"Letters to Miss Emily..."

[backhoe]

I really do have to keep a rein on old-maidish inclinations. When the mail came the power bills were in it- a cumulative $100, up $20 from last month but acceptable enough for letting the two of us be more comfortable in our quarters in this awful heat.

But...

There was also a mystery envelope from Wells Fargo- and I wondered what the Devil was in it. My financial statement is due any day and that's cause enough for fretting- but this was unlike anything I'd seen before... turned out to be a new-issue debit card. Oh, joy- you have to activate it- I really hate doing that. It has an automated process and I went through that but they had not included a PIN. I called the number again and let it cycle through the 'bot until a human being got it and we straightened that out.

The fretting was worry that somehow the card wouldn't work, and remembering that wretched month in the fall almost two years ago when my account was inexplicably locked and I nearly starved. If I hadn't found that mysterious gold coin I would have. Good times, good times...

I got the lopper at Lowe's without a hitch and bought a few things at Walgreen's going home, so I guess it was worry over nothing. MaryAnn had credit card related problems when Vernon died- the “death process” is bad enough without throwing money anxieties into it all.

When I got home I wrestled the lopper out of its pilfer-proof hard plastic wrap- I understand all too well why stores like that but they are a pain-- and by the time I had it assembled & oiled & sharpened I decided I'd wait for the cool of the morning to do more trimming. The one good thing? Seeing how the factory made it a compound pulley I can see how to make the old one do the same thing.

I toyed with the idea of patronizing Chick-fil-A again for solidarity's sake but given the heat & gas & distance I will probably fix spaghetti & meatballs and make enough for two or more meals. Iron rations & Austerity...

-30-

[RedDog]

Pushing 90 degrees here in blazing sun. I'm now inside in front of a fan. I ran an errand and got cooked with the top down but was just in time to see a guy downtown round a corner sending a two-four of beer wailing off the roof of his car smashing all across an intersection in a sea of beer and broken glass. He hesitated and then just drove on.

I was on a bike trip in San Barbara, California one time when a deranged, yelling man was firing wife and kids into a car at the beach waving his arms like he was trying to fly. This turned out to be important because he had everyone's attention wondering if he was going to belt the woman or the one of the kids. Anyway, he wheels out of the parking space WITH A BABY IN A BASSINET ON THE ROOF OF THE CAR. So many people had been watching this drama that there was a stampede to stop him in the aisle before the first turn would likely send junior on the way to a skull fracture, or death.

[backhoe]

Pushing 90 degrees here in blazing sun. I'm now inside in front of a fan. I ran an errand and got cooked with the top down but was just in time to see a guy downtown round a corner sending a two-four of beer wailing off the roof of his car smashing all across an intersection in a sea of beer and broken glass. He hesitated and then just drove on.

I was on a bike trip in San Barbara, California one time when a deranged, yelling man was firing wife and kids into a car at the beach waving his arms like he was trying to fly. This turned out to be important because he had everyone's attention wondering if he was going to belt the woman or the one of the kids. Anyway, he wheels out of the parking space WITH A BABY IN A BASSINET ON THE ROOF OF THE CAR. So many people had been watching this drama that there was a stampede to stop him in the aisle before the first turn would likely send junior on the way to a skull fracture, or death.

I've seen plenty of beverages, keys, and handbags left on the roof while the driver fires up and takes merrily off- I can't say I've ever seen that done to a baby.

[backhoe]

Life, and the living of it is a funny, funny thing... "funny" being ironic.

I've written many tens of thousands of words here... somewhat fewer in "Miss Emily has died."
Before that I wrote lots of ad copy- God only knows where that ended up, it was long before the web where you could easily look it up, but I had a ton of it published...

"At the Front Porch... of course!" Yes, there was a certain snob appeal in those six words- you do that, not so subtly when you are selling to an upscale market.

Downscale you emphasize price and value... and bright colors.

I've always said anyone who's half-bright & half literate can write a news report- the 5 "W's" and remember there aren't 2 sides to a story, there are at least 3 or 4 and they all conflict...

Some of the best writing on the web is at The Belmont Club- Wretchard, that old Wolf at the Door- and most of his commenters aren't bad, either- here's one on writin'...

http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2012/08/06/only-the-loners/#comment-215003

20. Ari Tai

I’ve a number of employees with young families. Occasionally one of their youngsters will ask how to write better – and ask if there are jobs for writers. To which I say “absolutely” – every job has a writing component and it often makes the difference between promotion and not when you’re just starting out. I point at some of my writing as examples of what not to do – and give them a copy of Strunk and White’s “Elements of Style” – followed by the advice “to write well, read widely and voraciously” (where I suspect our host is in the 1% of the 1% of readers).

http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Style-Il ... 0143112724

And when I find a youngster who doesn’t read well (or like to read) I have their eyes checked and send them to a reading specialist to see if there’s anything slowing them down (and often there is). If they like fiction I recommend trying to write “future history” short stories (science fiction), and point them at Ray Bradbury’s life story for inspiration (and reflection – writing is hard work).

Note that Bradbury graduated from the “University of the Los Angeles Library” (since that’s what he could afford):

http://www.theparisreview.org/interview ... y-bradbury

His Dandelion Wine is a personal favorite. The hard work of writing shows thru.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dandelion_Wine

[backhoe]

This kind of says it all for me:

28 $500 for a date with Octomom? Will she at least bring a good looking friend?

Posted by: Cicero

The rest is here:http://minx.cc/?post=331697

[backhoe]

I'm going to cross-link to this:

viewtopic.php?p=1730954#p1730954
“Sally Ride dies”

I wrote a little more about this subject here:

viewtopic.php?p=1584915#1584915

Until recently my closest neighbors- reach over the fence & touch them- were a couple of women “partners”- as they describe themselves. I helped them move into the Victorian rambler behind where I live back around 1983- long before Emily & I had any inkling that we'd live next door to them.

I gave them a 12 gauge coach gun as a housewarming present- because to use my own words, “nobody has a right to harm you.” They “downsized” this summer to an apartment a dozen blocks away and I was sorry to see them go- they've been pleasant neighbors and good friends. If they had been a pair of men who acted the same way- quiet, kept to themselves but were always willing to help you if you asked them- I'd have felt the same way. I have no problem with gay folks who are mannerly.

These characters who came out of the woodwork over Chick-fil-A are another matter entirely, and all they are doing is calling dislike, distaste, and infamy down on the entire gay community- they need to sit down, shut up, and learn some manners.

Plenty “moar” here:

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=157091

-30-

PS- and to show what a degenerate SOB I am, let us all sing a few bars of “Backdoor Man,” and draw whatever conclusions you care to...

Edit- just for the sheer deviltry of it- a few moar words here:
viewtopic.php?f=307&t=157445&p=1731021#p1731021

Now, back to the oak tree...

[backhoe]

355400 views. For some whimsical reason that number rings a bell of some vague significance- maybe the 3554 sequence.

Living each day of the last two years seemed to drag out forever- looking back they went by in a blur. A rather daunting thing at my age.

[backhoe]

I took the lopper out again in the cool of the morning and while Cole-boy lurked in the bushes trimmed more of that bloody tree back. When I came in I took the remains of the last bag of wildflower seeds and scattered them in several beds- for all the 5 or 6 bags of seeds I've planted I sure didn't get a lot of flowers. I suspect the damn birds & squirrels got a lot of them, so I will try some more soon.

We mostly goofed around yard & house and about the time I had planned to go shopping a series of squalls blew over the area- wind, lightning, & thunder and to my surprise I got 45 pounds of Border Collie in my lap for the duration. He must have learned that from Zoey since storms didn't faze him when he was younger. Hard to believe he'll be six this fall.

The mail came with a court document in it notifying me MaryAnn's hearing was in State court at 9AM Sept. 10th and that if she didn't show it was $1250 cash or loose the house to the Sheriff, so I emailed her for some reassurance. Naturally I'll go with her if she wants me to. I'd kind of hoped her lawyer could get this dismissed without a hearing.

Since it was still storming I took Cole when I went shopping- he hasn't ridden since the week before I bailed MaryAnn out- that's the last time I saw her in person.

On we go...

-30-

[RedDog]

I went out to beat the storms and got groceries only to discover in the check out line that I left both my debit card and my staff discount card at home (still in work cloths from last night on the laundry hamper). Man was I ticked as I only had some $6.00 cash on my person as I almost never carry cash.

I put every single item back on the shelves where I got them (about half being produce) whereas a great many people just walk away leaving perishable product sitting there. We all pay for that waste of course.

I also took my recycled bottles, cans and juice jugs into the place and it was lined into the parking lot - almost an hour that took. 3 recycle centres in a city of 100,000 and a metro area of 200,000 and the first day back after a summer long weekend. It's no wonder people just toss this stuff in the landfill when they make it nearly impossible to refund.

Then I discover that BOTH Taylor Drive AND Gaetz Avenue (which should be a street rather than an avenue as it would be in any civilized city given the direction it runs) are torn up for repaving simultaneously (nothing whatsoever wrong with the asphalt on Taylor) - the two primary north-south arteries through town. Add another 45 minutes. Man if I was of the nature to ever go postal it would be in this sad sack excuse for a city that I'd open up.

Back home I went to get my debit card and by the time the second grocery run was over (to a much closer market since they don't want anyone driving north-south today in a city laid out primarily north-south) the rain was starting so no lawn mowing here or for the neighbour. I was also going to do some things to the motorcycle today. I feel like absolutely nothing was accomplished. I'm celebrating with a cocktail.

[backhoe]

...I feel like absolutely nothing was accomplished...

I have a lot of days like that- it's one reason I make lists on index cards. I feel like as long as I'm ticking off items- exciting things like "Shop, gas? Clean bird's cage?" I'm accomplishing something.

[backhoe]

Life and the living of it is a strange and sometimes sad affair...

When I went upstairs last night to get cleaned up and changed into bedclothes Cole-boy followed me up. Usually he doesn't so I normally just drop my street clothes in a pile on the floor of the hall outside the bath- my bathroom is that wretchedly cramped, there is hardly room to turn around, let alone store anything even as transient as a change of clothes.

But since he's a known thief who likes to run off with socks & shirts & rags I stowed my clothes on Shelley's old iron bed in that never-completed middle room. The one that has Emily's chair from her store, The Cat's Cradle, her bookcase full of her books, her pictures & prints... a tiny Radio shack TV that she used to take on church-related trips...

Except for some things that Miss Susan hauled off- that I've not been paid for so far-- it's pretty much the way Emily left it when we abandoned that “reclaim the upstairs” project after her Mom died in April of 2008.

It's funny how you can have mental blind spots, or maybe it's a type of mental block- for whatever reason when I'd cleaned up I took another look at Emily's bookcase- Cole had settled himself in that middle room while I was showering and shaving.

Emily's Brunswick High and Jacksonville U yearbooks- the ones I tried to get her brother to take- are there, as well as piles of mystery books, Dr. Who, books about needlepoint and woodcarving and photography. She sure had a lot of talent, all gone forever except in my memory.

To my surprise there was a hardback copy of Primal Fear- the same book MaryAnn gave me & I read a few months ago. And a Reader's Digest book on sewing...

I looked in it and the date was 1985- the year after we married, when we still lived at Riverside, and about the same time she got that sewing machine I took from her never-used sewing room and set in the laundry downstairs. It had a piece on raising the bobbin thread- a thing I have yet to figure out how to do-- so I took it with me. If I'd known she had this book I would not have bought that copy of Sew Everything Workshop, but that's neither here nor there- now I have two books on sewing in the laundry.

Leafing through this book I realized of all the things sewing Emily had left behind one thing I didn't have in the kit I made up was a pincushion- so I went back to look & see if I had just overlooked one.

Looking through her things, particularly in that sewing room- which I made for her from the wreck of a bath/closet- is like looking at a dead child. So much potential, so much skill, so much that could have been- forever stilled and lost. There was no pincushion- a bigger sewing basket I'd left on the table I built for her ( With a scrap of paper where I had written the ideal dimensions for said table ) has a cushioned lid that she apparently used for that purpose.

But in the many drawers with her craft & sewing things was a needlepoint, still unmounted, of Lady, the German Shepard she grew up with.

Lady met an ill fate- she started attacking everyone and they had to put her to sleep. The autopsy revealed a brain tumor- the poor thing couldn't help herself. I suppose I ought to have it mounted and keep it- it's beautiful work, signed by my lost baby.

I really can't say why I'm telling you this or where it ought to go.

I am infinitely better.
Still. Even so...
Things like that grate. There's other work of hers in that drawer, and probably elsewhere. Maybe I should give some or all of it to Miss Cherry, who said any such things would be handed down through her family as heirlooms- that would at least give Emmy' talent some life beyond mine...

That famous composer who died? Who went to Julliard at age 7? Emily was offered a scholarship there- and turned it down. You wonder “what if?”

That damned Chaos Butterfly, again. She was accompanist to one of her best friends- Edie Jo?- I can't remember-- who tried out for Julliard- she was rejected but they were well-enough impressed with Emily's skill to offer her a scholarship. And she was so mad about her friend's rejection that she refused it.

And all that's over & done & lost forever. Like those funny-looking kids in her yearbooks, without her here to tell the stories, it's all irrelevant. And I have a tree to keep trimming, a life to live, and have not heard a peep from MaryAnn...

Onward.

-30-

[backhoe]

You look back and wonder where all those years & microseconds of your life get off to- where do they go? In any sort of emergency time s-l-o-w-s way down to a glacial crawl... a fraction of a second is an eternity. The first time you ever notice that your first thought is “Hot Damn! I'm faster than everybody else! Unfortunately for you, they are too... it evens out.

Those seven years I spent with Miss Helen...
( A blur of speed & power, Rich Man Poor Man, Up the Down Staircase- lay my head down by My Own True Love every night, wake up to My Very Best Friend and a whole new world and its adventures every morning... then she hit that Great Arrestor Cable of Death and suddenly I had a Whole New World before me. Minus my true love and best friend... )

The 25 years with Emily seemed so long in the living of them but when I look back? Somehow in all that living I mostly remember how pretty she looked in that line at the Coastal Bank, and how awful she looked dead on the floor. The rest? Was just details. She, too was my best friend.

I have trouble reconciling that- those two wives of mine were so different on the surface and so alike inside.

I'm writing this on what used to be “my side of the bed”- you may remember that when Emily died I moved to her side- because it smelled like her-- and that's been My Station on the Delta ever since. But while I was up this morning starting the domestic chores Cole-boy plopped himself down on my pillows and I had not the heart to move him- so I moved myself. To my old station.

How strange it is- I almost expect to feel Emily's ghostly hand stroke my jaw like she used to...

Yesterday was a reprise of the day before- tree trimming & goofing around the yard & the house, rain squalls & shopping. When I went up in the evening to clean up Cole-boy followed me once again and parked himself in that middle room, and once again when I was done I looked at Emily's bookcase...

Besides her yearbooks & craftbooks there are scores of hardback novels- including that Primal Fear I mentioned, and one by Robert B. Parker- Double Deuce. When we first were married we had similar tastes in books and often shared them- Parker's “Spencer for Hire” among them, but this was a title I didn't remember reading with her. Since I was near the end of Sheepfarmer's Daughter I pulled it out- it put up a fight, being stuck between other books for so long- and took it down with me.

It's not a bad yarn- the twist is Spencer is working for Hawk for a change and moves in with his longtime Jewish girlfriend. His black guy/white guy dialog could “pass” down here- it's close enough for government work.

This newfangled WWW stuff is amazing- I was aware Parker had died recently so I looked it up ( Yeah, yeah, it's Wiki, full of PC BS, but they do give you lots of links. He was older than I had thought and died in the saddle- not a bad way to go regardless of age.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_B._Parker

But I was unpleasantly surprised to learn Robert Urich had died too- a number of years before. I had known he'd had cancer but the last I'd heard- about a decade back- he seemed to be doing OK. Then again this was during “the time of the starving”- when we were trying to live off Emily's paycheck alone and had canceled every newspaper & magazine so I was out of the loop of popular “culture.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Urich

Following Wiki's links I was further surprised that Bob Urich had had a role in this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonesome_Dove

I never have seen it, or read the book, but the title always intrigued me- it's springboard for the imagination like all good titles are.

I suppose I need to track Miss MaryAnn down- my email of 2 days ago remains unanswered and I have not gotten a call from her. Meanwhile the Sun comes up like thunder and it's time to wend my way up those long & winding stairs to scrape the whiskers off my face and face another day.

Me & my sturdy little Golden pal. Two bachelors. Tryin' to get by in a strange and Emily-less New World...

-30-

[backhoe]

Gnawing, gnawing gnawing...

I gnawed on the oak with a polesaw- the kind you draw by hand-- until the gnawing of my bursitis-riddled shoulders was just too much to stand. Cole-boy "helped" by lying in MaryAnn's flowers. Damn dog.

Then I studied the old & new loppers and began gnawing on the old pulley with a hand grinder- if I get enough clearance to pass the line back & forth I can compound the draw. Since the old Dremel mototool- it dates from the 1950's-- heats fast I have to grind a little then let it cool a while. "We'll get there directly..."

[backhoe]

Well, maybe this is a little too exciting- one of the warehouses across & down the street is on fire. So far 3 city engines, 2 county engines, 2 rescue squad vehicles. God only know what is in that building- the smoke's bad.

Naturally Cole won't come in to the cleaner air- too much activity.

I called MaryAnn at lunch and she'd had her gas cut off this morning, and for some reason she kept losing the connection to their service number. I made the call for her & long story short it was not shut off for lack of payment- but the account has someone else's name on it. (!) Not Vernon's or hers. I gave her the number they gave me & that's the last I've heard. Calls to all 3 cells have gone unanswered so far. I suspect her account was slammed and the "new" owner had service cut as harassment.

Naturally I can turn the meter on and light the water heater for her- if I'm asked to.

[backhoe]

...and in the "even moar! excitement" dept?

I went on to Walgreen's, taking a circuitous route since Newcastle was blocked off. Coming home I saw a great wall of black clouds coming out of the west and soon as I got home lines of violent squalls passed over the house.

Cole got up against my hip and one shot of lightning over the Brunswick river was a flash-bang... no delay in the arrival of sound. The next one turned the CCTV off, the digital picture frame on, and shut off the AC. It also rang the wireless doorbell & made the smoke detectors chirp.

The pup was not amused.

I'll turn in soon- I hope my damsel in distress either got the gas back on or can do without the stove and hot water until tomorrow- it's getting dark earlier and given a 40 minute round trip to the Island going there from here out is dicey. Not to grouse too much but Emily really effed up quitting her job and losing her medical plan- it would have been nice to get rid of the cataracts. And have the back fused.

Oh, well.