Holier Than Thou

Memorial Day 2016

Once again I pay my respects to those who made the ultimate sacrifice in service to their country, and once again I remember just how lucky I and the vast majority of the men & women of my generation are.

The Vanity Of The Few

The ghost of Saint Jack 

                              was standing in a corner of the nursery

Marveling at the sight of the geriatric Cormac

Holding his newborn son 

The aged traveler with his gnarled stoneworkers' hands

Gently cradled the little cherub 

Singing a Spanish lullaby 

                              in a coarse soft voice

Kerouac smiled a wraith's smile to himself 

As he reflexively translated

The Mediterranean Spanish 

                                into his mother's Quebecois French

Unseen and unheard Duluoz recited an old prayer

Blessing the birth of a child 

                                    born to one in the autumn of life 

As kindred lapsed Catholics often do

Charles, as his mother knew him

                                    started to mouth the same words

As if he could hear the chanting 

                                     of the specter in the corner

As if he could feel the glow from his ethereal smile.

Mantengo mi hijo

sano y ayudar a que

crezca sana

One Who Wishes Everyone Everything Good

"Vydunas" That's the word, right there. It's Lithuanian for "One who wishes everyone everything good." Someone remember to have that written on my tombstone.

You Have The Right (To Dance If You Want to...)

It's not everyday you witness the Police pull over someone and make an arrest...and then proceed to perform an odd dance around a cooler... 

Later That Night, In Cedar Rapids...

                         Big Bad Voodoo Daddy in Cedar Rapids, Iowa

All The Fresh Air & Sunshine One Could Ask For

One Late Spring Night In The Heartland

Not A Good Omen

The last words she spoke were, "He was an..." Great for a murder mystery, not so much for everything else.

You're Going The Wrong Way!

Nothing quite like driving in the southbound lanes of a major interstate during a torrential downpour and seeing a car in front of you heading northbound...in the same southbound lanes of the interstate.

Lettuce & Gentlemen...

My good friend John R. had been visiting from Anchorage, staying with me for nearly a week. It had been a long time since we had last seen each other (years ago, in Vegas with Jeff L). John had come down on business and stayed a few extra days to take in the wonders of Colorado.

He stayed in a company provided hotel the first few days he was in Denver, but then moved into one of my spare bedrooms for the extra week he had tacked onto his trip.

After he moved in, he went out and bought a lot of food to stock my somewhat empty cupboards & fridge - good, healthy food, like salad fixin's, as opposed to the pre-packaged microwaveable meals that I keep in the freezer (I'm not much of a cook, but I've mastered the microwave).

The thing is, we went out to breakfast and dinner nearly everyday he was here, so I ended up with a lot of good, healthy food in the house after he left - salad fixin's, mostly.

And I'm not one to waste food. So I did what anyone would do in this situation - I made a huge salad.

Nailed it.

Cheap Chainsaws & What To Do With Them

Awhile ago my oldest sister brought a small, cheap chainsaw she had bought at a garage sale over to my house. It needed to have the chain put back on it's track and the tension adjusted (She bought it for $2.00 because the previous owner could not figure out how to do that).

I had a little spare time this morning, so I decided to take the thing apart and see if it was something that could be done quickly. What I discovered, after cleaning out a lot of sawdust and grime, was that the thing was not repairable - at least not by me.

See, this cheap little piece o' crap chainsaw featured a tension adjustment screw that was saddled to the body of the tool by an extremely thin piece of plastic. Evidently, the previous owner had attempted to adjust the tension using more torque than that 1/8" piece of plastic could withstand, and it gave up the ghost.

Not only did the weak-ass plastic break, but so did half of the metal flange that pushed back on the chainsaw track arm to allow for tension adjustment.

I stared at these two very poorly made crucial parts of the chainsaw for a few seconds and then did what any man would in my situation - bagged all the parts up and threw them in the trash. 

That's two of my oldest sisters hard-earned dollars down the drain. 

Yoga On The Rocks

                                                          Let's get physical...

Arf Art

            Two Dogs in Red Door, Mixed Media, by artist DD LaRue

Chainsaw Created Sculpture Winner