too much

Posted on by June 4, 2014

stomach

I almost threw up on Main St. in downtown Hendersonville yesterday.

I had an appointment with a lawyer to sign papers on some property that we’re in the process of buying, and when I stepped out of the car, I was sure that I was going to be sick, right there in front of all the tourists enjoying a nice meal at one of the little restaurants along that street.

That wouldn’t have been very appetizing for them.

So I stumbled down one of the side streets and found a ledge to sit on and hold my head and sweat.

I didn’t end up throwing up, thank goodness, but it was pretty touch and go for about twenty minutes.

There must be a stomach virus going around…everybody in my family is sick with it.

I thought that it was going to skip me.

Jenny said that the last couple of blogs have been “too much information”.

“Too much information” about my “procedure”.

That’s probably true.

Sometimes it might be better not to be such an open book.

It’s just that “the procedure” was a topic that was on my mind at the time.

It’s hard not to think about something like that….

Too much information.

That’s the trouble with “self-absorption”…sometimes the things that interest me mean nothing to anyone else.

But I’m riding this bicycle downhill….the course is set and my brakes are bad and sometimes I’ll run off at the mouth about something that’s a little too personal to put out for everybody to read.

I need to do more Idaho posts.

That’s something that has a universal appeal….and it’s a safe topic.

I’ll write a blog about what I think Idaho is all about….while I sit in my North Carolina home, without a clue about what “Idaho is all about…”

Ahhhhhh….who cares? I have a self-imposed 500 word quota each morning….and I’ve found that it’s really not so hard to type out 500 words if I really try. I can do it.

Except maybe this morning. I’m at 333 words and I’m running out of steam, no coffee because my stomach is still kind of messed up, no breakfast…running on fumes.

Awwww, shoot…I can do it. I know that I can do it.

When I was running in some races….back in the day….I’d always find myself in the middle of the pack.

I was no superstar.

I wasn’t one of the front runners….just a middle of the pack guy.

Maybe I didn’t have the “killer instinct”.

Whatever I lacked, I was always in the middle somehow.

But no matter how far back I was, I’d always try and give a good kick at the end.

There was no chance of “winning”….but I guess that I thought it was important to try….even if it was only at the end of the race.

30 words to go and I will start my kick…..

I’m glad that I didn’t throw up in downtown Hendersonville.

And that….is probably way too much information.

It’s way too much.

 

cat food

Posted on by June 3, 2014

friskies

I think that sometimes we do things over and over to remind ourselves of something.

We do things repeatedly….thinking each time we do it, “hmmmmmm….this feels kind of familiar….” and then one day we get up, repeat ourselves one more time, and finally admit that there may be something going on.

I wonder if I’m a little OCD or something?

Nahhhhh….no sense over-diagnosing things.

That would be kind of obsessive.

I feed the cat the same way every morning.

Before I can do anything else, I feed the cat to get it to shut up.

When I come down in the morning, she grabs the lip of the window in our kitchen door and starts yowling for me to pay some attention to her….like this was going to be the one morning when I didn’t serve her needs first.

So I get the can of cat food from the box on the porch, pop the top, set it down, pet her and grab the old can, go inside and rinse the top off and put it in the recycling and then fill the old can with water so I can rinse it out later.

(Who am I kidding? I leave it in the sink and Jenny finishes rinsing it out later…..)

Everyday.

Everyday.

Ev….er…..y…….day.

I realized this morning that I pet her the same way every morning, too…..starting at the head, quick shoulder massage, tickly squeezing down the full cat length, and then gently pull on her tail to finish the deed.

The same way….a way that sounds weird when I describe it but only takes a second in practice.

Then I go inside, put the water on for coffee, pour a coffee cup half way full with orange juice, take my vitamins, rinse the cup out, grind the coffee and put it in the french press, put some milk in the cup, and go upstairs to write this blog until I hear the kettle whistle and I can run through the darkened living room and maybe step on a Lego.

Stepping on a Lego really shakes up my day.

There’s a comfort in doing things the same way everyday.

I used to read about Sisyphus sometimes.

He was made to roll a boulder up a hill because he was kind of dishonest.

When he got to the top, the boulder would roll back down.

Over and over.

Everyday.

All the time.

My cat food routine is a lot more pleasant than that.

It’s no boulder.

It’s kind of pleasant.

I wonder if Heaven is doing the same pleasant thing over and over, but never being aware of the repetition?

(“Pleasant” is such a great word….so gentle….)

Maybe it’s doing the same thing over and over, but never feeling like you were missing something, that there was someplace else that you needed to be?

Maybe it’s knowing that there’s no place that’s better….and you can finally relax?

I don’t know…it’s early, I fed the cat, I’m taking my first sip of coffee…and Nate just got up.

Nate just got up….and the randomness begins.

What am I talking about with all this “same” talk?

Nothing stays the same.

IT’S ALL GOOD….

 

“20 million things” Lowell George

this is not my beautiful house….

Posted on by June 2, 2014

winter-camp tipi

Jenny and I were talking about cheap houses that we looked at when we were first married.

Seeing a tipi on TV was the conversation starter.

We drove up deep into Madison county and looked at a tipi that a failed commune was selling after we’d been married for a couple of months.

I guess that we must have thought that it would be a good option for a “love nest”.

It was satisfying to be able to tell our daughter, who grew up in the construction (reconstruction) project that we live in now, that it could have been a lot stranger.

She might have grown up in a tipi.

That was a good trip.

Sometimes the weirder the better is…better.

That was pretty strange.

400.00 for a tipi…it doesn’t get much cheaper than that.

The house hunting trip that really takes the prize for weirdness, though, was when we drove up into Yancey county somewhere to look at a place that was landlocked…but really cheap.

I don’t know why “cheap” was so attractive…I guess that we didn’t have any money or something.

Anyway, this place was landlocked and was a big chunk of property overlooking the river and the railroad tracks.

We drove up to the closest place we could find where we could park, got out of the old Datsun truck, and walked the half mile in on the railroad tracks to where we could scramble up the bank to where the “house” was located.

What do they say in real estate?

“Location, location, location”?

That was a pretty bad location.

It was awkward to walk a half mile on the tracks to get to our house.

I’m glad that it never became “our house”.

That would have been really crazy.

It would have reflected badly on other people’s estimation of our sanity.

It was kind of pretty and memorably weird though to walk along the river on those railroad tracks and then look out at all the scenery from the windowless rooms of the shack that someone had the nerve to call a house in a free classified.

It would never be a mansion on a hill.

It wouldn’t have made a good chicken coop…and I’ve found that chickens are very flexible in their choice of accommodations.

The pile of trash that was down the bank was bigger than the old shack that overlooked it.

I guess that at some point we figured out that a half-acre that we could do something with was better than a hundred cheap acres that were impossible to get to.

The funny thing is that now you don’t see as many cheap/weird places for sale as you used to.

That’s pretty entertaining to look at some of these places….and they’re getting harder to find.

Maybe I’m not looking as hard?

Why should I? We’ve got a place already.

Wait!! WE’RE BUYING ANOTHER CHEAP, WEIRD PLACE!! I DID FIND ANOTHER CHEAP/WEIRD PLACE!!

WE’RE THE WINNER!!

Trying to buy…the deal isn’t done quite yet.

Trying to buy.

The optimism and blind vision is astounding…or is that “sheer vision”?

At least there’s not a half mile of tracks between me and this new place.

It should be alright.

“Mansion on the Hill” Bruce Springsteen

that wasn’t so bad

Posted on by June 1, 2014

vasectomy consult

So…I had my procedure.

From what I can gather, from my limited range of experience to draw a conclusion upon, everything went well.

As far as I can tell…everything went well.

It was a little worse than having my teeth cleaned…and, apparently, I only have to do it once…so that’s a good thing.

That’s a good thing.

You know, though…if you listen to enough people who know enough people who had a cousin who knew somebody who was laid up for weeks after the “procedure”….you’d be scared out of your mind.

If you listened to everybody…and then tried to condense all that information into one chunk that you could carry around with you before the “deed was done”…you would be terrified.

Maybe terrified is too strong a word.

I am not terrified of much.

Maybe “pointedly concerned” is a better way of describing the situation.

Maybe it was “focused angst”.

“Terror” is too strong a word.

Actually, it was a lot worse than having my teeth cleaned.

When it was done, they gave me a prescription for Vicodin.

I don’t know what that does for me.

Jenny didn’t think that I should take any after I told her that I wasn’t in a lot of pain or anything.

So now I probably will never be able to know what taking a Vicodin does.

I should have kept my mouth shut…moaned and groaned more or something.

I think that Jenny thought that I’d be one of the people who got hooked on prescription pain killers.

Maybe I’d stop thinking about buying that piece of land and spend all our money keeping myself supplied with Vicodin?

Who knows.

Anyway, the procedure went well.

For something so personal and invasive, it was surprisingly gentle.

Maybe that’s just the drugs talking?

They did give me something to put under my tongue that the doctor described as being like drinking two beers.

I wish they had just kept me supplied with Guinness.

That would have been a lot more fun.

They would have had to tell me to stay still, though.

The male doctor and the female resident did the deed.

I felt like I was in good hands.

I guess that what I’m saying is, for anyone who worried about me, that I’m OK.

But, really, enough about me.

Now what the heck am I going to write about?

I could write about the resurgence in the interest in vinyl LPs?!

That’s always good for a blogs worth of words…..

Or I could write about one of the vehicles breaking down….but nothing’s broken….

Or, because I’m sitting here and it’s still on my mind, I could write about the “procedure”.

Man….life is a real mystery, isn’t it?

You click along….and then one day….BAMMMMMMMMMM (sorry….didn’t mean to surprise you)….and then “bammmmmmm”….the end of the line.

If you aren’t competent with the “slowing down” part, you better take matters into your own hands and nip it.

That must have been what Barney Fife was talking about….Nip it! Nip it in the bud!!

 

(Don’t google anything looking for an image to use in the blog about the “procedure” ….there were things that I didn’t want to know in all those pictures…..MY EYES!!! MY EYES!!!!)

still mine

Posted on by May 31, 2014

I loved this movie.

That’s pretty straightforward…no hype or cleverness in a review, no attempt or need to guild the lily.

I loved this movie.

It’s a quiet one…with a quiet set of circumstances and a gentle tone.

There isn’t a car chase or a building blowing up to be found.

It’s not a blockbuster.

No one throws any punches or spins around in a high flying back kick.

It’s not a blockbuster, but I’ll remember it for a long time.

The movie is based on the true story of an 89-year-old New Brunswick man who runs afoul of the building inspector while he’s trying to build a new house that’s more suitable to the needs of his wife, who has Alzheimer’s and is progressively getting worse.

James Cromwell…who you may remember was the farmer in the movie “Babe” plays the husband and builder….and Genevieve Bujold plays his wife.

I think that it’s kind of rare to see anything that even begins to ring true coming out of the entertainment machine these days.

This movie was a Canadian production.

Maybe you have to get out of Hollywood to approach something that feels true? I don’t really know….

I would recommend this movie.

It’s one of the good ones….

StillMine_Poster_27x39_noBleed-640x924

timberrrrrrrrrrrr

Posted on by May 30, 2014

I heard a story a while back that I thought was pretty great.

It seems that a young boy’s sister was pretty sick, and needed an operation to save her life.

One complication that they were having prior to the operation was finding a suitable blood donor.

No one had compatible blood.

But, when they checked her slightly older brother, they found, to their excitement, that his blood was the same type and could be used during the operation.

When they went to him to explain the situation, they told him that they needed his blood to save his sister’s life.

He stared into the grownup’s eyes for a moment, and then quietly said that he would do it.

They drew what blood they needed from the brother…and when the operation was over, and the sister’s life was saved, they went to him to tell him the good news.

“Your sister is safe! The operation was a success! You saved her life!”

A look of relief came over his face. It was as if the weight of the world had come off his shoulders.

And then he had a question….

“When do I die?”

 

He thought they were taking all his blood to save his little sister…and was ready and willing to make that sacrifice.

That’s a great story.

 

I’m going to the doctor’s office for a “procedure” this morning.

I won’t go into details about what the procedure entails…or even what it’s called…but I will say that it’s about having children…or not having children.

OK!! It’s mostly about “not” having children…not having any more children.

I’m not going to ask “When do I die?” when the deed is done, either.

It’s not that big a deal.

Actually…it is that big a deal….some stranger messing around with me is a big deal.

I don’t relish the thought of somebody…even somebody with some training or maybe a certificate of some type….messing with my special purpose.

For the sake of my digestion, I’m going to tell myself that it’s not that big a deal.

Apparently, it is a really quick procedure.

That kind of bothers me, too.

I’d like it to be over fast…but it would be good if the Dr. would take his time.

“Be Careful!!!!!!!”

He (or she…and that’s another thing to worry about) should be really careful down there.

I’d tell them, if I get a chance, “Hey…it might not be a big deal to you, but it’s a really big deal to me. Be careful down there in my secret garden. Be careful.”

 

Jenny’s had 4 children.

That’s a big deal.

I can walk into this appointment in my flip-flops, and snip, snip….I’m done.

Finished.

I better be careful what I whine about because compared to having a baby, this deal is easy.

But, dang….it’s kind of scary.

 

“Get away with those scissors!! Get away with those scissors!!”

 

 

rambobefore

 

 

bihind the candelabra gay (1)after

nickel’s worth

Posted on by May 29, 2014

I used to stay up late to see this movie on my little black and white television when that was the only way to see it.

Watching it now, I get the feeling that there probably was a good reason that James Taylor only made one movie.

I don’t think that he’s really all that good an actor.

Two Lane Blacktop is one of the classic “car movies”, though.

 

I heard this cover song on the radio yesterday, and  it helped me remember just how much James Taylor I listened to growing up….

“Hey Mister That’s Me Up on the Jukebox” Judith Owen

From the first time I heard “Sweet Baby James” in my cousin Julie’s basement, I must have heard a James Taylor song at least once a day for quite a while.

It’s good that she didn’t introduce me to heroin or something damaging like that.

If I had a nickel for every James Taylor song that I listened to, I know that I’d have a pretty big pile of nickels.

I would be a rich man.

Ah, what do I care about the nickels?

I’ve got my family…and the music, too.

What do I need with nickels?

I’m not alone in listening to this music…in finding some worth in it.

I wonder how many kids and adults….maybe even some dogs…I can’t really speak for the dogs…found a lifeline in these songs?

There’s some good power in the ability to write a song that helps people get through something….or that just gives them something pleasant to listen to while they wash the dishes.

That’s some good power…

Quiet and reflective….maybe a little depressed….that’s my style of music. That old singer-songwriter stuff is my music.

 

Now, on the other hand, I guess that Kanye is a married man now.

He made an HONEST WOMAN out of Kim recently.

I saw that on the news.

There was a tornado that destroyed a lot of people’s homes and messed up their lives….and “Kimye” had an expensive wedding in France or something.

I saw it on the news.

KIM-AND-KANYE-MIDORI-339x460I guess that’s what you call a “polar opposite”.

James Taylor or Neil Young….sitting on a stage with an old Martin or Gibson acoustic guitar, long hair and work boots, quietly singing something heartfelt….

Now, that’s my style.

Kanye has his style, too….

“Stronger” Kanye West

There’s a place for this music, too.

I’m glad that I heard James Taylor in Julie’s basement instead of Kanye.

It just doesn’t make as much sense to think that I might have become a lifelong Kanye fan that day….

I’m glad that didn’t go down like that for me.

Somewhere, though, there’s a kid thinking, “Man, if I had a nickel for every Kanye song I ever listened to, it could have been me marrying Ms. Kardashian in some villa in France!!”

“I’d be a RICH MAN!”

 

Nah…not so rich.

I’ll stick with my JT, thankyou….

My Head is Full of Idaho

Posted on by May 28, 2014

P1060267

It’s funny how often, when you talk to people and you’re able to really get down to brass tacks….go below the surface of what people are willing to show day-to-day, how they all seem to have a place where they wish they could be but for some reason “just can’t get there”.

It may be a place that they’ve read about or actually visited, driven through maybe…or took a hike there or stopped and had the best breakfast they’ve ever eaten.

Sometimes, it’s not even the place…it’s just the circumstances that aligned perfectly and the company they were keeping…it’s not the place, it’s the memories that somehow got attached to the place.

And memory is a strange and changeable thing.

We mold our memories to be what serves our purposes.

The place we “are” can feel like a prison…until we can’t be there anymore and it becomes a paradise…full of our nostalgia.

It’s a rare thing to talk to people who are consistently happy where they are.

It’s hard to be happy in the moment.

Often, it’s “where we are” or “what we have” or “where we’re going” or “I could get there if I…” or “who we’re with” or…or, a whole list of other sets of circumstances that might allow us to really…finally…be happy.

“No matter how good things are….things can always be better.”

That’s a rough way to live.

It’s hard to live up to a potential that you don’t even really understand.

It’s not good to expect things to be better when you can’t see how good things already are.

I used to think that I needed to live back out West…the elusive and mystical “West”.

The times I’ve been able to visit the “West”, I was always happy to get back home.

Maybe I just wanted to be somewhere “away”?

That’s been a pretty consistent thread, now that I think about it.

I think that for most of my life, I just wanted to be somewhere “away”.

Weird.

You can’t really be happy where you are if your boots are always parked by the front door.

Driving the mail around, there are places where I can feel the cool air coming off the streams in some of these little “hollers” that I drive through.

There is a certain smell and the air feels different and it makes me glad that I live where I live.

It’s beautiful here in the Spring.

I think that it’s probably beautiful everywhere in the Spring, though.

Even the worst of places is a little bit nicer when the Winter ends and things green up.

I love Idaho.

It’s really beautiful out there…and it feels good to be out on the old home place, walking around.

There’s some good family history out in Idaho.

But you know….my family history is right here so far. This is my family history that’s happening everyday.

Big or small…this is my life… where my family is.

Like the picture…everything else is a blur…

 

“don’t think I’m crazy…cuz I’m not”

Posted on by May 27, 2014

One thing that you can bet the farm on is that if I’m looking up videos on Youtube that I’m sitting in the dark in the early morning, looking at the computer screen and drinking my coffee, and wondering, “What the heck am I going to write about today?!”

And then I have the mystery of Youtube video selection to wade through.

Hopefully that’s the hardest thing that I’ll do today.

So, I settled on a video about Idaho again.

Idaho.

Idaho….like it’s some sort of nirvana.

A really cold Shangrila.

Maybe it’s my nirvana?

Here’s the video that I settled on….

It’s a debate video where they edited out the guys who wore the suits….

These guys on the video were considered to be the “crazy” ones….

They seem kind of interesting to me.

I guess that there’s some nuts in Idaho.

I know some nuts right where I live now, too.

There’s nuts all over the place from what I’ve seen.

Bunches of nuts in this world.

Idaho isn’t just a bunch of nuts living out in the woods.

It’s a good place.

These guys are pretty funny sometimes.

Oh, that all our debates were this entertaining!

GO, IDAHO!!!

worth paying for….

Posted on by May 26, 2014

THE WELL IS DRY!! THE WELL IS DRY!!

I could drop a pebble down the well and hear it hit soft mud at the bottom.

Some mornings I wake up after a fitful nights sleep and think that I’ve hit the end….there’s nothing more to write about.

I might have had two good subjects and 600 posts…and now I’ve exhausted the supply of topics and that’s it….from here on out it’s going to have to be posts where the only thing I have to fall back on are funny Youtube videos of monkeys doing strange things.

It’s over…the world is sucked out into a creativity free black hole and there is nothing that interests me or catches my attention.

Of course, I think that way when I’m tired.

I’m tired because I’m on the periphery of the “new baby nighttime hijinks”.

I’m on the edge of all of that.

Jenny is in the middle of that storm.

She’s really tired.

In the big scheme, I’m not even that tired, really. I’m not exhausted. I don’t have my nose to any grindstone that I know of.

I have nothing to complain about…soft bed, soft life.

I’m blessed.

I know that.

Today is Memorial Day and I have the day off.

The post office gave us the day off so that we could do what we could to honor and remember our veterans.

Here’s a funny aside…funny strange…

I deliver out of the Saluda, NC post office now. They combined offices so Zirconia delivers out of Saluda.

In the town of Saluda, there was a big controversy because the town was denying this fellow’s right to put up this sign at the edge of town….

 

veteran friendlyI guess that it wasn’t cool to put up a sign that wasn’t approved by the city first.

I’m not sure what the controversy was.

There’s plenty of goofy signs in Saluda….you’d think that it would be a no-brainer to allow someone to make mention that Saluda liked Veterans.

They’ve allowed him to put it up now…I’m glad.

You shouldn’t have to get a permit for patriotism.

You shouldn’t have to get permission to say how proud you are of the people who fought for your freedoms.

I’m glad that his sign is up now.

What’s that old saying about anything worth having is worth paying for?

(Maybe it’s “worth fighting for”? Same difference….)

“Worth paying for”….

I have all these freedoms that I didn’t earn.

I didn’t do anything to earn them….I never had to fight for them or even work hard to sustain them.

I take them for granted.

They’re a part of my everyday life that are invisible to me as I enjoy them.

I am so free that I don’t even have to be conscious of how much freedom I really do have in my life.

Somebody…at some time in history…paid for my freedoms.

Things are easy for me because of it.

That’s something worth celebrating…worth honoring.

Somebody paid for my freedoms.

Somebody fought for my right to walk around ….oblivious to how free I am.

Maybe I should write about that?

Maybe I should put up a sign, too?