One day not long ago, my Dad made the quarter-mile walk out his dirt lane to check the mail and witnessed a low-flying pheasant get picked off by a truck on the main road. He went over and did a quick inspection before bringing the bird home and cooking it for dinner. Another time he watched an osprey dive into the pond in front of his house and haul out a good-sized bass before accidentally dropping it in the yard as he flew away. Yep, Dad ate that too.

This explains a little bit about his simple way of life. “Use it up and wear it out” is one of his favorite phrases. Duct tape plays a very important role in his existence, whether it be holding together machinery, electronics or clothes. I love this about my Dad. He couldn’t care less about how something looks, he just wants it to work and he’ll try to keep it working as long as he can.

There are health risks to this lifestyle. A common joke/question whenever we visit and he pulls something out of the fridge is, “What’s the expiration date on that?” Last weekend we found a jar of relish that expired April 2011, easily one of the freshest items I’ve found in there. The basics – milk, eggs, etc. – are updated frequently enough. Everything else, check before opening. I’ve found things in the dark recesses of his fridge from 8 years ago, not-so-coincidentally the year my Mom died. According to Dad, if it hasn’t changed color or odor, it’s still good. He once kept a block of cheese for years (openly visible in the fridge) just to see how many colors it would develop. He finally got bored and threw it out when it went through all of them and started repeating the process.

There is duct tape holding together t.v. antennas, hoses, sprinklers, mowers, rafts, gloves, rakes…the list is endless. Once while watching my younger brother try to patch together an old golf bag with tape and stitching, he said, “Jeff, sometimes you just have to sh*t-can it.” We never let him forget that comment since he has never s-canned anything in his life. You’d think that would make for a lot of junky clutter, but it’s quite the opposite. He keeps the old stuff going and going so it’s all he ever needs.

Dad is also like one of those labradors who are maniacally obsessed with finding lost items. You know the type – they’ll wander through the weeds for hours looking for the tiny stick you tossed. If we ever lose something, Dad springs into action. He won’t stop until he finds it. A few weeks back on Easter Sunday, we had a bucket of old golf balls and were hitting them from his back yard into his 80-acres of pasture. Together, we probably hit well over a hundred balls and then went out to collect as many as we could find. For the next week, I’d get a daily e-mail from Dad (yes, he has a computer…dial-up, of course), “Found 7 more today…..found 4 more today…” He enjoys it, I think, and it’s always a good way to get him out of the house so we can clean his fridge.

No, he doesn’t have strips of duct tape holding together the living room furniture. He’s not quite that bad, though if it’s ever needed I’m sure he’ll consider it. My kids love him to pieces and I hope some of his simple lifestyle habits rub off on them…minus the potential food poisoning. That labrador thing could come in handy, too.






 

Just killing some time before I finally fall asleep on an exciting Friday evening, listening to my favorite old tunes on youtube (Roger Miller’s “My Uncle Used To Love Me But She Died” currently playing) and checking out the blog pages.

Things I’ve found tonight: There are actually only 9 pages of blogs (I expected more) and the one at the very bottom of page 9 hasn’t been updated in over 7 years. I think it’s time. That means it hasn’t been used since before my very first blog entry on Halloween Day in 2005. Lots of others that haven’t been updated in years and years and years. I had a few “Oh yeah, I remember them!” moments, but it also reminded me of some others who have vanished.

Darn ads on youtube. Messing up my mood and my rhythm.

I can think of 5 or 6 WDC-ers who I grew pretty close to and would interact with frequently here and through home e-mail and chat, but who have stopped communicating with me through the years. I feel so used and violated. Ha. The nature of online friendships, I suppose.

I try not to take it personally. In fact, I blame Obama. Blogging thrived here during the Bush years, but has done a steady decline ever since BO was elected. Check your own blog views and comments and you’ll see I’m right. It’s been all downhill since late 2008. But hang in there, folks! His four years are almost up and things will start to liven up here within about six months or so.

Heh heh.

Another thing I noticed? Blogs can be huge now! I didn’t check every single one, but I noticed at least one with over 1,200 entries. Given that this blog has a measly 141 entries in over 3 years of existence, well…it’s obviously the only blog I’ll ever need. Which means it’ll need some remodeling. Yeah, I think I’d like to do that soon. A new header and all that. Something manly and mountainous. With dead animals hanging on the walls and the rustic smell of smoldering moose poop drifting in and out of every room. If only I knew how to remodel a blog.

It’s suddenly Saturday. Guess I’ll shut up now. G’night.




 

We had a glimpse of summer over the past weekend here in Montana with sunshine and temps reaching as high as the mid 80’s. I’m happy to say I did my best to absorb as much of it as I could and have made good headway in dulling my blindingly white winter skin cells to a point where people in the vicinity can downgrade to a 30 spf to protect from the reflection. The welder’s mask is no longer required in my presence, which is nice since they’re not very comfortable or stylish unless you’re a welder. Officials now say normal sunglasses should offer enough protection, but if you’re unsure just call your local authorities or remain indoors until conditions improve. Thank you for your cooperation.

But today it rains.

Continuing on with the family’s birthday-heavy April, today is my oldest brother’s turn. Fortunately, Mike lives in Alaska so I don’t have to buy him a gift. That’s kind of the unwritten rule of family members - out of sight, out of retail mind. I check their webcam up in Valdez almost daily and they still have close to three feet of snow on the ground. I told him he should probably move soon, but he seems proud of his snow. In the same way some people brag about their many ailments or how much alcohol they consumed last weekend as if it’s a badge of honor, Mike loves to talk about their massive snowfalls all winter long. I get constant updates, and it’s not like he’s a winter sports enthusiast or anything. His idea of snow fun is to crack open a brew in front of his 80-inch t.v. and see what’s on Netflix. For much of this winter they had eight feet of standing snow on the ground, so I don’t really blame him. Personally, I’d just move.

I’m not really sure what happened during his college years that changed Mike from a bit of a first class a-hole into the humble and gentle first class really great guy he’s been ever since, but his brothers are happy. Growing up, Mike was one of those ultra-competitive types with a built-in 500,000 watt rage that went off with no warning. It meant nothing to him that he towered over his little brothers and outweighed them by almost 2-to-1 in some cases. He went all out in any sport and destroyed us. And if we ever made the mistake of scoring on him, he’d come uncorked and start snarling and swearing and growling and foaming while breaking anything within his grasp (but never his brothers, only inanimate objects, so I have to give him that). Bruce Banner had nothing on Mike except a groovier color change.

Board games were no better. Monopoly, Clue, etc….all went flying across the room at some time or another. Missing game pieces were common in our house as parts tend to disappear more frequently when airborne. Chess was brutal. You’d think it would be easy to purposely lose a chess match, but when the winning moves begin to open up in front of you, sometimes you just can’t help yourself, even if you know better. Of course, we knew the king and queen and all the others would soon be taking their turbulent flight on Mike Airlines before the actual end of the game, but in a way we brothers knew that was a sign of victory, even if Mike wouldn’t admit it. And as soon as we realized he wasn’t going to send any of us across the room, we learned to play this way and gain a certain silent satisfaction when the rage came.

But those days are long gone. I’m not sure what happened, but the change all those years ago was almost from one day to the next. Invasion of the Body Snatchers had come out several years before and I had to wonder if this new Mike was a gelatinous pod from space. He was gaining weight, but did not appear intergalactically gelatinous. We eventually felt comfortable enough with new Pod Mike to play games with him again and were actually able to complete them with no foaming or flights, win or lose, for the first time in our existence together. Even video games, which we were thankful didn’t exist in Mike’s pre-pod form. A flying Xbox console probably wouldn’t land as softly as a chess board.

Now it’s on to my niece’s birthday on Saturday. She lives within the retail zone, but what do you get a girl who has a penchant for accumulating DUI’s? A cake with a file inside or maybe a bicycle so if she ever wrecks, she’ll only hurt herself.

 

Today is my twins’ birthday. Or is it birthdays, with an ‘s’? There is much to do, but they’ve reached adulthood now and it got me thinking about stuff from life at that age so I thought I’d blog first.

I was born in a time when hippies ruled the earth. Or at least thought they did. Maybe that explains why a redneck like me has a deep love for the simple singer-songwriter music of long ago. Never the hardcore “If you’re going to San Francisco…be sure to wear some flowers in your hair” kind of stuff, but the benign and unifying borderline hippie music of John Denver, Neil Diamond, Gordon Lightfoot, etc. that rose from the ashes of the fallen hippie empire. Yes, hippies still roam the earth and probably always will, but I’m thinking the drugs must have been better back then because today’s hippies seem more like zombies.

I guess that’s another sign of aging. “In MY day, we made fun of REAL hippies!”

I’ll never forget the day at the seasoned age of nine when I walked the two blocks over to my friend Joey’s house and heard the amazing sounds of Simon and Garfunkel for the very first time. I couldn’t get enough of “Keep the Customer Satisfied” and “Baby Driver” that day and bugged him to play the record over and over. Joey’s dad was actually the mayor of our town full of hippies and looking back I now realize Joey was a nine-year-old hippie himself. He was advanced for his hippie age and actually already an old hippie since the 60’s movement was long gone by then. But I didn’t know what any of that meant at the time. I just liked the far out tunes, man.

A few years later my family moved 25 miles north deeper into the mountains and about that time I heard “Rocky Mountain High” for the first time. Best song ever, I thought, and listened to it endlessly. Now that I was a mature adult (just turned 11), John Denver and all the singer-songwriters of the 70’s were really becoming a part of life and who I was becoming. I vaguely remember people making fun of John and calling him a hippie too, but, again, I didn’t know anything about that. I just liked all those songs about frolicking in the Rockies like I was doing and our mountain home was surrounded by hippies on all sides anyway and they all seemed pretty cool so I didn’t mind. I kind of lost touch with Simon and Garfunkel for a while, though.

That is, until senior year of high school when I became friends with Mike, the twin brother of the girl from France I was dating. He played guitar, I played guitar, and he loved Simon and Garfunkel. I got back in touch with their music and soon we were spending hours together, singing just about every S&G song ever recorded as well as some of our own. We called ourselves Mikon and Davefunkel (only privately, of course) and were sure we had a bright future singing folk tunes from 15 to 20 years earlier as we went off to college together in a different town.

What can I say, sometimes the stupidity of youth takes away all rational thinking. Here we were, deep into the 80’s British pop explosion, and at the same time country music had become wildly popular again by getting back to its classic roots with singers like George Strait and Reba McEntire. But never mind that! We were going to take the music world by storm with our gentle harmonies and acoustic folksy guitar picking from an era most people had pretty much forgotten and were in no hurry to resurrect. See, our brains didn’t work properly, despite our drug and alcohol-free existence. All we knew was we loved to sing these songs and everyone else would love them too, by golly.

First, though, we became music directors at a local church in our new town, but our style did not play well with the 142-year-old pastor. The Sunday we brought in a fiddle-playing granola girl to add to the mix was the last straw. The next day he dropped a five-pound fossilized book of hymnals in front of us and muttered, “Do these,” before shuffling off behind the church to smoke more cigarettes. Legend has it he used to be a nice man before we came to town and I occasionally saw flashes of that. We tried the hymns, but it just didn’t work so we made the natural transition from church to the bars.

I want to thank God with all of my heart for preserving Mike and I and not allowing our asses to be completely and thoroughly kicked during that time. “What a dream I had….pressed in organdy….clothed in crinoline….of smoky burgundy…softer than the rain…” Good LORD! These are not the words you sing to a room full of buzzed Cowboys in a smoky Montana bar. Thank you, God. Thank you.

Soon after, Mike got married and moved to Boston to work in the film industry and I stayed in Montana to hike and fish and…that’s pretty much it. Mikon and Davefunkel disbanded in their prime, but at least no asses were harmed in the making of our music.

I want to go on record in saying I have never been a hippie, not even a little bit. I have the spotless all-Republican career voting record to prove it. Ha. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a hippie, but I just never felt the calling. I just liked the music…man.

It would be easy to blame crotchety oldness as the reason I find the earliest music I ever listened to as still some of my favorite (back in MY day…blah blah), but that’s not really it. I remember griping when disco polluted the 70’s music scene and ruined my adolescent life. I was already screaming “Back in MY day!” and I was barely out of diapers…or grade school. One of those, but they may have coincided. I was pretty crotchety for a 6th grader.

 

I’m sleepwalking today. Maybe I should stop multi-tasking and give up the walking part. I was up till 3 a.m. watching “Winter’s Bone” in bed on my Kindle Fire of all things. I blame gypsy4evermore for this, but it was worth it. Definite creepy factor…almost reminded me of the old mountain gold claim residences up around nearby Garnet ghost town. I'd mention Martin City, but their barstool races moved them up the social ladder. Ha.

Well, the girls have been sick since they’ve been home from El Salvador. Flu-like symptoms, though they assured me they didn’t drink the water or make out with their interpreters, but they’re sneezing in Spanish so I know they picked it up down there. Yesterday was 420 day so maybe they’re just stoned. I could possibly be stoned soon as well since the girls brought me back some funny-looking little cigars with no labels from one of the local markets. I’ve never been stoned (other than with rocks) and I don’t want to start now, but it would be rude not to take a few puffs.

Continuing on with this rambling entry, I’m reminded of a topic I’ve always found somewhat interesting: What we become while under the influence of truth serum (alcohol or peanut butter cups or whatever people use to impair themselves). This study can only be conducted with adult specimens. When teens drink, they just augment their natural stupidity and vomit on their friend’s dog or car.

But with adulthood comes drunken maturity and less vomiting. The truth serum works more accurately. I think most people get either silly or sappy, but maybe I should make a poll about that to get the facts. Anyone voting in the poll must be under the influence of their favorite truth serum to ensure accurate results, but if you drink don’t drive do the Watermelon Crawl. I just checked my eye color poll from three years ago last night and I’m sad to say my home green has slipped to a distant third after a strong early showing. It’s kind of become a two-eye race (or four if you have two and not one which would make three...though some people may have two different colors…like junkyard dogs, though that doesn’t mean you’re junk or dog-like) between brown and blue, but brown’s lead is smaller than I would have thought, so there is still time….especially since the voting will continue on forever or until wdc ends, whichever comes first. If you haven’t already voted or if your eye color has changed since you did, go vote. Inebriation is not required for that one. There is no “bloodshot” voting option. I am a conservative so you can rest assured there will be no voter fraud issues. If I wasn’t, green would be winning!

My Endomondo sportstracker app has completely flipped out. It worked great for the first few months, keeping track of the distance, time and elevation gains of local hikes and runs and automatically uploading the data to their website, but lately it’s all over the map. Literally. In the past week it registered a local 4-mile hike as a 10-mile run I accomplished in a blistering 46 minutes…a run that ended when I ran straight into the western waters of the Great Salt Lake in Utah. Then it showed another local hike as a 4-mile run through a secluded dry river bed in a central Nevadan desert. But my favorite was when it logged my 7-mile run as a 0-mile run at 33,000 feet above sea level somewhere above southern Idaho. No wonder I was so out of breath for that one! It’s kind of my Bill and Ted app.

These recent entries are just an attempt to keep my blog awake. Like talking to yourself to keep from slipping into a coma after slamming your head in the car door, which I’m sure we’ve all done a hundred times. That’s all this is…..just trying to stay alive and hope there are better blogging days ahead. But maybe a coma is better.

 

Forgive me, Dear Blog, it’s been 12 days since my last blogfession. Wow, 12 days. 12 days! Feels like it was no more than…..okay, it feels like about 12 days. Time flies when you have absolutely nothing of interest to say.

Let’s see, since I last blogged, the girls of the house left the boys in the house and went off to another country. They return today, actually. I haven’t heard much from them since they left, but I did get one e-mail from my wife telling me about her wonderful male personal interpreter named Ricardo whom she hit it off with instantly and who says she doesn’t look or act her age. I should probably be concerned, but I’ve been far too busy having mucho manly fun fun fun every single night to worry about that!

Okay, actually it’s been pretty boring. My son works at 5 a.m. every morning so he’s out by 9 p.m. I last slightly longer. My main bedtime excitement is browsing the Kindle fiction selections. Never actually purchasing a book, mind you….just browsing and reading ratings. However, I did learn a few exciting things while the women were away that I can share. First, it actually IS my son who is responsible for the large loads of laundry (as I suspected and accused) since they haven’t really changed in size much since the girls left. However, it’s my daughter who is to blame for all the dishes. I’ve hardly had to wash any in her absence and usually it’s 1.5 loads a day. Also, cotton ball consumption has ceased entirely (totally expected) and surprisingly the toilet paper is probably still on the same roll as when they left 8 days ago, which proves women use it for more than it’s intended (or maybe guys don’t). I never could have learned these things if they hadn’t left and I’m happy for this knowledge. I can’t wait to tell them tomorrow! They’ll be so excited.

Other than that, I did my daughter’s taxes and helped my oldest son and his wife move into a new place last weekend. It’s a cabin next to the river tucked in the woods that’s very rustic and a cross between Jed Clampett’s and something from Deliverance. In the entire weekend of moving in I only saw one small spider and one squished mouse. The spider soon joined the mouse in squishedness. I expected far more bugs and varmints. Oh, and only two piles of bear crap nearby so far.

And tonight, on the final night of guy freedom for my son and I left behind in Montana, we went to see the Hunger Games in the BIG theater. The one with the HUGE screen and HUGE sound and HUGE auditorium and HUGE poofy seats and HUGE ticket price. It was my first time in the BIG theater and I want one. I don’t think I’ll ever go back to anything else. Totally groovy. From now on whatever’s playing there, I think I’ll watch. Loved the movie…Jennifer Lawrence plays a kick-ass Katniss! Plus, I always love movies without sex and bad language. Nothing but the good ol’ timeless fun of teenagers butchering each other. I can live with that.

I rarely blog after hours like this. Feels weird. I’m off to try to stay up for my last night of manly freedom. I should probably have alcohol for this occasion. Oh, wait…I do. Forgive any spelling or grammar issues.




















Why is there such a HUGE gap before the comment section??? I swear it's not my fault.















 

Yesterday was my annual Good Friday hike. This is the 27th consecutive Good Friday I’ve made the same 16-mile trek into the nearby Rattlesnake Wilderness area. Wow, I’m getting old(er). Hard to believe I’ve been able to keep it going through all the changes in life – marriage, kids, different jobs, etc. – but now it’s a yearly priority.

It’s a deeply spiritual day, of course, but it also serves as the unofficial kickoff trip to a new year of spring and summer hiking in the higher elevations. Despite that, I couldn’t convince my son to join me since he says our climb to the top of Stuart Peak in a blizzard the first week of January took care of that, but, by golly, ceremonial traditions must be upheld. So, I went solo, as I often do on Good Friday.

I always try to get a couple of songs going in my brain as I start up the trail each year; one of them a tune that actually inspired the hike all those years ago, but yesterday I could not get that ubiquitous song my daughter always listens to out of my head. “Toniiiiiiiiiight……..We are young……So let’s set the world on fire!...”, which should cause concern to anyone not young who prefers their world not in flames, but so far she hasn’t been playing with matches any more than normal. Darn kids. When I was her age, music made sense, like Paul Simon’s “Where do allergies go when it’s after the show and they want to get something to eat” or Joe Walsh’s “The smoker you drink, the player you get”. Weed-infused music was much better in my day.

Good Friday also doubles as a moose poop gathering day, but yesterday there was no moose and no poop. Some years they’re late in delivering like this, but soon they will give birth to thousands of fragrant little treasured eggs and I will return to reap the harvest.

The weather sucked butt-crack, but it usually does on Good Friday. In all the years I’ve done this, I can count on one butt cheek the number of times I’ve been able to wear shorts and a t-shirt (cracks and cheeks in the same paragraph….I hope you noticed). It snowed the entire day, but at least it kept the hippies away. I didn’t see a soul (or a person or a moose) all day.

When I was about 12-years-old, my best friend in all the world suddenly decided one day that he hated me and wanted to kill me real bad, all because I had the audacity to build airplane models made by Monogram instead of his personal favorite brand, Revell. Matt’s outburst threw me off-guard, but I instantly decided to hate him back and I wanted to kill him even worser. We hurled 12-year-old insults back and forth (PG-13 rated stuff back then. Modern youth have moved on to XXX and weapons) until we got bored and went to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and watch Happy Days.

That was my first experience with irrational product pride. Truth be told, there was little difference I could see in the two brands, other than the assembly instructions and those were about as opposite as they could be.

Monogram:
Step 1: Carefully place unopened box on clear table.
Step 2: Place box lid in area it won’t get damaged.
Step 3: Remove model parts and organize by number, lowest to highest.
Step 4: Did you find a safe place for the box lid?
Step 5: Are you sure?
Step 6: Now might be a good time to use the bathroom so as not to be interrupted.
Step 7: Attach OSHA and solvent-approved respirator to head and remove glue cap.
Step 8: I really hate to keep troubling you about that box lid, but….

They were about 90 pages long, but Revell on the other hand got straight to the point.

Step 1: Assemble parts 1 through 209.
Step 2: Enjoy.

I heard that Monogram and Revell eventually merged companies, so maybe they found a compromise with the assembly instructions. But that was never Matt and I’s issue anyway. It was just as simple as “mine’s better and you’re an idiot.” I just wanted to build the friggin’ model, but when attacked that day, I instantly became a Monogram loyalist willing to defend them to the death even though seconds earlier that was the furthest thing from my model-glue-sniffing mind (secondhand glue fumes….I never inhaled). Pride comes in an untamed and irrationally stupid form when you’re 12. Okay, actually at any age, but more so at 12. Matt shattered my innocence that day.

As I rolled through the teen years, there were more of these battles. Coke vs. Pepsi (Coke), Burger King vs. McDonald’s (McD’s), Betty vs. Veronica (okay, not a product, but still a contentious debate. Betty.). Then with driver’s licenses came the big one - Chevy vs. Ford. Every “discussion” seemed to start playfully enough, but soon deteriorated into insults. I admit this is a guy thing. We’re stupid that way. At least as teens and young adults…..and regular adults. And as senior citizens. But other than that, we’re good.

Actually, it didn’t take me long to figure out I just wanted stuff that works, regardless of what name’s on it. I now drive the only Chevy in a family of Ford lifers, and it’s MY truck they constantly borrow when theirs are being repaired. I’m still a (Diet) Coke guy. McDonald’s and BK are far from the only players in the burger game anymore, but if I had to choose between the two, I’d take Wendy’s. And Veronica just keeps looking better and better the older I get. Amazing how she never ages. But I think I’d take the bad girl now. Hey, she had a sweet side too. Betty didn’t have a bad side. She was one-dimensional.

In the computer techno-age, the product pride war of our age is Apple vs. everyone else. Mac vs. PC. iPhones vs. Android. I have a PC and a Droid. I’ve never had problems with either, but I’d certainly be open to trying Apple products if I ever win a Mega Millions jackpot. I do enjoy watching this new battle from the sidelines, which you can do by visiting any tech product review website. Grammar-challenged techies fighting online over operating systems can’t match the testosterone levels of the old face-to-face Chevy vs. Ford truck wars.

“haha, you maroonic looser…try running your lame hi-res hdmi on ur crappy single core droid without GSM or CDMA….haha…droidiot…haha. how’s that 480 working for u? hahaha…lololol!!!”

“better than your java-less 7.2 hdspa, apple ass. why don’t you ask siri why your screen’s so small? If that wimpy 600 cpu can handle it. roflmaoshoisilghmdl!!!!!”

I’m loyal to whatever works at the moment. Submit to me and do as you’re told and I’ll love you until you don’t.






 

I’m happy my blog still exists. I thought for sure that while I was sleeping away the winter, WDC would have taken it out with the rest of the trash, but I guess they missed it. What really sucks is I haven’t written a word here or anywhere since my last entry back in…whatever year that was. Well, other than a few checks I wrote out to the power and phone companies, but I was totally uninspired when I wrote them and it wasn’t my best work.

But today I’m taking the day off from politics and I’m going to blog, by golly….if I remember how. Being a news and politics junkie can be taxing on the brain, especially in an election year. I’m addicted to them like some people are addicted to alcohol, porn and sausage. And with a smartphone and all the groovy social media apps, I can now stay informed and battle the enemy all day long wherever I go.

It’s fun and exhilarating, but also exhausting and sometimes I just need a little break. I’ll get back to fighting the forces of evil bright and early tomorrow, but today I need to figure out why my wife keeps putting the remote control NEXT to the t.v. every night before bed. Maybe it’s just me, but this seems to defeat the purpose of the device. I’ll sit down on the couch and reach for the remote on the coffee table, only to see it resting next to the t.v. clear across the room, taunting me. Why??? I’ve tried to explain that the word ‘remote’ in remote control does not mean it’s meant to be placed in a remote location. So far, talks between both sides have reached a stalemate.

And speaking of bath towels, another domestic impasse has come to light in recent months. I don’t know why I didn’t notice before, since I wash most of the clothes. When I take a shower, I throw the towel I use to dry off in the dirty clothes, but while doing laundry I noticed there are never any other towels to wash. I asked my wife about this and she said she just hangs hers back on the bathroom rack to air dry and be used again. Apparently the kids do, too. I’m no germabacterialmicrobephobeaphobe by any means, but I think I said, “You all disgust me” or something like that.

“I’m already clean, I’m just absorbing clean water. What’s the big deal?” she explained.

“Certain body parts get rubbed intimately,” I said. “So, if we were at a motel and the previous guest leaves a used towel on the rack, you’d be okay using it?”

“That’s different.”

Right.

My wife and daughter are going on a Christian missionary trip to El Salvador in a few weeks and the first thing I’m going to do when they’re gone is attach the remote control to the coffee table with one of those cables you see in electronics stores to keep the customers from horking the iPhones. Then I’ll wash towels.

In other big news, I made spaghetti last night which is not my favorite thing to eat, but is one of my favorite foods to throw. I get to chuck the noodles against the wall to see if they’ll stick. I don’t know who made up this method of testing doneness, or if it’s even accurate, but it’s always my favorite part of spaghetti night. Just so you know, it sticks to the wife and kids, too. Lots of foods do, I’ve found. And the spaghetti trick always makes me think of doctors delivering babies and throwing them against the wall to see if they’re done. If they slide off, they’re most likely a preemie and need to be treated accordingly. If they stick, they’re good to go. Baby Wall cleanup duty would suck. Surely I’m not the only one who thinks about that when making spaghetti, right?

In even bigger news, I finally put myself out of my misery today and looked online for the lyrics to Keith Urban’s “Stupid Boy” since I’ve been torturing myself for over five years now with one particularly difficult line. I’d narrowed it down to “noses never want me like the knife we studied” which made perfect sense to me, but I guess it’s actually “no one’s ever gonna love me like she loved me” which could work too, I guess.

As you can see, nothing much has happened in recent months. I bought a new shirt three weeks ago. It’s kind of red but not really. No new socks or underwear to report. I’ll let you know when that news becomes available.

Have I said some of this stuff before? I can’t remember. It sounds recycled, but maybe it’s just a hibernation dream. I’m still not sure what year I’m in, but I think it’s time to wake up. Spring is here and the hippies are getting restless and naked while they search for places to occupy. I’ll leave you with this bit of hopeful news. Last night at Walmart, I noticed that all the Angel Food cake mixes were sold out while plenty of Devil’s Food mixes remained. This confirms what I always suspected -- that most people reach for goodness and prefer to leave badness on the shelf. Carry that hope (brought to you by Betty Crocker and Walmart) with you this weekend.

I hope everyone wintered well.

 

So, my wife saw my last entry about my old girlfriend and flew into a jealous rage. She dumped my favorite glitter lotion down the drain, then set fire to all of my Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants books. Then she tore up my Justin Bieber posters before pulling out the cast iron frying pan and hitting me over the head…made some eggs…then hit me again while kicking me in the crotch at the same time. While I was writhing on the floor wishing I didn’t own a head or a crotch, she drove straight to the bank and withdrew ALL of my personal life savings and donated the entire $2.17 to the Democratic party!

I’m kidding. She doesn’t know care. Besides, she still interacts with her pot-smoking midget of an ex-boyfriend over on Facebook. I’m using that knowledge as leverage and will probably use it as a first line of crotch defense if needed.

My laptop is such a pessimist. Every day I get a little box that pops up telling me my computer is equipped with SMART Predict software and that “we predict your hard drive will fail.” It’s been telling me this every single day for the past year and it’s getting hard to stay positive in life when my computer keeps bringing me down. I’m waiting for the day it really does fail and a box comes up saying, “Ha! Told ya’. But would you listen? Noooo….I’m just a silly little machine, right? What do I know? Well, it’s always the same. I always warn them, but they never listen. Humans…sheesh. Maybe next time you'll pull your head out and pay attention.”

Next time I want a happy laptop that tells me, “We predict your hard drive and you will succeed today and every day. Peace out.”

This will be only a short blog workout because the big wedding is only days away and I can feel myself being sucked harder into that vortex with each passing hour. Guests will start arriving throughout the next few days and from what it sounds like, they don’t appear to be in any hurry to leave, so my blog may go dark for a little while. I spent three hours in the ER last night with my groom-to-be son who was experiencing dizziness and nausea after taking a blow to the head while cutting firewood. Everything checked out fine – a very poor attempt at getting out of a wedding. He should have added amnesia….and aliens….and that he’s now gay….because so were the aliens…they did something and there’s not much he can do now. So many more realistic possibilities.

My blog predicts all of you will succeed today.


 

I had one of those Bill and Ted moments last night. I’ve always had nostalgic tendencies, but usually they’re brief and fairly shallow. Last night, however, I guess all the conditions were right and I found myself firmly back in a place I haven’t been much since I left.

It was late and I was the last one awake, sitting at the kitchen table looking through the Facebook pages I’d just found of the two brothers who were my college roommates. These two also happened to be the brothers of Helene, the girl from France I dated for nearly four years during those college years. As I was sleepily browsing through the photos of their current lives, there it was. Mixed in with all the others was a shot of Helene, taken back in the 80s at roughly the same time we dated, looking just as sweet and gorgeous as I remembered.

And that’s when the Bill and Ted thing took control of me. Suddenly I was swooshing back through time, just like in the movies. In a matter of seconds I flashed by key moments in my life. My children’s births, weddings, different homes, holidays…..past presidents…Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter….oops, too far (I’m not very good at controlling the Bill and Ted accelerator)…stuck it in reverse…back to Reagan and …I was there.

And I mean really there. I guess you could say I was truly lost in the moment. I stared at the picture and remembered every inch of her pretty face….every curve, every soft freckle of her fair skin. We were so in love back then. We knew we would marry and be together forever. We fit so well, and we couldn’t wait to see each other whenever we were apart. Four years is a long time to be with someone and it truly was a very good four years. I spent the next hour or so lost in those years and the things that were so ‘Helene’…the cute notes she’d write, the nicknames, how sweetly affectionate she always was, and of course, Saturday night date night which was always the highlight of our week.

I’m not exactly sure what happened to Helene and I. There was never any one thing that led to our breakup and we loved each other to the end. Though we’d grown deep roots together, we were still young and sometimes things happen for a reason. In the next few years we both wound up marrying the true loves of our lives. I closed the laptop and sped back to the present….Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Michelle Bachmann……oops, too far again.

But is it possible to have more than one love of your life? I think so. Actually, I know so. And if Brittany Murphy hadn’t died, she would have come around eventually. The vibes were too strong. A good friend told me I’ve been very lucky in love and I suppose that’s true. I love my family with everything I have and given the opportunity, I wouldn’t trade my life for anything. Hardly a day goes by that I don't look at my wife and think, "Wow...I can't believe this woman is all mine." But if Helene and I had married all those years ago, would we have been happy? Yes, I do believe so.

Next time I have a Bill and Ted moment, it’ll be about guns and football and spitting and elk meat and other manly stuff.



 

Being a conservative Republican type, I am automatically labeled as one who rapes and pillages our mother earth for fun and profit, but this is only partially true and I have the reusable coffee filter to prove it. Paper coffee filters are less than paper thin and come in packs of about 9 billion, so I’m thinking in my lifetime of coffee drinking this little eco-filter is saving the life of one average tree…branch. Okay, maybe a stick. If everyone did their part, the world would have more sticks.

I think my rape and pillage index numbers (RPI) are pretty close to the national average. I’m not as good as some, but better than others when it comes to saving the planet, and I definitely want to save it because this is the planet I spend most of my time on. I admit that my conservation efforts are part-time at best, unlike the scores of ‘environmentalists’ populating my town who claim to be hardcore simply because they drive a Prius, buy organic kale, and pull one handful of noxious weeds in a sea of 42 billion weeds. These same people bag up their dog’s poop on local trails, but leave the plastic bag on the trail, thereby creating a biohazard that wouldn’t exist if they’d just looked the other way when Rover unloads. The RPI numbers of these so-called environmentalists are no better than mine, but their FOC (full of crap) numbers are way higher.

Every little bit helps, even the little bits of the hypocrites. Just admit that it IS a ‘little bit’ like the rest of us! And stop the discrimination! Outside of our local credit union is a section of the parking lot with a sign that reads, “Parking reserved for low-emission vehicles only”. I looked but couldn’t find the section marked “Parking reserved for high emission gas hogs”, so I parked there anyway, figuring that while I’m parked I ain’t emitting nuttin’! I feel like such a good environmentalist when I park and don’t pillage.

Plus, I eat pretty healthy. Fruits and veggies are good. And if you can break a tooth on your bread, you know it must be healthy. Though I’m thinking of suing Walmart for peanut butter malpractice because their all-natural ‘no-stir’ kind totally required stirring and I almost got a cramp. I’m not into sustainability because I have no idea what that means, but it’s a word that makes the hippies healthy and happy and nothing’s healthier than a happy hippie. Personally, I’m into ‘stainability’ and is something I practice all the time, but this starts an evil chain reaction because now I’m supposed to buy ‘green’ stain remover which costs twice as much but only works half as well. But at least I’ll probably feel good about myself and have more sticks. Can you imagine a world for our children and their children without sticks?

This blog is biodegradable and stainable and possibly sustainable. You can read it with a clear conscience without worrying about its effects on my favorite planet. My old blog was not and was carelessly discarded where it’s pillaging somewhere and not decomposing. If I wasn’t a Republican I’d feel bad about that. This new blog has a softer tone that will break down more easily when the time comes for it to meet that big blog in the sky. Hug a blog today.

 

Five unrelated and really boring thoughts, just to keep the blog blood flowing. Maybe it’s the late summer doldrums, but Blogville has crawled to a virtual halt and it’s important to exercise your blog regularly, even if you don’t feel like it. Otherwise it gets fat and lazy and doesn’t even care that it’s fat and lazy because it’s way back there on the 42nd page of blogs where no one will notice. It becomes self-conscious, reclusive and just plain unhappy. If you love your blog, don’t let this happen. Just a few simple exercises a couple times a week should be enough to keep it healthy.

1. The other day my truck was apparently parked too close to the mailbox for the mailman to pull up close enough to reach it, so he parked and left a note INSIDE my box telling me that he couldn’t deliver that day because the mailbox was blocked. I scribbled an apology on his note, but also asked that if it happened again would he please be kind enough to leave my mail with his note since he’s in the general area anyway. Didn’t get a reply, but it’s probably not a good idea to piss off a postman.

2. If the same annoying mosquito is buzzing around my head for years and years and I decide to just ignore it, hoping it will go away, but of course it doesn’t and every so often comes down and bites me, at what point does the blame shift from the mosquito to me for allowing it to buzz and bite and annoy for so long? And how do I get rid of it without actually squishing it? This concludes the deep and philosophical portion of the blog workout. It gets shallower and less strenuous from here.

3. My wife sells Avon and uses me as a guinea pig sometimes for some of the male products, particularly the Patrick Dempsey line. It’s not working. I’m still me and she’s probably disappointed. It’s possible I now smell like Patrick, but just typing that out made me realize I don’t really want to smell like another man. I want a smell all my own. I want my own fragrance. "Eau-de-Party - the new provocative scent from Avon. With a rugged bouquet of musk and corndogs, you'll smell like the man you always wish you were but currrently fall far short of being."

4. Lana and I were talking about DVDs the other day and she asked how many I owned. I wasn’t sure, but I’ve since checked. 106. It’s taken years and years to reach that number and they’re not all mine. It’s a family collection, kids included. My very first DVD was “The Cutting Edge” and the most recent was “Inception”. My collection favorite is “Never Cry Wolf” and my least favorites would be “Beaches” and “Mona Lisa Smiles” (wives…what can you do?). And though it may be hard to believe, I do not own every Brittany Murphy movie ever made. Probably only about 4 of them, I think. I remember checking Ebay several years ago for autographed Brittany Murphy photos. At the time they were auctioning off in the $15 to $20 range. Should’ve done it. Now that she’s passed away, they’re all well over $100. At least I still carry a pic of Brittany in my wallet, and I’m pleased that my future daughter-in-law supports me in my right to do so.

5. Whoever said money can’t buy love was a wise man. Whoever said money can’t buy happiness was an idiot.


That was not a good workout at all and I really didn't feel like doing it, but at least it got my blog up off the couch. Now it needs a nap and I need coffee.





















 

On this day in 1977, Elvis died. And my dad had a stroke. Not because of Elvis. Dad’s still doing well. Elvis…I’m not sure.

I saw a couple of guys walking down the street arm-in-arm this afternoon and just assumed they were gay until I went past them and realized one of them was blind. Though they still could have been gay. Then I passed a man and woman arm-in-arm and assumed they were not gay, but could not confirm the status of their vision. However, by then I had learned my lesson and decided they were also gay and blind. The moral? Not all gay men are blind and not all straight couples are not blind while holding hands. Not that there’s anything wrong with being blind. For in my blindness I failed to see the real blindness that I would have seen if I wasn’t blind to the blindness of the blind. Amen.

I’ve been inspired in recent days from a couple of gifts my brother brought back for me from his vacation in Jackson Hole, Wyoming last week. The first was a Maker’s Mark bourbon-infused cigar that has inspired me to drink and smoke more, but the other was a book on the life of famed Teton mountain guide Glenn Exum. I have to say 2011 has been a rough year and with all the worrying and stress, I’ve gotten away from the things that make me whole, like climbing and running and mountain biking, etc. I’ve done some here and there, but not like I’m used to. So I’m less than whole. I’m not sure what percentage I am. Reading the tales of Glenn and his buddies climbing all over the Tetons since the 1930’s with no ropes and nothing more than an old pair of football cleats is inspiring. I used to do that kind of stuff all the time, but I’ve let it drift away in recent years. This book has been a swift kick in the butt, which is better than a kick in the crotch because those tend to lower percentages. Getting kicked in the butt and crotch at the same time is rare, but it happens.

Life’s little do-overs are good. Not that this was really a do-over, just one of those kickstarts. I’m not sure what I’d do with a real do-over. You know, the age-old question, if you had it all to do over again, knowing what you know now, etc., etc. Imagine the chaos if everyone got one. Adam and Eve….would they make better choices knowing the fall of mankind held in the balance, as well as the apple forever being labeled as the black sheep of the fruit family, not to mention the low self esteem of snakes for eternity? Striking out labor pains for all women to come? Or would they say, “Eh…that’s their problem. Let’s party like it's 4,000 B.C.”

In some ways, I always felt that Noah was Adam and Eve’s do-over. Not really, but…it was a fresh start. I do not blame Noah for the mosquito because I have to believe he tried to leave them behind, but they followed anyway. Sometime during the second week he probably pulled out the Biblical-Strength Deep Woods Off, but his wife told him to be careful because God was already pissed about the incident on Day 9 when Noah and the crew got hungry and butchered one of the mastodons for some burgers, thereby depriving all future generations of mastodon burgers. Of course, with only one mastodon left there was no reason not to have more burgers later in the cruise.

Sometimes my entries have a point. This is not one of those times.

 

First of all, I would like to thank KayJay and Katya the Horsefly Whisperer for their courage and generosity in pulling me out of the devil’s hands in recent days. And before I forget, thanks also to Lana and Scarlett for the birthday badges that led me into his hands in the first place. I am actually grateful for this, as it was a trial I needed to face to move forward in life yet I kept putting off, so they got me started by shoving me into the fires of hell while the other two pulled me out. WDC teamwork. Thank you all!

I am safe now until I approach the number 63, which should be light years away…unless that MB ponzi scheme takes off.

My son just informed me that trying to spruce up our humble home for the arrival of wedding guests next month is like polishing a turd. Gee thanks, son.

The county fair is in town this week, and as much as I love the unrelentingly fragrant smell of barnyard animals and their waste, as well as spending $32.50 for a miniature sno-cone and a bag of cotton candy, I think I’ll pass. Again. I’m afraid our fair is just too big for me. The thought of a Montana county fair probably conjures up some appealing small-town romantic images, but this happens to be the second largest county in the state and the fair is just too friggin’ large and populated for my tastes. With people and cows.

I wonder if those small-town carnivals really exist. You know, the kind you see on t.v. shows, with straw-haired country boys holding hands with their cute little sundressed country girlfriends…watermelon-eating contests…a few pigs, a few rabbits…baked goods everywhere…and not much more than a ferris wheel for thrill-seekers. I’d like to think so, but probably not. Here, a large percentage of the shoulder-to-shoulder fair-goers are white Montana boys wishing they were from the ghetto, with large flat-billed hats and over-sized shorts basically draped around their ankles, and teenage girls trying their best to look as slutty as they can with the shortest of shorts, tight low-cut tops, and about 5 pounds of mascara per eyelid. And every time they open their mouths, it’s like the sweetest of country jam!

So I don’t go to the fair anymore. But it’s not only the large punk invasion that keeps me away each year. There is the memory of that horrible day almost 30 years ago. I was on my favorite ride, the Rock-O-Plane, with my friend, Casey (of my crime spree fame), and my youngest brother, Tim. The ride was over and the operator was slowly moving the machine cage-by-cage to unload the passengers. It was a cloudless sky, but suddenly the unmistakable *drip…drip…drip* from the cage above panged like chunky toxic rain on the roof of our compartment before streaming through the weathered criss-cross of steel and onto my brother, who was already on the brink of intestinal eruption.

Trapped like rats, helplessly suspended high above the ground while being coated in vomit, panic took over while my mind raced to come up with anything to suppress my own eruption. I caught a glimpse of the crowd below pointing up in our direction with nauseated expressions and for some reason this settled my own stomach. Embarrassment trumped nausea that day. I thank God for that embarrassment. Casey buried his head and tried to find his own escape. Tim erupted.

The *drip…drip…drip* was passed on to the cage below and for all I know it continued from there. Suddenly, I thought of all the times this scene must have played out on this very ride in countless cities with countless numbers of punks over the years. My Rock-O-Plane innocence was lost. I never went back. But every time a faucet drips…every time the rain splatters off the roof…I DO go back.






 

I was attacked by a horsefly during my weekend in the mountains. Horseflies generally don’t attack, but this one did. Usually they kind of lumber about like some frumpy beady-eyed and overweight middle-aged man, lazily surfing for porn, bouncing slowly around from body to body until they decide to stop and try one out. But this one was young and sleek and built for power and speed. And intelligent, too! He wisely latched onto my toe, which is the part of my body farthest away from my hand-swatting defense system. I couldn’t help but be impressed, despite my desire to squish him like a zit.

But it turned out he was too aggressive for his own good. He bit into me with a vengeance, but he went in too deep for a quick exit, probably thinking I was no match for his speed and intelligence. I shook my foot violently but this obviously wasn’t his first rodeo and he held on expertly, no doubt timing his escape for the first sight of my hand swooping down from above.

But he chose the wrong target on this day. I am well-seasoned in horsefly warfare and pulled the double-secret right-heel-bump maneuver from below to knock him nearly unconscious on the ground before me. He never saw it coming and from there I finished him off…a promising horsefly warrior, gone too soon. However, he did draw quite a bit of blood, something middle-aged, frumpy horseflies never do, so he died in honor. I now have this sizeable scab on my middle toe, which is the toe I use to flip off really short people who need it, but it still works.

I know that was a little long-winded for a horsefly story, but I felt it was a story that needed to be told.

In other news, I'm really embarrassed to ask but I need a merit badge to possibly save my soul. I barely ever notice the number next to my username until Satan is involved and then all I see are pitchforks and horns and pointy tails and evil. You may remember when I was stuck on 18 for the longest time and blogged about how unsettling it was. 666….6 + 6 + 6 = 18. I believe it was NOVAcat who saved me from the clutches of Satan that day and gave me a badge.

Well, now here I am stuck on 36. Every time I log on, all I see are 3 sixes and it haunts me. 3 x 6….666. And not only that, I also noticed the review/rating number next to my blog is 18 as well! Why does Satan keep following me around WDC??? He’s so annoying. If I could just get ONE badge…any badge…just ONE….I would gladly repay whoever spares me from the devil’s grip with a badge in return. Unless, of course, you happen to be stuck at 17 or 35 because I would hate to deliver you into the devil’s hands myself. It’s no fun there. I would just pay cash (GPs). Any help can’t come from Scarlett or Lana since both have given me a badge in recent weeks and apparently WDC has rules about that. I have always loved the number 37. I want my blog to be a happy place. 37 is a happy number that would make me and anyone who visits happy and free from temptation, but I realize these are stressful economic times so I would understand if no one can do it. In lieu of badges, prayers and exorcisms are always welcome.

Hey, I just had an idea for a merit badge network marketing ponzi scheme. I get three people to give me merit badges and each of them finds three people and each of them finds three people, etc., etc. This could also work with gift points. Those of us at the top of the pyramid would rake in the badges and GPs until the feds moved in and shut us down.

 

It was yesterday, July 29, about 100 years ago that it all went down. It was the crime of the century. I remember it well because it was the day before my 18th birthday…and I was in the center of it.

The day started innocently enough. My brother Jeff and I had picked up my friend Casey late the night before and drove up into the mountain canyon where we lived at the time and picked a spot to hang out for the night. It was a quick, spur-of-the-moment decision, and we wound up having a nice evening sitting and chatting around the fire. Little did we know how our lives would fall apart the very next day.

Our quiet mountain morning would soon turn into hell on earth. Shots were fired, high-speed car chases ensued, arrests were made, and we were frisked, cuffed and thrown in a police car where we were hauled back to the county line to be identified. That summer, a trial ensued that made Casey Anthony’s look like baby crap.



Okay, what really happened that day is Jeff, Casey and I woke up that morning up the canyon and decided to harass the very creepy family that lived in the property next to ours. And I DO mean creepy. Straight out of Deliverance. Sheep and chickens wandered freely inside and out of their home. Dead sheep rotted around their yard and their filthy, half-naked young kids would sometimes play with them. They were a constant nuisance to our family…letting their sheep onto our property and even fatally poisoning my beloved Saint Bernard one evening.

So we drove by their old log home that morning, skidded to a stop, and opened fire. BB guns, mind you. And slingshots. We were careful not to hit windows, just the log walls. Yeah, we were tough drive-by shooters! Diehard bad-asses. We sped off up the canyon and were soon being pursued by Mr. Creepy who was inches from our bumper, honking and flashing his lights. He got our license info, I guess, and backed off.

Eventually we had to come out of the canyon, so we raced by their home again on my way out to the highway to take Casey back to his home in the next town. We didn’t get far. Soon a police car was on our tail, lights flashing, siren wailing, and we pulled over where we were frisked, cuffed and hauled back to the county line where Mrs. Creepy and her kids identified us as the perpetrators. She claimed we broke out all her windows, which we did not, but the cops would not listen to our plea to go and see for themselves.

The trial of the century was actually just a few meetings in the very small office of the local juvenile officer. Mrs. Creepy showed up for the second one and announced that she didn’t want to press charges because God would get us on the Judgment Day, to which my mom told her she always was a horse’s ass. The juvenile officer calmed everyone down and we went on our way…exonerated at last. And since juvenile criminal records are wiped out when you reach 18, mine lasted all of ten hours.

It was the beginning and end of my life of crime. Good times.




 

I love to read life stories. And not the usual rags-to-riches biographies of the celebrity world, though those can be kind of fun sometimes. It’s the stories of the little people that fascinate me. People like us. I was reminded of this yesterday while reading NOVAcat’s blog. It’s interesting to me to see the timeline of a person’s life and the events that stand out as being something that ultimately shaped what he or she has become today. That curiosity burns brightest for the people I’m acquainted with, but don’t really know that well. People like you.

I thoroughly enjoyed the series that Scarlett and Nada did years ago, going year-by-year through their lives, and Tor and Cassie Reynolds (and her hubby) used to write wonderful entries about memorable events in their lives. I’m sure there are others I’m forgetting, but I really miss those…probably because I’m getting old and sappy and more and more sentimental in my old sappiness. People don’t generally write entries like that anymore, so I find myself cruising through WDC biographies a lot, even those of people I don’t know. I like to see where fellow writers are from and maybe get a brief glimpse of their journey to here.

I’m not saying I don’t like the entries everyone writes now. Of course I do. But every so often I like to read a little autobiographical history of everyone here. But, it’s hard to write about yourself. I definitely understand that. I’ve never filled out my own bio, probably because I know I’d just be an intelligent buttocks (smart-ass) and waste everyone’s time. But maybe someday I’ll be in the proper frame of mind to do it right. Most I read are good, but I’ve also learned a lot on how NOT to do one.

The angry bio is a turn-off. “I’m bold and loud with an attitude and say whatever the hell I want to say and if you don’t like it, you can just @%$# off!” Yeah….that really makes me want to check out your port. Nothing like being yelled at before I even read one word.

It’s also fun to be crushed under the weight of a loooong and intensely heavy bio.

“Day One: I’ll never forget the morning I exited the warmth and safety of my mother’s womb. I didn’t want to go, but they made me and I’ll never understand why. Why destroy a child’s joy, his comfort? Why break his very spirit? Cold foreign hands passed me around as the frigid open air pierced my tender skin. I heard crying and knew they must be tears of disappointment. Already I was a failure. My eyes couldn’t focus on the ghostly shapes around me, but I didn’t want to look anyway. Was this hell? Was this all there was? I was whisked away to another room filled with more ghosts where I was poked and treated like an 8th grade science-lab experiment. A fear like I had never known in my 14 minutes of existence coursed through my body. I wanted to run, but I didn’t know how. By noon, severe depression set it. By 2 p.m. I knew I was bi-polar and possibly autistic. And I had a rash. I cried out in pain, but instead of comfort I was shoved into my mother’s breast for the first time. My vision had improved enough for the image to be seared into my brain for eternity and to this day even chicken breasts cause anxiety attacks. It was right at that moment I realized no one would ever truly listen to me.

Day Two: My first night was a sleepless one, and my anger began to burn as hot as my rash…”




Like I say about once a year in this blog, “Find the balance, Daniel-San. Balance not just for karate. Balance for WHOLE LIFE!” And for bios. There….you’re all safe from another Karate Kid quote for at least another year.

 

The first rule in backpacking is to buy food that everyone else hates so you don’t have to share. I did well with the bite-size Almond Joy and Mounds since I knew everyone else hated coconut, but I got totally played when my kids grimaced at my honey dry-roasted peanuts choice in the store the night before the trip, yet hogged them all by the second day. They’re learning early how to play the game. I couldn’t help but feel proud.

The second morning of our hike, we came across the local and clueless search & rescue team searching for a hiker who apparently was dehydrated at the Twin Lakes area high in the mountains. Not sure how that works when you have two lakes to drink from, but the rescue team was about five miles north of where they needed to be and had no idea where to go so we told them how to find the trail system that leads to the lakes and went on our way. I would have offered to help, but I only had so many bite-size candy bars and wasn’t sure if the hiker in distress liked coconut, plus I didn’t feel it was worthy to share with someone dehydrated by a lake. A grizzly or bigfoot attack victim, maybe.

The second night I had a great dream possibly brought on by mountain water organisms that burrowed into my brain. I dreamed I died, but didn’t go away. And not one of those corny “can’t pass through till I complete my unfinished earthly business” kind of not going away. I just stayed. I looked the same and acted the same. In the dream, I went up to my wife and told her I was dead and she said, “No you’re not” and I said “Yes I am”…”No you’re not”…”Yes I am!”, until I finally I told her to try to hit me because she wouldn’t be able to since I’m not real. She took a swing and connected and it hurt bad, so I was getting more and more frustrated and told her to check the papers for news of my death which she did and eventually found it. “Huh, well you look fine,” she said, and then asked if I could go to Walmart since I was around and we needed milk. I didn’t want to go because I felt self-conscious being dead in Walmart, but I went and it turns out being dead in Walmart is pretty much the same as being alive there.

I did get to experience what a fish feels like. While grabbing onto the branch of a downed tree I was stepping over, a little barbed piece of wood inserted itself into my finger and when I pulled away, half my arm was ripped off. Okay, just a nice little chunk of skin, but it bled like crazy so I finally had to stop and put on a band-aid because once those Bigfoot catch the scent of blood or peanut butter it’s over. It was a cute band-aid with penguins on it because my wife buys the band-aids. And I guess since I didn’t actually bite the log, it’s not a true fish story, plus I had no moral revelation either since I fished with unregrettable joy later in the trip. I’m sure a fish would do the same if he were in my shoes/fins.

We really didn’t see any animals the whole trip. No Bigfoot, no bears, no elk or deer…nothing. The smell of a group of four hikers intensifies with each passing minute and does create a sort of force field, but I’m still surprised we didn’t see a thing other than one golden eagle one evening, though it may have been a bald eagle with a really good toupee.

Anyway, we survived the trip and now I’m preparing to survive the arrival of my wife’s quiet mumbling brother and his loud barking wife and their 27 kids who will be showing up this afternoon and spending the night on their way to Canada. They never ask if they can stay here, they just tell us when it will happen as if we should be honored by their presence. They’re nice folks and I can take their tribe in small doses, but the problem is their doses sometimes increase with no warning. “You know, we don’t really have to be in Canada till Friday, so we can stay a few extra days. Are you going to the store? Your fridge is kind of bare.” Ugh…I got shivers just typing that.