"Letters to Miss Emily..."

[backhoe]

We're in the awkward part of summer- the fans are almost cool enough but I'm feeling sticky- it's tempting to brave the 900 Watt power consumption of the AC and cool our quarters down. But besides not liking the closed-up feeling I have never established that the back bell button rings the doorbell. The front one does, but everyone since 1987 has been told “the button by the garage door...”

OTOH it's not like I get a crowd in here.

MaryAnn called and it's been one damn thing after another. The storm last night was pretty bad on the Island so she didn't get much sleep. There was business to conduct this morning and that storm revealed roof problems. And her HVAC system is acting up so she was tied up waiting for service guys. We agreed to get together one way or another tomorrow. Except for that 9AM interview I'm free.

We did talk about other things and I'm going to contact my accountant for clarification of some Social Security questions.

I really like this netbook compared to Emily's old one. One thing I discovered in the changeover was that old Pentax camera ( The one she gave me & then promptly took for herself ) had no drivers available for Win 7. I was kind of disappointed because that's the one I keep on the nightstand for casual snaps and didn't want to retire it yet. Then I realized I could just pop the memory card and read it. That actually is easier than using the camera cables. But its age shows- the card is a CF-- a compact flash, huge by modern standards. Luckily I have a card reader that accommodates it.

It's been a week ( Geez! ) since I backed the Acer up so I'm doing that now with Win 7 and I think I'll do a bounceback backup just in case. Comcast's free service was still down last time I tried it-- somewhere in all my bookmarks is another free service and I may try that. I really don't trust the “cloud,” but getting my files 'way off site has a certain appeal. Come fire or hurricane I would at least have some chance to get them back.

Maybe I'll feel differently at some further point but the two year coming of Emily's death just hasn't meant a lot so far- like I say, it’s the other, little things that get you...

I may content myself with de-stickyfying myself with another shower & dry bedclothes- the air coming in that newly opened window in the bay is feeling cooler.

I'm nearing the end of The Shores of Kansas and despite quirks it's still a decent yarn- the fella did good for a first book.

-30-

[backhoe]

The Man who Loved Cat Dancing...

Life is a funny thing... I've written a lot of words and in my day- so very long ago- I was considered a pretty good ad man- I was adroit at crafting phrases to persuade you to buy stuff...

Even had a few moments of local fame & glory. It all passes. Into the nevermore or the Up! & Out! Or the Oh! So! Very Far Away...

“Once Upon a Time” I was considered a pretty good fella to know. Long ago.

But in that long ago and far away I looked at things other people wrote and I do believe the prettiest phrase I ever beheld was...

“The Man who Loved Cat Dancing”

The Man who Loved Cat Dancing... the reference is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Wh ... at_Dancing

Yeah, I know it's Wiki, but they aren't too bad for things that can't be biased Leftward- for all the rest? At least they give you links to follow- but they are a poor source unless you use all the links.

Two years ago at this time the EMT's & firemen & policemen were dragging Miss Emily purple corpse out of the bathroom to lie on the floor. Before carrying her away.

I let Cole-boy sniff her dead body-- and I still don't think he knows she is dead.. In his simple mind I suspect he thought Mommy was playing some new & amusing trick and would eventually get up.

Except she did not, and I am left standing among the ruins.

No will. No money. No medical plan... Emily, you sure left me with a Hell of a mess.

It's funny how life repeats itself- Helen really never believed those two cancers she had could kill her- I was the one left holding the bag of “what the F**K do I do next?”

What, indeed, do I do next? I'm old & tired & alone. In six hours the food stamp people will call me and? I'll deal with them the way I always dealt with bureaucrats- politeness & flattery & a few artful dodges-- “I'm dyslexic... “ ( I actually am- I have trouble with forms & the written word. ) and “I'm hard of hearing...” ( Yes, it's funny how all those loud noises make you deaf... if I can read your lips I don't do too bad... )- and if that doesn’t work I can call a lawyer or three.

I don't know what you do with it- the love, the hurt, the grief... the sadness & the anger. The loss... what do you do when half of you dies?

What do you do?

The first time around it was My Own True Love I lost. Yes, there was fire & passion... and a lot of things I have told you about, and some things I have not- but she was my dearest friend.

Then there was Emily, the cool breath of wind who showed me that after the grand passion had burned itself out I could still love another woman.

The grand passion wasn't there- but still, I loved her. She, too, was my best pal.

I don't know where all of that goes, when it gets up and goes away from you.

I just do not know what to do, or what you do, with it all.

So I will hie myself up those long & winding stairs one mo' time... get cleaned up and face another day with two- count 'em, 2-- dead wives behind me.

Talk to the food stamp people... get those files to Miss MaryAnn... and carry on for another day.

I don't know what else to do.

It's another day in Paradise...

Or?

This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here...

-30-

[backhoe]

I guess you all know...

PSA ( Public Service Announcement ):

...It's been a week ( Geez! ) since I backed the Acer up so I'm doing that now with Win 7 and I think I'll do a bounceback backup just in case. Comcast's free service was still down last time I tried it-- somewhere in all my bookmarks is another free service and I may try that. I really don't trust the “cloud,” but getting my files 'way off site has a certain appeal. Come fire or hurricane I would at least have some chance to get them back...

...I don't know what the Hell I'm doing...

I found that bookmark and I am trying it out now:

http://www.idrive.com/

5 gigs free for any PC, Mac, iPhone or clone-- I have no idea how well it works- but I figured it was worth a try. You have to create an account- and lotsa lotsa finding that login info when you need it-- but still, for free it is worth trying...

Miss Emily swore by Carbonite, but besides their politics they cost $50 a year-- about average for a paid-for online backup service. It was just one more expense she had that I eliminated after determining I didn't need it. Kind of like that $240 a year subscription to the Brunswick News she had "to look for a job." Except there were no jobs in the classifieds. I'm still trying to figure that one out- I suspect she knew she was dying and just did not tell me.

I will always wonder what she might have noticed about her own health and simply did not mention to me.

All I know is she presented no symptoms to me of any heart disease I'd been trained to recognize- then again, women often show atypical symptoms- it may be all the hurts she felt in neck and face and head weren't her teeth or that plate in her neck but something worse.

Still, I did all I could. She may just have not wanted to be messed with by the Docs. I can certainly understand that. There really does come a point in your life where you get tired of the struggle, throw your hands up and declare “What is, is- let it come...”

Maybe she was just tired of it all.

And all that is done, is it not? I have to shower & shave and chat with bureaucrats. Get some files to a pretty widow-lady. Get another day started. Since I have the slower ethernet connection it will take about 6 hours to back up 2 gigs of my files. Worth a try, I suppose.

And at some point I will “straighten Miss Emily's Picture on the Wall...”

...and go on.

-30-

[backhoe]

Well, idrive claims it backed up 2.06 gigs, or 40% of that free account. So I guess we'll see... like I've said, you don't know you have a bad backup until you try to use it. We are all so ephemeral in this new digital world.

Not that the "real" world is much better- I still have metal boxes that Emily hauled from Lucy's place- they meant something to her. I offered them to Robert- he didn't want them. I look in them- old deeds, old papers. Meaningless to me.

Like all that stuff she had from Musemont- that was a summer music camp held in the old "colored" motel at the south end of Jekyll and it seemed to be seminal in her personal & music developement.

To me it was pictures of goofy kids- since she was taking them, she wasn't in any, and without her to narrate it, I finally just "threw up my hands in despair" and tossed it all.

Like that letter of rejection from the New York Philharmonic- did she even tell me about that? I know it must have crushed her- how could I forget something like that? Unless she never told me, or mentioned it in a brush-off way.

Secrets... and silence. To the grave.

[RedDog]

We're selling remote hard drives of 2 and 3 terabytes now. I can't even imagine what people are doing with data needs like that unless it involves a medium sized business or a small government or something illegal. I'm utilizing about 8% of the space on this MacBook Pro.

[backhoe]

We're selling remote hard drives of 2 and 3 terabytes now. I can't even imagine what people are doing with data needs like that unless it involves a medium sized business or a small government or something illegal. I'm utilizing about 8% of the space on this MacBook Pro.

The old netbook had about 20 gigs on it when I took it over and this thing has about 40- most of that is picture files. My BIL still does photoprocessing on the side and he tells me that is what fills up these new super-size drives in a hurry.

The first HD I had was a 20 meg hard card, and the first time I looked at a map of it- using Pctools 4.3 and DOS 3.3-- I saw all that cool, green free space and thought "I'll never fill that up!" Then came 30, 40, 65, 220... a 3.8 gig Maxtor...

[backhoe]

There wasn't much to the interview- I really could not understand about half of it but they will send me a form and I'll puzzle it out & send it back.

MaryAnn emailed that she was probably coming to town lunchtime, so I unloaded the boxes and got a third one to split them to if they need lightening. She is strong so that may not be necessary. Don't know what it is with me & women- Helen & Emily were both as strong or stronger than the average-sized man... Helen actually had "wings"- well-developed lattisimus dorsi's.

I fixed "Belgian waffles" and I'll still be dogged what makes them so special- I sure don't see "deep pockets you can fill with fruits & fillings"- they look like a slightlier beefy waffle to me...

[WestViking]

I fixed "Belgian waffles" and I'll still be dogged what makes them so special- I sure don't see "deep pockets you can fill with fruits & fillings"- they look like a slightlier beefy waffle to me...

You have to be an ad-man to see those "deep pockets".

[backhoe]

I fixed "Belgian waffles" and I'll still be dogged what makes them so special- I sure don't see "deep pockets you can fill with fruits & fillings"- they look like a slightlier beefy waffle to me...

You have to be an ad-man to see those "deep pockets".

They are selling the sizzle rather than an actual steak- this thing produces waffles slightly thicker than the old iron. If you believed the ad copy you'd need a backhoe to scoop out the filling.

[backhoe]

“You reach a point where you just want it all to be over...”

MaryAnn said it best and those three posts one from the top were the extent of “remembering Emily” this day. I got busy with other things, mainly straightening our quarters in anticipation of company. She called later on and had gotten busy with things on the Island so I just told her to call if she needed those files & I'd run them over- it's actually a shorter hop to her place than to Haase Farm Service.

When I was growing up on the Island it was a retirement community with few people and all the action was on the mainland- now it's the opposite. Emily just loathed the place because kids from the Island gave her a hard time about being a country bumpkin when she was in school. She hated merely going there.

And yet there is a different atmosphere and ambiance over there, different as night & day- the Islanders are easier in manner, more relaxed- friendlier. More laid back. It's sort of like one big village. The mainland is a lot less uniform- you find near mansions backed up to shotgun shacks, areas that are almost pure white or black, and rural areas that are becoming over-civilized. The old things & old ways are fading but still visible. It just has a different feel about it.

I don't want another frozen dinner- I still want Chinese but there is just something about that quarter... I could get Mexican- but if I don't take The Kid he'll be crestfallen and he is shedding like crazy still- I'm afraid his hair will clog the AC system. So I guess I'll have leftovers.

It's wild & crazy life the two of us live these days...

-30-

[backhoe]

“You reach a point where you just want it all to be over...”

MaryAnn said it best...

Yes, she did- and yes, you do. You get tired of the pain.

Miss Emily was the love of my life for 25 years. In all that stuff you swear to when you get hitched. I'm kind of old fashioned- I figure when you take a girl to your bed- or she takes you to hers- you owe all that stuff.

Meanwhile there are other battles to be fought- since Emily was the "network & printer & photoshop guru" around here I am trying to "figgure out" how to print this on bumper sticker stock:



Then you have to apply a half a dozen coats of Krylon to make it sort-of weatherproof.

When that is done I'll put it on my car.

And life? Goes on...

[backhoe]

I usually put this in "America Held Hostage- the Obama Files," but it's good wherever you see it- too many to link to so I'll give you source & headers, and you go look:

http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/categories/12-Hot-News-Misc-Short-Subjects

Friday morning links

Good site: A Way to Garden

GM Crops, Organic Food, & Delicious Irony

The Case of Mary Richardson Kennedy

Sylvia Plath’s Drawings

Anxiety and Resurrection - I was drowning in post-partum anxiety. Then theology saved my life.

No, America Does NOT Need More Scientists and Engineers

Are Americans Too Dumb for Democracy?

If ObamaCare Is Judged Unconstitutional, Here's How To Reform Healthcare

Why Should Government Be Involved in Medicine at All? If we want affordable and cutting-edge health care, there's only one approach that will work: open competition.

Sheldon Adelson and the Top 5 Super PAC Facts the Media Covers Up

Gamechanger: Obama rocks America with speech everyone’s heard 50 times before; Update: Panned by … MSNBC?

Only the Public Sector Is ‘Doing Fine’ Sorry, Mr. President: There’s no need to bail out the state and local governments.

Jindal:


We put a guy in the White House who has no experience running anything. In that sense, the joke’s on us. But again, it’s not a joke. America simply cannot afford another four years of on-the-job training. There may have been times in our country’s history where having an untested leader in the White House would have been fine, but this is certainly not one of those times. Yes, President Obama needs to go because his liberal policies are wrong and bad for America. But it’s worse than that; it’s basic incompetence. He is also the most incompetent president since Jimmy Carter.


Nanny Bloomberg: Point of Government Is To Improve Health of Citizens

What You Get at a Fundraiser With Anna Wintour and Sarah Jessica Parker

The EPA’s flawed zero tolerance policy

Why I Am A Milblogger

The New Communism: Resurrecting the Utopian Delusion:


A specter is haunting the academy—the specter of “new communism.” A worldview recently the source of immense suffering and misery, and responsible for more deaths than fascism and Nazism, is mounting a comeback; a new form of left-wing totalitarianism that enjoys intellectual celebrity but aspires to political power.

Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 06:00

[backhoe]

Doin' fine, just fine...



I decided to treat myself to a cheap takeout from Taco Bell so around supper time I tossed Cole-boy in the car and off we went...

I haven't been that way in a while and even mores signs are down, more businesses are closed and even a house on the way there has been razed- just an empty fenced lot with a bald spot in the grass where somebody's house once stood...

And the Great Pretender is going to add 800,000 ( No doubt an optimistically low figure- and probably 1-3 dependents... ) people to the labor pool?

Sooper Genius, Ebola, sooper genius. Keep at it, son, you are doing a great job of wrecking yourself and the country...

Talked to MaryAnn earlier, screwed around the house and trimmed some of Emily's damned plants outside that are growing wild from all the rain. The garage has a plant growing inside the overhead from the leaky places and junk on the roof- I hate going up there with nobody around to get help if I fall off, but I'm going to have to do it.

Otherwise it's pleasant here- the air coming in the bay is cool from the Misty Mate- so I guess it is
Another day in Paradise.

[backhoe]

I'm posting this here for my larger audience with a plea-

Can anybody interpret this? Seriously- I speak Southern and understand Gulla. I not only can't understand what this fool is trying to convey ( And I've never heard of him- why should anyone pay attention to such an illiterate SOB? ) I can't figure out why anyone should care.

Link only- he Uses Dread Words- even if he can't spell them...

http://twitchy.com/2012/06/16/wiz-khalifa-with-an-important-psa-fucc-bath-salt/

WTF? WTH?

[backhoe]

Miss Emily would probably be sad:http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/archives/19821-House-MD-End-of-a-cantankerous-era.html

House MD: End of a cantankerous era

Eight seasons, eh? Two without her- she did watch it every week. The comments at Maggie's mention St. Elsewhere- we actually watched that together. Somewhere along the line the TV just became noise to me, but she had favorite programs to the end. Charmed was one of them. Anything Star Trek or Dr. Who. A soap opera at 2 PM- All my Children?

How soon the memories fade.

A cold muzzle poked me up at 3 AM and I just decided to stay up. Ready to roll should MaryAnn need something. Funny, how life goes on.