, because we don't want to get stuck with the client not paying for an electronic codebook--it becomes extremely cumbersome for us to deal without one, if we have to analyze the data for them as consultants, and next to impossible for them to use it themselves.

I'm all for letting sales & support take over client support aspects. It's hard enough getting any real work done, when I have to hand hold the client for weeks on end, whenever we get them a new data load. Guess what? We have a department that is getting paid to fulfill that role, and it's not mine. I can't stop a client who's gotten comfortable calling me directly from doing so, but I can fob it off on someone else to handle, if it's not too technical. Obviously, some clients are far more demanding than others, but I think I finally have one ultra-relieved client willing to do much of the numbers/spreadsheet legwork for us that will help expedite their project (which in turn costs them less, given the time savings at my end).

Time will tell what direction my department will take, but at least I have a couple of people outside my department willing to take on the paperwork and phone call end of it.

The one and only Deni Bonet is back from her mother's funeral in Florida. I'm nearly ten years older than Deni, so my parents are really getting up there agewise. Mom's had MS for 30 years, and dad has battled cancer on and off (off now), so health issues exist within my family.

Over the years, I've been to funerals for all four of my grandparents, a cousin who was my younger brother's age, and my uncle, who was my dad's younger brother. Two were in Texas, two were in Iowa, and two were in Illinois. That's just family. None of them lived near us, so we visited them from time to time, but not very often.

My best friend in the entire world since grade school had an inoperable congenital heart condition. She made it to 30, which was pretty amazing, but died before she got a heart/lung transplant at John's Hopkins at which she was on the priority list. Her younger brother called me at my office to let me know. Their parents had asked him to call me. A coworker in my department walked into my office right as I hung up the phone. He said "You look like your best friend just died!" It was all I could do to not break down sobbing as I said "She did--last night. That was her brother on the phone calling me to let me know what the funeral arrangements are." God, I hate losing it in public, or in that case, in the office, but I couldn't help it--we'd been best buds since we were kids.

My parents attended her funeral with me, up in Westchester County, NY, and we all got to speak with her family afterward. I declined the invitation to attend a service and sit shiva at her brother's house the following day; they understood--I was raised Catholic (not that it stuck). But I got the most wonderful letter back from her mother regarding the card I sent them later with a whole letter on it.

I still tear up 15 years later when I think of that phone call from her brother, but in the end, I have nothing but the fondest memories of Marian.

I hope that's the way it goes for you, too, Deni! xoxoxo

Do you recognize this herb? I'll give you three guesses what it is. I grow it outdoors in pots because our local homeowners' association has rules against growing it in our garden beds.

FWIW, that leaf is 1.5 inches wide, and about 2 inches tall, excluding the stem. No, I didn't measure it, but I'm damn good at nailing measurements, being a math person.

In case anyone's interested in seeing the entire vacation photo gallery, I have it posted over in a subdirectory at a domain I own that my brother hosts for me. You can find it here. It consists of index pages, clickable thumbnails, and the 800 x 600 versions of the photos. Don't feel as if I'm pushing you to view it; I really only created the web pages and FTPed everything up there so my parents could see them, without my having to post them on some place like Photobucket or Flickr. The moral of the story is: never let a chemist who has no conception of photographic composition take a picture of you when your hair looks like shit having been blown around in the wind to dry after a shower (mystic30.jpg). I've never been photogenic, but that one's worse than a mug shot from the DMV! Grimace.

Bud tells me that he took a dinner cruise on the sloop Voyager in Mystic, and again when it moved permanently down to Amelia Island. My parents used to have a place on Amelia Island; I forget when they sold it, but I do remember Amelia very well, along with Brett's restaurant up in Fernandina Beach at the northern tip of the island, from which you could see Georgia (the entire island's only 14 miles long, NE of Jacksonville). If you ever get a chance, Bud, I'd love to see a picture of that boat.

Sorry, readers, but I'm from a state that has a really tacky seashore. The only oceanside town I will visit in NJ is Cape May, which really doesn't belong with the rest of the state, anyway, and indeed is detached--reachable only by bridge.

FWIW, SJ (the guy at the till of the Morgan) had far more fun at Mystic than he did when I dragged him out with me to Newport a couple of summers ago. We loved both places, and walked ourselves nearly to death in each, but Mystic has a totally different "flavor" if you will. It's calm and relaxing, rather than frenzied. Granted, we visited at the very beginning of tourist season, so it wasn't busy, and crawling with vermin tourists like us . . .

Charmed to Meet You, I'm Sure

To the left, we have a picture of the happy groom. Yes, groom. Thirty year old Bimbala Das of Bhubaneswar in Orissa state married the cobra in a ceremony attended by 2000 guests. Her mother was thrilled. The family is from a lower caste, and the mother has two other daughters and two sons to marry off. No doubt the snake's family didn't even demand a dowry, which must have been no small consideration to her mother.

The reluctant snake refused to come out of the ant hill in which it lives, so a brass snake was used as a stand-in. The woman had been sick, and started leaving milk for the snake to drink by the ant hill, then fell in love with the snake when it "cured" her.

After the wedding, Bimbala moved into a hut near the ant hill.

Another girl in the Vaishnav sect was married off earlier this year to a dog. Now, I have nothing against animals. I love cats and dogs, and most wildlife, except maybe deer, rabbits, and chipmunks that destroy my garden, but I can't help thinking that a real live man might be a little cozier between the sheets.

Here are a few more from Mystic, probably the last ones I'll post, but only one of them is something you might actually expect to see there.

Here's a Model A, found in a warehouse-type area of the shipyard.



Here's the Sabino, a coal-fired steam ship from 1912. Note the dark smoke coming out the stack.



And here's a picture of the dead horse effigy used in the Dead Horse Ceremony. Sailors used to be advanced a month's wage when they signed on for duty. It was supposed to be used to purchase warm clothing, etc., but was usually spent on booze and hookers in port before setting sail, so they had to work the first month without pay, or "for a dead horse." After the month was up, the sailors made an effigy of a dead horse, hoisted it up a mast, and cut it loose into the sea while singing a shanty to the captain about how his horse is dead. You can read about it here. Scroll down almost to the bottom of the page; it's numbered 10.

Here are a few more from Mystic:

This is the Joseph Conrad. Built in 1882 in Denmark, it originally served as a floating school for boys who were training for a life at sea--a boarding school, if you will. They learned the usual "Three Rs," in addition to mariner skills. It was originally built as a sloop (one mast), and later converted into a schooner (two masts).


Here's a shot of the deck, looking toward the stern from the bow.


And here are a few of the Roann during and before restoration:





I have more gems for a later entry.