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The muse at morning …
Monday dawns a bit brighter, but still overcast as the creeks and rivers slowly subside. The dormant rye grasses spring to life in fine, almost invisible spikes, causing a silvery green sheen over the drought burned summer grasses.
The rugged land goes through long droughts and devastating floods. It is only puny man that suffers in the extremes.
It is quiet out there … maybe too quiet …
The sun breaks softly while I sip on this morning’s coffee. The unrelenting heat has relented, and the mornings have become pleasant. Jenna, my white something-or-the-other, hides behind my chair as Snookums clatters about the kitchen. She had been getting meds each morning for an ear infection, but the protocol on them ran out, so no more meds. Still, she hides each morning until she hears her food being set out.
Kippur da Budgie shrieks and burbles with joy for the new day. Air filters on timers click on, hissing in counterpoint as they strain out the allergens.
The spring birds have flown away, and eerie quiet envelopes the garden as it rests up from a hard summer. Yet I find comfort in the stillness as well as I did when spring was a cacaphony of birds and lawn mowers. It is a time to prepare for the long sleep to come.
It is Shabbat, a day when I attempt to return to God. Throughout the week, living takes all my attention, but I also need some time of spiritual abiding to ground me, to cease from all my striving. Proud man, with all his wisdom, cannot quell the world’s want and violence. ‘Wise’ men are a never-ending source of useless solutions to the world’s problems, for they cannot comprehend the source of the problem. Nonetheless, it doesn’t stop them from pontificating. They are every bit as annoying as religious fanatics. Folly follows them at every turn, yet they still boast of their strength, kindness and caring, and are constantly telling you to follow their lead. Then they scoff and sneer when you say uh uh … ain’t gonna go …
But for today … I leave that all with the coffee grounds, putting the whole of creation back into God’s hands.
Good morning, and Shabbat Shalom!
Tumblin Tumblweeds
I was reared in a remote part of the Colorado/New Mexico Rockies. There was one radio station that could be heard during the day. There was a farm report in the morning telling you what the markets were for pork bellies, winter wheat, feeder cattle and such, and whatever national news that came in on the UP wire.
It came on the air at 6:00 am, playing The Sons of the Pioneers songs. Tumblin’ Tumbleweeds and I’m An Old Cowhand led into the morning report that was followed by the Community Calendar.
To get the cool songs, you had to wait at least an hour after sunset before the border blasters came up. XELO, Juarez Mexico was the nearest one to us. Wolfman Jack got his start their playing the top ten.
I’m An Old Cowhand was performed by everybody, it seems. Even Bing Crosby had a shot at it. Of course, Roy Rogers and Gene Autry had their versions. Fierce loyalties were formed around the two movie cowboys, and many schoolyard fights began by defending one or the other.
Anyhoo, for your listenin’ enjoyment, I include two versions here. One by the Sons of the Pioneers that I heard every frikken morning from the third grade through High School, and one by Johnny Cash.
Nostalgia? Who needs it!
Æons ago, years far beyond counting, I spent most of my youth in a high mountain valley in Colorado called the San Luis Valley. It actually extended into New Mexico, but for some reason they call it the Sunshine Valley. The oldest town in Colorado is there, named, of course, San Luis.
I don’t talk a lot about the area. Except for family events, most of my memories there were not happy ones. But I did spend a lot of time alone there, and learned to be alone.
The mountains surrounding the valley received a lot of moisture, but the valley itself was more arid than the Sahara Desert. However, artesian water sprang up over wide reaches of the valley, and until the agricultural interests began pumping water, there were wide stretches of timothy grass that is excellent horse feed.
At the north end of the valley is the Great Sand Dunes National Monument. The prevailing southerly winds piled up the sands at the base of the 14,000′ Crestone Range that forked off the Continental Divide. The floor of the valley was around 7,500′ above sea level.
The valley is part of the duck and geese flyways. Spring and fall bring a huge number of birds that stop and forage for a while before continuing their journey.
The valley also is the headwaters of the Rio Grande River. At the southern end, it cut a deep gorge through northern New Mexico. My family mined gold from the sands at the bottom of the gorge after the spring runoff.
Near the end of the gorge is the once sleepy village of Taos, New Mexico. It is now a busy artist community and resort. But when I was young, it had few tourists.
During my High School years, we lived in Alamosa. Alamosa was founded as a railroad camp in the center of the valley. It became the business hub of the valley. But the happiest day of my life was when I saw that garish art-deco horror fade away in my rear-view window. Later on, the building was demolished to build a grocery store/shopping center. Had I known, I would have taken the time to drive down and watch the wrecking-ball smash that pretentious façade.
We lived a half block away from the roundhouse, where little narrow gauge engines were tended. The once extensive narrow gauge is still alive in two small sections now, the Cumbres and Toltec Gorge Scenic Railway, and the Durango and Silverton Railroad. My house is located below the tops of the cottonwood trees over the roof edge.
My alma mater, Adams State College, now Adams State *ahem!* University is there. It was trying hard to become a university at that time. Through some very generous but anonymous donations, it built a planetarium, science building, music hall, student union and new athletic field. Alas, one of the Front Range cities got the go ahead to become a university and poor Adams State moldered for a few more years before finding its place in the sun.
Odd, isn’t it. I will share all this with you, but for me it was a meh! experience that I am glad is behind me. For me it was the bright lights, sleek wimmen, and shiny cars. Never did quite get that far in the city though.
Why I do what I do
Friday I drove a short leg for three rescued dogs going to Canada to be adopted. Among the three was Bruce, a mix of some unspecified parentage. At the transfer point, Bruce was so terrified that he lost control of his bladder and bowels.
His was an especially important rescue for me. He had a rescuer who abused him.
The only place he felt comfortable was inside the traveling kennel, so before I could take him to the next leg of the journey, I went and got a kennel that was left with me from a previous transport, and Bruce was carried crate and all to a new home in Canada.
I don’t often know the history or fate of my transports, and I am a little grateful for it. My heart couldn’t stand it.
Anyway, I got a message from the travel co-ordinator of this particular transport. Here it is.
===============
- Today
1:13pm
nnnnnn nnnnnnnnnnn
Just wanted to let you know that your wish for Bruce came true smile emoticon Not quite going to a fellow like you but going to a good home – he has adopter who will be picking him up across the border today.
Per rescue: Bruce is going to a wonderful lady who just lost her husband last year and is lost too.. They will be able to support one another and find happiness again
1:37pm
You don’t know how good that news is to me, nnnnnn! Thank you!!
Home of the 4H Rodeo
The dust has settled on the old rodeo grounds sitting next to an abandoned brick schoolhouse. Battered public address horns that once called out riders by name sit mutely on light poles, and bird nests are tucked in the brackets. The lights have not lit up the arena in years beyond counting. A rusty sign proudly proclaims: Home of the 4H rodeo.
Does the 4H even hold rodeos anymore?
… and your old men shall dream dreams …
.. and your old men shall dream dreams ….
~Joel
I haven’t been writing much lately. I go through long spells where I just dontwanna. Moreover, I don’t hafta. Writing is a hobby to me. I am a dilettante at it. I wouldn’t mind being a world class writer with millions of spendable dollars, and being feted and pampered on world-wide tours and receiving accolades for my brilliance, but I don’t wish to work for it. So, that pretty much leaves me with little coffee posts peppered with the occasional rant.
As many of you know, I have a muse that is cranky and old. She dresses in a long ago style of a professional woman who has never updated her wardrobe. She is all business, yet still manages to be a bit coquettish. She would be a successful businesswoman if she were real. She is brutally honest, yet supportive. She is my foil, and will tell me what my supporters won’t. She fits me like a well-worn shirt that your woman keeps trying to throw away, but you just like the way it feels.
Quite frequently in my dialogues with her, I discover myself. I often don’t know what I believe until I have to defend it on the written page.
In this month of softening sunrises as autumn once again reminds us that there is a cycle of life, I don’t want truth. So I haven’t been chatting with her all that much. I want to sit out in the sun and build power plants in my head, or deftly maneuver a mega-yacht into its berth, or masterfully start a heavy-laden freight train on a steep grade, or even rescue a distressed damsel or two. I don’t want the give and take of dialogue. The Donald means nothing to me. Hillary is just another hack. Obama is a petty tyrant. The press corps are just political activists wearing a mantle they did not earn nor deserve.
T
he world has passed me by, leaving me in its dust. Like and old dog on the porch, I hardly raise an eyelid at the passing rumble of cars as a new generation of wage slaves try to extract meaning out of it all. I am now an impediment to their ambitions, not a player.
And it suits me fine.
Good morning!
My center, the geographical center, and the center of the universe
Another red sky morning here in the geographical center of Texas. Sunrise was at seven according to the tic-tock, but now that I live by God’s time, sunrise is always at 6am, or the first hour as I call it. The recent rains have greened up the bermudagrass; it is a comfortable 69° and mildly humid outside, according to Mistress Cortana, my new overseer from the illuminatus at Redmond. She is beginning to rule more and more of my day as she relentlessly prowls my computer and internet activity. Nevertheless, she is only interested in me having a good customer experience with my masters at Microsoft. Or so she says.
The planters on the porch outside my window are plush with moisture, and my diseased potted tomato plant grows to the sky. It set new tomatoes, and I sprayed them with a fungicide just to see if that would work. I suspect however, that I will eventually dump the plant into the ever-growing burn pile for cremation when the fall rains arrive.
It has been an intriguing experiment, living by solar time. Mostly. As the equation of time advances and retreats during the year, the tick tock has the sun rising earlier and later than 6 am. I was getting up at 5:30 on the clock, but every day at 6:00 solar time. Now 6:00 solar time is almost 7:00. Have I confused you enough now?
Anyway … my mornings seem to be a bit more serene, and I don’t feel like I am wasting my life as much. The sun is always at the same place when I drink my coffee now. However, it drives the rest of the world crazy now that it worships the gods of standard time. I do nothing outside the home for the first three hours of the day. No daylight savings for me. Every day is daylight savings …
Made another dog run yesterday. The coordinator didn’t inform the man I was handing off to in time for him to schedule the trip, and so I ran my leg and his. It was pleasant for the most part, but really, at this time of life, I really don’t enjoy more than about an hour of driving. I have to learn to let other rise up to save the day. They managed without me before I joined with them. Still, I feel I reduce the world’s misery by an insignificant millimeter.
I am beyond skeptical of astrology, but sometimes I wonder if Mars is high in the sky with all the infighting going on between internet friends. Perhaps it is just the argumentative types who get into the scrapping in the first place. I am doing better at not jumping into the disagreements, but sometimes I will have three paragraphs of bile written before I remember that the new me is la-de-dah, and delete it.
Today is also preparation day, when we do all the daily chores that we can to make Shabbat a day where we don’t have many chores. I can tell when I go to turn the coffee maker on each morning. The slow cooker is sitting empty on the counter top, awaiting her filling it with the various goodies that go into the Shabbat meal. Soon the pleasant aromas will fill the house while we await the arrival of the Queen of Shabbat.
Shabbat Shalom!
No Ten Tuesday
There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.
~ Ernest Hemingway
That is another take on the famous quote by Gene Fowler. So this morning of nothing to do I sit at the keyboard and bleed on it. Literally, it seems. I tried peeling my thumb with the potato peeler, and can’t get the bleeding to end.
But fortunately, the only key that thumb is used on is the [space bar]. But I do need it for everything else I do, it seems.
It is humid, but much cooler this late August morning, and I can feel the weakening sun as it backlights the leaves on the acacia tree in yellows and green, and continues on to dapple patches of yellow on my little porch garden.
I wrote and wrote and wrote last week, then reached an impasse in the story that I cannot get around. Female competiveness. I know so little about the dynamics of that in the boy-meets-girl part of the story, but it is integral. The mavens say that when you reach a stalemate like that to not attempt to tell the reader what is going in in the characters mind, but to simply describe the action.
Nowhere does the difference in the wiring of men and women show as much as it does in the dialogue between them. I have caught out several women writers who were writing from a masculine viewpoint on this. Men do not often dialogue in their heads after they have decided on a course of action.
In this slightly pornographic tale, I need to get the woman from casual interest into a fully developed relationship overnight, and nothing seems to move the girls faster than to have some competition. Not so much that they say to hell with this, however.
I have a circle of wet, brown eyes watching me this morning. Snookums has been outside with them throwing the ball, but now that she is on the treadmill, she has temporarily lost her allure, and I alone am the one who still has possibilities at this precise moment in time. Dogs be fickle creatures.
And my pots outside are needing water. The sweet potato vines need three waterings a day now that they have matured. I think next year I’ll rig up an automatic watering system. I do have a hose reel on the porch that makes the chore simple. Just step out in a minimum of clothes, grab the sprinkler wand, and fill up five containers.
And all this has taken a cup of coffee, and I need yet another, so … good morning!
The death of a foolish poet, on the anniversary of his asininity.
The death of foolish
poet, on the anniversary of his asininity.
I watched as the last box went out the door. That was it. The final stake driven into in my humiliation, and perhaps the first step to my rebirth. It was most certainly a lesson in misplaced trust.
I never wanted to forget the injury, so I entered it on my calendar like an anniversary date. Forgive, yes, knowing me, I will. Forget? I don’t ever wish to, and again, knowing me, I would.
It is a battle scar, a reminder of a failed moment when a phoenix died in the ashes. It is also a reminder that trust needs be grounded in reality. It is a signpost: Do not go this way again. A warning: rhymes are for youth. A consolation for grief. I’m sorry for your loss. Here’s a hug for ya …
Rusty's Armory 