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Checking my retired privelege
Tuesday dawns a comfortable but humid and dewy 73°. Just right for morning stoop sitting with the mutts. Mr.Cottontail has become a fixture out in the field, and is still watched closely by the mutts, but they no longer howl and bark at him.
This year sort of makes up for the five-year drought. The fields are green, the bermudagrass is thriving, and nature slowly heals the land she struck. It is all a part of a grand plan of a universal audience participation play, I muse. OK … low grade Zen and I move on.
*sip*
A quick run through the newsfeeds. Politics are all atwitter at Walker’s announcement that he is running for President. The care more than thee, feel more than thee coalition is still trying to get me to check my white privilege. One tired old politician defends Sanctuary Cities. A beach back east blows up and no one knows why. The military is preparing to accept trans-gendered GI’s. And the Boy Scouts prepare to accept gay leaders.
*sip*
Blogs of photos abound, and politics, of course.
*sip*
Nothing in the mailbox ‘cept the internet bill.
*refill*
The mutt have successfully roused Snooks and are enjoying breakfast. Kippur da budgie is molting again and is pretty cranky about it, and she chitters and scolds Linda when she comes in to replenish her food and water.
*sip*
Time to put new blades in the mower. Not looking forward to that one. And I still need to get the awning up over the porch. And a minor amount of weed eating is needed. Both Snooks and I are stalling to see who will grab up the weed eater and finish the trimming.
So unfolds the day out here in the semi-wilds of the Texas prairie.
Good morning!
The Tongs of Death. Binding in the fields. Anthracnose Rot.
Life is so often unfair. I retired down in the warm
country so that I could have a real garden instead of a four month growing season. The problem is that bugs like warm climates too, and they have really presented brand new challenges to me.
I have taken most of my plants out of the ground and put them in pots, because the soil is so virulent with funguses and wiggly bugs that destroy plants. But that was not the best solution. I was looking forward to some really succulent tomatoes this year, then they developed discolored circles with a black dot in the center. Tomato anthracnose the garden tomes said. Never heard of it ‘til now.
So … down to the Feed Store, and get some fungicide. There were an assortement of organic remedies, but they all required common household items and a plastic bucket. For eight bucks, I got a quart of tomato rot medicine in a spray bottle. No mix, no mess.
And I built a new set of the “Tongs of Death!” … a pair of salad tongs with the ends tightly wound with old cotton sweat socks. I use them mostly on field bindweed, but I have a persistent chinaberry tree growing up in the middle of a crape myrtle that is going to get the tongs applied to them. Heh heh heh …
You dip the socks into vegetation killer, the stronger, the better. Then clamp the tongs onto those little succulent green leaves, count to ten and move on. You don’t need to do more than five leaves per plant.
See … I told you the further away from morning I get when I blog, the more sinister and macabre I become.
Morning death and destruction on the macro and micro scale
Shabbat dawns to the melodious tones of a beagle baying at a cat free ranging outside the fence. It is dewy and humid outside, exposing the myriad of spider webs that surround my porch. It seems that every year, a new species of spider takes up residence there. This year it is black and yellow garden spiders.
It is a bit macabre watching them. They have strong webs that snare large beetles, and finer spirals that trap mosquitos. They quickly spin a cocoon around the body of hapless beetle leaving the legs outside the cocoon moving in a dance of death. Then, one by one, the spider wraps the legs and the beetle ceases struggling. I am not a big fan of beetles, and I resist the temptation to free him. I don’t believe that beetles have much of a sense of gratitude anyway.
Kipper da budgie helps me awaken the day with soft chirps and burbles. There is a narrow dew free area on the windows around the stiles, and she must bob and weave around her cage to see the world outside. Often, a sparrow will lite on the handrail outside, and she will scold it until it leaves. But she is a bit silent with the larger cardinals and mockingbirds, saving the sassing until they fly off.
Made a quick pass through the news feeds. A very quick one. Nothing happened overnight that holds much interest for me. A Muslim horror here, a Muslim horror there. The religion of peace is bathing in blood throughout the Middle East, Africa and Mediterranean.
But I sit here quietly in the semi wildlands of Texas with my coffee, listening to Snooks gentle clatter in the kitchen as she feeds the pets, and listening to the birds calling outside.
Good Morning!
The new conspiracists …
A sunny but humid morning greeted me today as my bladder made my nice soft bed such a living hell of discomfort. I hate getting up before Snookums, because the first one up staggers bleary eyed into the kitchen to flip on Mr. Coffee. Snooks always makes the pot up the night before because she wants her coffee brewed just how she likes it. Mere mortals such as I can’t seem to measure properly. It needs an experts touch.
Near as I can figure, she has made 12,640 pots of morning coffee in our marriage. We have worn out two commercial makers, and untold numbers of the little cheap home style makers. She has made many more pots, but I am just counting the eye opening pot in the morning.
At one time we drank copious amounts of coffee … four or five pots a day. But we have settled down to one pot for the most part, with maybe one more on a cold rainy day.
Flipped thru the newsfeed headlines today. Nothing particularly caught my eye. Lots of humma humma humma about the Confederate Battle Flag. I never cared much one way or the other about it, before. My southern friends had them and flew them at picnics and rallies. They were kinda like the Lone Star of Texas that people here affix to their houses and gates. Interesting local customs, but quickly dismissed when the barbeque is served.
But with all the mewling of the PC crowd over the flag, I have had to read up on its history. The leftists loons are just as full of bullpucky in their description of the Battle Flag as UFO people talking about aliens stealing their ovaries. One poster who usually gets his skewed facts at least straight, told me how the white on the Battle Flag was a symbol of the white race. Yeesh. Maybe it was simply because white fabric in the 1800’s was less expensive than dyed fabric. Flags weren’t cheap.
Some southern Generals needed a battle flag that didn’t look so much like the stars and stripes. In the chaos of a battlefield, it was easy to get lost and not know were the lines were. So they made up a flag that was easy to identify. Not all southern armies used that particular flag, however.
So now I am thinking of flying the flag just to piss off the flippin’ easily offended control nannies. Gawd am I am so tired of their weeping.
Not sure what project I’ll start today. I have so many that need attention. So maybe I’ll just refill my cup and meditate on the job jar this morning, along with the gray the South wore to battle. Was it because of a muddled sense of their role in the Union, or merely because gray wool best illustrateded their homophobic tendencies? Deep, deep mysteries here … it is probably more suited for some academic deep thinker than a retired geezer, anyway.
Zen, and the art of tripe …
I had just sat down at my PC to play with a new CAD program when I caught her stretched out along the top of my monitor in what I suppose was to be a provocative pose. Too white legs stuffed like sausages into too brown nylons, and just a hint at a garter band at the hem of her frayed houndstooth skirt.
“There you are, my man! So how does it feel to write something again? I think that was one of my better collaborations.” She cooed and preened.
“What, that 200 word piece of . . .“
She scowled and warned, “Watch your mouth buster! There are ladies here!”
“ . . . fluff on Oreo cookies? Is that what you are pleased with? I am a bit embarrassed by it.” I continued.
With a pout she swung her legs over the edge of the monitor and sat up while tugging at the hem of her skirt.
I averted my eyes. I am not real choosy, but there are some places I really don’t want to go. When I looked up again, she was sitting upright, all prim and proper, the last of the cottage cheese squeezing out of the tops of her nylons decently covered.
“Well, you are at least writing again.” She said levelly
“It’s tripe, and you know it.” I shot back.
“When life hands you tripe, you make menudo out of it.” she chuckled to herself.
I groaned. This was going to be a long conversation.
“You’ve been compared to Erma Bombeck by a couple of people now.”
“Yeah. That was a little flattering. Erma could keep you wrapped in suspense just telling you how she puts groceries away. But I don’t have the incentive to crank out a five hundred word column each week like she did, even when she was so sick with a wasting cancer.”
“A lot of people like your morning posts. Maybe you just aren’t novelist material. Crank out the mornings three to five hundred words, and post.”
“I just write those damned things because I am an inveterate writer. I can’t stand it when people call or stop by and interrupt my playing with words. Besides. There is that story in my head that one part of me wants to tell, and another part of me wants to hide. It gnaws at my entrails. I want to talk about the pain, the sadness that envelopes me. But the damned words just aren’t there. I write public fluff because it doesn’t lay a glove on my psyche. But every once in awhile a piece of that bleak tale slips out, and I quickly bury it in nonsensical verbiage.”
“So what am I now, your confessor?” She snapped. “Look. If you want to write, I am here for you. I’ll help you find obscure words that say precisely what you want to say. I’ll lay out turns of phrases that will make you gasp in their sublimity. But Sigmund Freud I am not.”
“Here I am gnawing at my own entrails and you mock me?” I surlily growled
“Gnawing my . . . “
“Watch the mouth!” I warned.
“ patootie! That rubbish isn’t gnawing at your entrails. That is maudlin reflection. Back off, buster! You’re making my blouse soggy.”
“I wouldn’t put my . . .”
“Can the personal attack, Plato.”
“ . . . face anywhere near that cheap Rayon® blouse.” I said. “So your suggestion, Doctor?”
“Write your little wake up posts in the morning. Nothing more. Do it slowly and deliberately. Do it completely. Post it on WordPress and blogster, and put your links to it on G+ and face book. Then put a little space between that and your first morning chore.”
That sounds a bit Zenny . . . “
“It IS zen.”
“Oh.”
Goodbye, my love.
Dear Oreos.
I don’t know how to say this in a way that won’t cause pain, but I am leaving you. I am so sorry it has come to this.
It is not you, it is me. Its just that I cant stand the thinness cult. I have discovered a high dollar French thingy that has lots of chocolate in a hard chocolate pastry that just begs me to dip her in milk and eat her.
I wish you all the best, and hope that someday you will forgive me. Maybe we can have coffee some time and laugh over this.
Rusty
Man Dies After Strapping Fireworks Mortar to His Head and Settin – kcentv.com – KCEN HD – Waco, Temple, and Killeen
Drat! I thought that Texas would win the Darwin Award with our guy who swam with alligators at 2 am. But Maine is going to beat us out this year, I think …
Aphorisims in Geezerhood
No matter how long you wait, a hotdog will not cook in the freezer compartment. Some people are born with that knowledge, and some aren’t.
On Canada Day .. A compromise on 54 fourty ….
To my friends in Canada on Canada Day:
We’ll take Alberta if you will take Washington and Oregon back …. 
The not so amusing muse stops by ..
She was already perched on the corner of my computer hutch when I staggered into the studio this morning. She was back in her old pink rayon blouse and ratty tweed skirt, and had her knees crossed, showing more of the chubby pink thighs than I really wanted to see this early in the morning.
“Well, if you aren’t my ray of sunshine this morning.” She chirped.
“ *grumphh* ”. I answered back inarticulately.
“So. Are you going to do another one of those inane coffee posts today?”
“I am thinking of giving up blogging entirely. And lose that pencil skirt. You need to dress more age appropriately.”
“Ah, this from the sartorial maven who parades around the house in flimsy eight-dollar a pair athletic shorts, and who proudly wears scrubs with black socks and sandals to town, now lectures me on my outfit? So why do you want to give up blogging?”
“I don’t know. I grow more discontented with blogging every day. There’s a hole in my belly that just isn’t filled by daily writing like their used to be, and I am not sure where the discontent with writing is.”
“So you expect me to be your therapist? I can only help with ideas when your fingertips are on the QWERTY board. I flunked fairy psychology and God only knows what you mortals think. You wanna write, I am here for you. You wanna talk, go hire a therapist.”
“Thank you for your kindness and compassion, Nurse Ratched.”
“You’re welcome, R.P.[1]”
The day is starting out badly.
[1] Main character from the book and movie “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” Randle Patrick McMurphy, or simply R.P., is frequently on the wrong side of the law. Arrested for battery and gambling, McMurphy dodges a short prison sentence to a work camp by feigning insanity. He is transferred to a mental institution, run by Nurse Ratched. McMurphy often speaks of his sexual exploits to get under the skin of the sterile Ratched.
Rusty's Armory 