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Mornin’ Grump
Tuesday morning. Up at daylight but I am still waiting for the sunrise. I haven’t had a chance to do that in a while. It is not as hushed as it used to be now that the housing developments have filled my once tranquil country lane into a feeder road for the commuters. Ah, progress!
But we take it in stride. Foggy mornings slow them down, but as we move into the warm season, we don’t have many of those and the drivers run down the road at highway speeds only to slam on their brakes at the sharp and narrow bend, then accelerate out for the last 2/10ths to the stop sigh.
I can still pour a cup and sit smugly watching the wage slaves go by in waves. The 6:30 am wave for those punching in at 7:00, the 7:30 wave for those punching in at 8:00. We don’t have many 9to5ers out here. Mostly construction workers and tradesmen.
My cul-de-sac has a lot of firemen for the surrounding towns and they seem to work 24 hour shifts starting and ending in the evening. But they are huge motorcycle fans and weekends has them roaring out in the morning on their way to parades and rides.
My sub-woofing low-rider down the lane has moved on, so I don’t have to listen to his thump thump thump as he set out to cruise in the afternoons and returned at 2:00 am with the speakers at eardrum shattering levels. I consider his absence a blessing and I wish him well.
So the day begins unfolding, with coffee, and people watching.
Good morning!
chag sameach!
Today is a BIG preparation day since Pesach is at sundown … but being good slaves to the tictoc machine, we will have it on the man made sundown. The real sundown is 8 o’clock on the dial tonight, and is much too late for geezers with acid reflux to observe.
I wonder if the Israelites had gastric reflux …
I have been going crazy with the media’s obsession with what the Mueller report didn’t prove. I really must learn that the crazies have one, and I live in a nation of despots. God’s children have endured oppressive civilizations and governments for æons. It is nothing new. But I am saddened that the grand old experiment died just like all other civilizations died. The ideal has been so thoroughly corrupted that it is not salvageable. The lunatics won. The people want a nanny, and they will get one. They deserve no better. They failed the liberty test. So the later stages of life go. “I got mine” is my mantra today … I just don’t care anymore.
So with that cheery revelation, I turn my thoughts to things I can do something about. Me.
Good morning, and chag sameach!
A life in four photos …
I have come a long way, and it has been a rocky road getting here. I was reminded of that today when a friend who visited us last month sent some photos that he took. Yikes! I look like ever burned out Texan you have ever seen in a movie.
Here is one of me as a world famous actor who played across from greats like Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson. Well, truthfully, playing across from might be a stretch. I had walk-ons and was listed in the cast of characters. But it was a great time of parties, girls and free wheeling dope.
Unfortunately, I shortly ended up here, broke, broken, and confused. It was a long trudge out and I met many other broke and broken people coming out of the confusion of the 1960’s, and honestly, I became a better person for it. Still it is not a recommended path. Some didn’t make it out.
So I was really shocked when this old buzzard fell out of the pack of pictures in the envelope. How the mighty have fallen. Girls don’t vie with each other for a chance in bed with this one. They just offer to carry the groceries out to the car for him. I look like ever burned out old Texan that I have ever met, but with more whiskers than most.
No more wild parties with Angelica Houston, Dennis Hopper, Bob Dylan and even once with Elvis.
My nights are like this at 8 o’clock. The nightly treats, followed by the evening pills and turning on the electric blanket and one last check of my emails.
My mutts. Annie-Annie, ‘Becca da Beagle, Tic the trouble maker and Jenna, the moose.
Thank you, Don!
Beat up SEARS and trim the brambles
Monday breaks fair and sunny, with bright blue skies we haven’t seen for a few weeks now. Still a tad on the chilly side for porch sitting, though the day will climb to the low eighties later. Kippur joyously greets me with her loud call that almost sounds like she is saying her name, then segues into burbles, squawks and clicks as I open the blinds.
Happy dogs roughhouse as they wait for Linda to put on her shoes and get the tennis balls out of their cupboard. No big tragedies on the newsfeeds, just the usual low level Trump hating from AP and UPI. The House Democrats have gone silent in their relentless Inspector Javert like pursuit of the President. I don’t know if it is connected to the Nunes referral of leakers and counter agents to the DOJ or not, but that is where my guess will go. There are wheels within wheels here, and I think the truth will eventually out.
I don’t have many plans for the week ahead. Mostly routine hopes like getting Bucephalus running again, getting gas for the mowers, building a fire under Sears for incomplete work and maybe trimming some brambles back.
But as always, I have my priorities … coffee, and a comfortable place to sip it …
Good morning!
A Thundery Good Morning
Shabbat dawned gloomy with rain laden clouds, and warnings of tornados. But most of them seemed to go on by, with one drencher right after brunch. Jenna, my huge white moose is ok with rain and thunder but doesn’t do well with lightning flashes.
Tic, the little sort of Aussie looking something or the other doesn’t like none of it, and huddled with me while it was far of, but when it arrived, ran in to Linda’s desk for protection. So much for being the hero and protector of this family.
I made ersatz egg McMuffins today with English muffins, ersatz Canadian bacon and cheese today. I am getting pretty good with those things, but still got them a bit too salty because I didn’t take into account the fake bacon being so salty. Our local market makes a pretty good tasting Canadian style bacon out of turkey. Usually I am underwhelmed with substitutes, but in this case, it was quite good.
So today is a day of rest. We avoid most chores other than eating, and generally have the Friday dinner rewarmed to cut down on Sunday’s activities. We don’t attend services anymore, more so because of the preparation time just to get ready. I would have to get up at four am. And now Friday services are out because of cataracts. But I am slowly adjusting to that. Snook does listen to services pod cast from Denver, but I just molder in the mornings, lost in fog and steaming coffee.
So the days come, and the days go. FB posts to friends and family just to let people know I am still sucking wind. Twitter to find out what is going on in the hate Trump universe. My Railroad sim from time to time, but not so often it becomes ‘work’. And once in a while, I tickle the muse.
A thundery good morning!
I love women who know how to wear makeup
Those of you who know me know that I am an ardent supporter of the nation of Israel. Yeah, I am not totally unaware of her shortcomings, but I dismiss them much the same way you dismiss the quirks of an old friend.
So when this photo cropped up on my twitter newsfeed today, I was immediately smitten with her. Alas, gone are the days when I belted on shield and buckler, and girded up my loins to do battle. When today’s warriors run off to battle, like an old dog, I want to run off with them. Yeah, the last thing they need is a decrepit old geezer wheezing along at the rear, dragging along his battle gear from a long gone era. My war has come and gone.
I read tactical fighting articles from old warrior friends, and even some from the newer warriors, and dream of the days when I was fit … and stupid … war is for the young who can still see the glory. Venal old men know that glory is an illusion and avoid strife. It is just too painful and can get you killed!
So I sit back an daydream of long ago and far away, when idealism and lust ruled my body while time slowly envelopes me in its obscurity. We’re born, we live, we die. That has been our fate for a good many years. Yet even in that, there is mercy. We were given two jobs in this life. Breed and obey. But it seems that even those two simple imperatives give rise to rebellion in us. I was just reading a glowing story of a male/male couple who impregnated the mother of one of them so that they could have a child, just like normal people do. Does no one catch the irony in this?
But there is always coffee. And the time to sip it.
Good morning!
SEQUITUR MANE MANE
Living by the sun is difficult when your life has been ruled by the tictoc machine for three quarters of a century. I seem to do my very best sleeping right at daybreak and wake again about a half hour after sunup. That makes arising at a scandalous 8 am on the tictoc this time of year, but 6:30 am on the sundial. I can almost hear my grandpa saying you gonna sleep your life away? But who’s around to censor me now? I kinda think Snookums likes that hour or so without me underfoot anyway, though she always rises at 7:20 Standard Time. So, the coffee was ready, Shabbat music was playing on the puck, the dogs were fed and the blinds opened. I feel like such a sluggard for refusing to let machine time rule me.
My on-line friends are slowly disappearing. Many have died, some have ghosted, and some have drifted into a net-free lifestyle, and I slowly devolve into a self-reliant island, not building friendships or becoming a part of something larger. I am leisurely adjusting to it, though. Maybe it is simply my way of disengaging from the creation and shifting my thoughts toward the creator.
The neighbor’s daughter offered to weedwhack the yard for me just because she was stir-crazy living at home. But her mothers’ yard could use some serious weedwhacking too, and she has so many personal problems that I thought it best to not allow her to fail at good deeds. She has good intentions, but not so good follow through. Her daughter has become Linda’s friend, and Linda gave her a spare sewing machine that was gathering dust. I love watching young women learning from elderly women. They are so intense and approach it with far more humility than men have.
Shabbat brunch is going to be more like Shabbat blunch today. I was thinking of being creative and making something wildly different, but Saturday it is hashbrowns, kosher sausage and runny eggs. That is the natural order of things, and I should not push against the rule.
So the day sleepily unfolds in the house.
It is good.
… I should.
Sunday. Daylight comes bright and sunny, but at 45°F it is still too cold for sitting out on the porch and irritating the cardinals. So, I content myself with coffee at the PC and watch the day unfold outside the window as I sip my coffee.
The press ghouls flock to New Zealand and ignore even worse tragedies in Africa and the Middle East. Killings continue apace in Chicago unheralded. But I guess it gives them a welcome break from President bashing. Onward to the next bright bauble of horror.
Snooks is happily dashing about getting the house ready for guests, even making a pass thru my cluttered studio with her dusting rag. She normally gives the studio a wide berth, other than to tend to the angry budgie each morning.
So many jobs await me … get at least one mower running. Put house numbers on mailbox. New battery for Bucephalus. The time flies by, but I resist doing something. First the coffee. Then the chores …
Good morning!
My last goodbye … maybe
My last goodbye … maybe
I was reading a post by my online friend, Mz T, as I refer to her. She has gone into a nursing home as the insults of aging have caught up with her and it became increasingly difficult for her to tend to herself. That reality isn’t far from me, though no one gets to choose the time or circumstances of their enfeebleness and death. I have been reading the patriarchs in the Bible who would call their children in to bless them before they died and thought to myself how cool that would be. When it is time, do your housecleaning, lay down and fold your hands over your chest and go to sleep.
Finis
The End
But I’ll most likely make my grand exit from a low budget nursing home with indifferent caregivers and no family. Not that I deserve or plan on having my family around when that happens. My path in life wasn’t so family oriented. Snooks may be around if she is still mobile, but who knows? Her plan is to beat me to the door, but I am not so sure I will let her.
Mz T got me to thinking that I had better prepare myself for that time of abandonment. Once those doors close, Lethe vapors chill of forgetfulness begin to seep through the cracks in the floors and I’ll be forgotten by family and friends. I am not resentful that in time I’ll be another footnote in someone’s genealogy. My time came, and it went. At least all this sounds good on paper, but the proof is in the living and dying. I hope I can prepare myself for that time.
I have always felt that everyone essentially dies alone, even when surrounded by family and friends. It is a solitary path and there are no visible markers. Will I sleep? Will I wake in paradise? If there is an afterlife, will those whom I have terribly wronged forgive me? It will not matter. I cannot command death to stop.
I have had a rich and full life, though there were moments that I am not very proud of. I think the loneliness is the hard part. In spite of my crust, I am not a total isolationist. I need some interaction even if it is only online. Y’all aren’t going to be there, even those of you who have good intentions. And I’ll wonder about you, and I’ll wonder about Snookums. And I’ll wonder about the mutts. And what happened to my car. And my home. To you, it just vanishes. To me, I wonder, then draw that final breath.
When I sat down to write this, I was intending to work out in my mind how I was going to discipline myself when that time came, but perhaps there isn’t a discipline for that. One turns their head to the far horizon, and the voices nearby fade. Perhaps that is why the day begin to flit by when you age, and by the time that the Master calls you home, the time is shortened and you don’t notice the long passage.
But I assure you, I am not sad. I do not need to be comforted …
… save that for my anger at the mechanic that did a crappy job repairing my lawn mower …
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