Something Random...

How many miles to the galleon did the Spanish Armada get?


UPDATE

I never got a definitive answer to this very real question. I only got invective for my use of a very tasteful pun. Offers to pummel me with pillows and the like.

Does knowbody no the answer? Just make something up, OK?

Fourth of July Waterworks Show

Fridays, I get off early during the Summer. I think most of the regulars know this. This is a good thing.

I arrived at home at around one in the afternoon, just as the females in the house were readying themselves for a trip to the movies. I had eaten some sort of food for lunch and was just on the verge of zoning out in the chair. My youngest sat at the fireplace awaiting her ride to the movie. My wife was in our bathroom, making the final preparations for their outing.

As I was nearing the doze-point, I heard some sounds of urgency from the back of the house. “Wabba wabba weeba wabba, wabba water wanh wanh! Help wanh!” As I moved toward the sound, it became clear that something was amiss. I thought that perhaps she was hurt or possibly a roach or other abominable hazard.

I burst into our room and heard her harsh and assiduous tones joined by the sound of spraying water. Rounding the edge of the sink area, I saw my wife leaning over, clutching a towel with it jammed down on the cold water side of our faucet. Water was gushing from under the terry cloth relentlessly. I dove beneath the counter and reached through the waterfall to turn off the supply valve.

That done, the relieved spouse withdrew the towel and sure enough, the cold water faucet handle was just gone. I peered down the hole and sure enough, I saw all the way down the tube to the water treatment plant.

I analyzed the hardware and could see nothing obviously broken. Yet there we were, the countertop swimming in the city water supply. My wife describes the order of events as 1) turning on the hot water valve, 2) cold water valve blasting off like a Saturn V rocket to the ceiling. Or almost.

After they left, I sat in my chair for a while, dreading the trip to the Dome Hepot for a replacement faucet. The trick was going to be the drain stopper mechanism. In case you have never replaced a faucet, the box contains a stopper assembly that necessarily entails the removal of the silver ring that you spit your toothpaste at in the bottom of the sink. Not really hard, just not fun. And the opportunity to over or under-tighten something resulting in a leak. So I made the decision to go with the direct replacement. With the failure of the original after such a short time, the prospect of duplicating the initial mistake was cause for hesitation. But the prospect of replacing the drain was the tipping point.

I dragged myself up from the air-conditioned comfort of the living room and into the blazing heat of the afternoon, on a trek to find an American Standard Cadet faucet set.

I am glad to say that the procurement and installation went without a hitch, save for the one in my back from wadding myself up under the bathroom sink. Let me tell ya, removing a relatively new faucet is much easier than removing one that was twenty or so years in one place.

I think I would have like to seen the liftoff of the handle skyward, followed by the plume of water. And while my wife’s description was vivid, the thought of all that water in the face of such dry heat the last few weeks would have been refreshing, I think. And I guess my job afterward was that of the guys that prepare for the fireworks shows, only in reverse.

Hearty Laugh in the Produce Aisle...

I got a laugh in HEB today. There I was, picking out jalapeño peppers for the salsa I was about to make. Fine, firm, green peppers.

I quickly got flanked by a couple preparing for some sort of wind-ding, shindig or hootenanny for the Fourth of July; the woman on the left with the basket and the man on hunter/gatherer duty bringing in the onions and other produce.

He saw me pawing through the jalapeños and asked his wife, across me, "We're grilling, right?"

She replied in the affirmative and he mentioned that he was going to go for some jalapeños. As he grabbed one or two, he said into the air, "I'm going to smoke up a few of these and see what happens..."

Again, the smart aleck was at the ready, and I said to him, "They're hard to keep lit...", accompanied by the exaggerated cigar-puff-mouth-action and my fingers holding a big, fat mock-stogie.

He chuckled, but as I walked away, I heard him laugh some more.That was when he saw the visual in his head, trying to light a pepper with a grilling lighter, puffing like mad on it, then sitting back in his chair. Then his wife mumbled,"Huh..." from her shopping list , and he repeated it as I disappeared down the aisle. As he related the gag to her, I heard him laugh some more. There was that visual again.

I felt good to have played to a small but apparently appreciative audience. Just about made my Fourth.

Rain, Rain, Come Again, Go Away Some OTHER Day!

It rained here today.

So you say, "Big deal, you're on the Texas Gulf Coast, it's positively tropical!" Ah, not lately, Dear Reader, not lately. It has been very dry for something like 39 days, with no appreciable rain. Burn bans are in effect and many municipalities are calling for water conservation measures.

People are putting stamps on letters with paper clips. The Baptists are sprinkling, the Methodists are using a wet handkerchief and the Lutherans are issuing rain checks. We have catfish in the pond a year old that don't know how to swim yet.

To say it has been dry is an understatement. I got out of my car the other evening and smelled the aroma of hay. Fresh, dry hay. Since there were no hay bales or rolls nearby, I looked over at my lawn and saw the brown, withered grass doing it's best imitation of Coastal Bermuda.

The high pressure "bubble", as the weather people refer to it as, has maybe slipped a little. "Bubble" is a little misleading; it sounds like Lawrence Welk is playing a polka in the clouds, with happy people dancing in the streets to "champagne music". We're all sweating like pigs in the heat. It's been over 100º for, like ten days in a row, so there's not much of the implied "kicking-up-of-the-heels" going on around here.

I think they should describe it as a looming, apocalyptic dragon slowly cooking us in our own humid shirts.

But it rained today. For about 30 minutes in Pasadena (where I work) and maybe about the same amount of time in my home town. Of course, the pavement was about 120º F and the entire parking lot was nearly dry half an hour later.

Maybe our weather is getting back to normal.

HMS Titanic, Highland Bayou Style

The captain of the Titanic was confident of a smooth, productive maiden voyage of his ship, no doubt. I was mostly confident that today was going to be a good day on the water with my youngest daughter for our first fishing/boating adventure.

Mostly.

We drove down to Highland Bayou in my neighbor’s truck with a borrowed pirot. I had never used a pirot. Have heard about them all of my life; a shallow flat bottomed boat with the bow and stern interchangeable. This one is fiberglass and has two seats molded in. During the drive down, I mentioned that if we were to go over due to wind or other wave action, that she should not panic. The water is warm and shallow, and we’ll just be wet, no big deal.

I found a place on the Southern side of the bayou, a place fairly unfamiliar to me. It was either that or park where I usually do, and carry the sixty pound watercraft for 300 yards, OVER the levee and to the water. No thanks.

We had a bucket, an ice chest (I don’t really know why, now that I think about it), my tackle box and the rods. I got in the boat myself, then encouraged my offspring into the back of the boat to find a seat. I knelt in the middle to paddle the craft to our destination.

I had decided on the way down that this was going to be an adventure rather than strictly a fishing trip. My young protégé is a casting neophyte, the pirot is a new kind of vessel for me to pilot. I wasn’t planning on trying to bring in a couple of limits of fish, we were just out to have some fun.

So back to the water; the pirot is kinda twitchy when it’s loaded. As I shoved off, the quick action made some extra side-to-side motion, and we took on a couple of quarts of the bayou. My daughter tensed up, but didn’t panic, and I told her that we were OK, just stay low and don’t move too radically. Me, on the other hand, had to paddle the whole cruise liner out into the watercourse necessarily shifting my prodigious weight as I propelled and steered the boat.

As we progressed, my girl wondered how deep the water was. I had brought along a five foot piece of pvc pipe as a nod to my Grandaddy with his “calcutta depthfinder” (a cane pole). I invited her to poke it down into the water as we were gliding along and see how deep it was. She was pleasantly surprised with the two and a half foot depth of the seas. She was less pleasantly surprised with the amount of water that was in the boat with us; up to her ankles. I was informed later that each time I paddled, the water was within an inch of so of the gunwales.

We had progressed about 150 yards out to the channel, and I was notified of some more water invading our sanctuary. That was it. I decided to come about and steam back to our berth. In the middle of the turn, my first mate announced, “Daddy, Daddy, we’re sinking!”… and it was true. The stern sank quickly with her bailing out vertically as the hull slid beneath the surface. The water made rapid progress in my direction as well; past my feet, up my calves, then inundating my back pockets and finally my chest. The last bit of “dry” was the bow as it looked to heaven one last time.

By this time we were laughing in surprise and shock. The bucket with my cast net went down, down to Davey Jones’ locker; really only about three feet. But the mud was pretty deep. I grabbed my (luckily) floating tacklebox and put the rods on top. The crew was confused about the depth of the water, since the mud was so soft in that particular spot, she thought it was deeper. She seized the sunscreen and tried for the paddle. I retrieved that after getting the ice chest.

After gathering all of our floating cargo, laughing, I made sure to hem it all in for my fellow castaway to hold while I salvaged the ship. I turned it on its side, then lifted it over my head, then plopped it back on the surface. No big deal. We then tossed our flotsam and jetsam in, and I let my crew climb my leg and flop back in the boat giggling.

When I made sure that we had everything, I allowed myself a time to laugh at the ridiculous outing we were in the middle of. My thoughts of earlier came back to me; this was not solely a fishing trip, but was to be an exploration. Well, that it was! My girl asked if I were disappointed, and I replied, “How could I be? We had an adventure!”

While making our way back to where we put in with me towing the boat (which was riding nicely in the water minus the 255 extra pounds), I took the time to have the wee lass practice casting my Shimano Calisto reel. Suffice to say, she will continue to practice.

The epilogue to this escapade is that my gal got to skipper the pirot around a little bit while I learned her how to paddle a boat around. She made several large circles in the channel, paddling, switching, back paddling, digging deep and using the paddle as a rudder. She did really well, and was excited to be the captain of such a fine, albeit low capacity, craft.

The moral to this story is to always be ready for something different. Don’t be content to follow plans every time, and a good hint is to leave your cell phone in the car like we did.

The Missus Takes the Family for an Evening Stroll

Yes, the little dogs have been worrying a place at the end of the deck for several days now, culminating in an irritating yapfest earlier this evening. I figured it was a possum or something. Couldn’t be a cat, it was too quiet over there when the dogs were racing around sniffing and barking. I well remember the hiss that the stupid little black cat could utter.

Sure enough, as I was locking the back door for the night, I flicked on the porchlight just to see what I could see. What I saw was Mrs. O. Possum and the entire clan of little possum-lings clutching her fur, out for their evening constitutional.

Her expression, if possums can have expression, was one of slight bewilderment and mild confusion. Not that there is anything unusual about that kind of expression for a possum, but she looked as if she hadn’t any clue how she got on my back porch with no fewer than nine ugly little carbon copies of her gripping her pelt. She was panting a little, maybe because she sensed the air conditioning inside in defiance of the high humidity and heat of the Gulf Coast night. Perhaps she was plotting on how to buy a minivan to tote her brood rather than doing it the old-fashioned way. Who knows what goings-on are going on in the mind of a possum. If anything.

I will need a larger trap than I have to relocate the entire family to the Soderberg Marsupial Trade School and Re-education camp. I’ll have to see if they have a “loaner”.

Until then, I’ll have to staple my dogs to the tree in back.

Sounds Like...

The mind of a smart aleck is a terrible thing to have trapped in your skull. You who know me have heard what comes out of my mouth when the muse inspires.

On Thursdays in the office, we have a “snack day”, mostly just to feel better about the work week. We have half days Friday throughout the summer, so it’s a nice distraction to have food within easy reach to get ready for the slightly longer weekend.

My friend Sparky brought in some fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, olive oil, salt and pepper. We had some fresh basil as well, so the salad was a big hit. She decided to leave the olive oil up at the office for other snack days.

So much for the setup.

On Friday, our office manager strolled past the table we had the food products on the Thursgraze Snack Day. As she notice the olive oil bottle, she inquired about the owner.

Now, the way she worded it was crucial to my response, otherwise, I wouldn’t have said anything, or it just wouldn’t be funny.

Her exact words were, “Whose olive oil?” to which I replied instantly, “She’s Popeye’s girlfriend…why?”

She laughed heartily, and a couple of others moaned. I think that they were just jealous. You see, they’re smart alecks, too, and to get beaten to a perfectly laid out straight line was too much for their egos.

Reminds me of the “electric cat” episode of a couple of years ago.

The Big Night

Summer evenings on the Coastal Plains of Texas can often mean muggy, sticky, mosquito ridden hours that go on forever. This evening however was different for a couple of reasons.

First, a mild “cool” front came through. All that means is that the pressure is high and the humidity is low. Weather reports had it at around 39% today; normally it’s 90% or higher. High temp was in the low 90’s. The evening turned off really nice, just a few small clouds, a soft South breeze. Mosquitoes were hunting in the cow pastures.

They missed a bonanza, because there was a stadium full of warm-blooded family and friends making ready to witness the graduating class of 2009. I was there because my middle daughter was one of the 496 eager grads just outside the stadium. They were all wearing their orange caps and gowns, the girls’ hair all straightened and/or curled, the boys’ necks all crammed into buttoned collars and ties. No doubt most of them were visited by butterflies and flop sweat.

As the stands filled up with interested and obligated spectators and the sun edged down, the breeze was refreshing and made the hard bleachers a little less offensive. The only thing we were concerned with was saving space for my parents, who were to be a little late. Even that assignment was made bearable by the parade of humanity in a variety of forms that issued past us.

This being Alvin, the Alvin ISD police were checking bags on the way in; they banned the air horns and cowbells and all manner of obnoxious noisemakers that had plagued previous graduations. The reason being, enthusiastic family cheering for one graduate virtually obliterated the names of the next three or four kids. So much for the dignity of the ceremony.

The graduates filed into the stadium single file down the track on each side. I was told that we should be on the South side. Sure enough, of the four hundred ninety-something high school seniors mine was there way back in the back with the “S’s”.

As I watched her in her orange cap and gown, I had that strange feeling that amounts to wonder at the speed of life. *Cliché alert*; It seems like such a short time ago that she was just a little kid running around the house with a busted piñata on her head. No, really. She has grown up so much. She is over five feet nine inches tall, and with the shoes she wore, she was nearly six feet even. Taller than nearly all of the girls and a great percentage of the guys. She looked like royalty, striding along the padded track with her wide, bright smile and her long blonde hair. Like Graduate Barbie.

Now she was in a group of kids that had gone through 12 years of school together, and were about to hit the streets as real people. They filed onto the new field of artificial turf filled with an army of chairs in a long, neat rectangle.

The crowd settled down and the color guard came out, the national anthem was played by the band, minus the seniors. The introductions of the officials were made and the speeches were speeched by the student class president and the smart kids. The top 10% was introduced, honors made and the long list of graduates’ names was read.

We sat through the lengthy list, waiting for the nineteenth letter of the alphabet that would signal Katie’s moment. We watched as her row stand up and walk to the staging area to be called up to receive their “diploma”.

Hearing her name, our entire group stood up and yelled, “Yay Katie!”. I texted her later during her time of Project Graduation all-night-soirée and asked if she had heard our exclamation. Her reply was, “LOL yah! ☺”. It made me feel good to have been noticed from that far away.

I am proud of my girl. She took the Math classes that I didn’t even know existed. As a matter of fact, I don’t think anyone in my immediate family has even touched that level of ciphering unscathed.

She is one of the reasons that I have to go on, and I love her so much. Congratulations Katie-Belle.

Wordy Guy X!

Yes, the ever-sensational Wordy Guy has bestowed another puzzle gift on us. On you, I mean, I already knowed what this one means.

As always, do your best, dig deep in your brains, and NO CHEATING...

Lugubrious

A. Extremely ridiculous


B. Extremely mournful


C. Extremely humorous

And remember, last time Innominatus got the actual Wordy Guy to chork on his java with the dandy usage guess.

I'll have the answer and winners on Monday nite!

UPDATE
Well, here it is Monday night, and as promised I am announcing the winner of the Wordy Guy XI, or "X!" as I have in the title (on purpose)(really, I did it on purpose).

This is going to be difficult, since Innominatus came in first with an answer that very well could indicate that he knew the meaning of "lugubrious". But I can't let him drift through on his lightning-quick smart aleck answers forever. So this week's bragging rights goes to Falcon. His "process of elimination" educated guess was right on the money.

While Joe Biden's hair could be described as "extremely mournful", it wasn't decisive enough for the win.

And I mention "money" just as an expression, as you know there are no monetary prizes issued here.

Just a warm feeling of questionable accomplishment. So Falcon, revel in your moment. Thanks for playing!

I Think I Just Made Them Mad

The skeeters have been getting a little “uppity” lately. The evenings have been fairly windy, so they have been getting not fogged the past week and a half.

Bad move on my part.

I have been thinking about it, but couldn’t quite get out there and smite them properly. It happened kinda suddenly I guess. However it happened, it happened quickly. Just this moment as I am typing, a mosquito flew close past my face and one bit me on the nape of my neck. I have killed them in the shower and the kitchen. I killed another only moments ago on my arm and another on the back of my neck.

I Black Flagged them last evening, and they weren’t swarming me. I thought I was in pretty good shape, catching them a little early.

Turns out they were just in someone else’s yard at the time, and came home to roost this morning. I should have known that they were back en force when I saw the horse on the front lawn, completely drained of blood.

I am going to get out there again just before nightfall; I am tired of going to bed with mosquito repellent on my ears.

This Almost Didn't Happen

I almost didn’t go. I had set the alarm for 5:30 a.m. I hadn’t slept well last night, and that time of the morning is awful early, and today would have been an ideal day to sleep in. But the sound of the little crack of dawn kept me awake, and the stillness of the past few mornings called me toward the bayou.

So I dragged my carcass out of the bed and got dressed. I grabbed a couple of Cutie Pies and a couple of bottles of water. Loaded everything into the car and hit the road to Highla—er, my “secret fishing spot”. In the growing daylight, I constantly monitored the breeze; I watched the grass at the sides of Highway 6 for the sign of increasing wind, the tops of the trees were eyeballed for any extra movement. All seemed calm for the time being.

When I arrived at the appointed spot, there was only a breath of a breeze with a slight Northerly component. I walked up the gravel road and over the levee to survey and choose my line for the day. On a whim and a bit of experienced impression, I decided to head West, into the corner. I know that the redfish tend to congregate in that spot up there, and so I set out to get into the water to wade to my destination.

At this point, I must confess that I had made the trip down to the water on Wednesday morning, which was the first time since last August. I wasn’t sure about what Ike did to my favorite spot. Would there be a lot of debris in the water? Did it change the shoreline any? Were there any dead animals in the water that I would (shudder) snag on? Worse?

I wore my long pants to protect my legs in the event of lawn furniture or a fence or something just under the surface of the water. Wednesday I chickened out. I wasn’t sure of the bottom, or anything, and when I saw a furry form in the grass at the edge of the shallow water, I froze. On closer inspection, it was small chunk of carpet rolled up. That did it, I decided to hike around to the road and fished a little on either side of the railroad track. Then I went home. The wind was strong out of the East, and the old rhyme came into my head, “Wind from the West, fishing’s the best; wind from the East, fishing’s the least.” That, coupled with the mullet playing around in the water was an indication to me that they were unconcerned with any local predators. I was unwilling to get into the high tide, up to my back pockets in the water and have to drive home in wet pants with no fish.

Today was a different story. I charged into the water on a mission. I made some casts in my trek to the corner, but had the feeling that they were in vain. I waded through the mud and the rising tide, water that was usually knee deep on me, was now at my mid-to upper thigh. Maybe Ike had something to do with that, I didn’t know. What I did know was that the regular sneakers I wore on my feet were NOT the wading shoes that I usually wore. They were neoprene with a zipper up the side and they came up past the ankle. I write of them in the past tense, for alas, they are no more. They only lasted about twelve years.

About halfway to the corner, I was pleasantly surprised by a strike on my line. I use soft plastic lures on a lead head jig. The strike was not a big “WHAM” like a redfish usually makes, yet it wasn’t a flounder, either. Turned out to be a 17 inch redfish. Under Texas law, the red drum must be between 20 and 28 inches for a fisherman to keep it. So I let it go, as prescribed by law. But my heart was light since that is what I had come for.

After nearly losing a shoe in mud up to the middle of my calf, I arrived within casting range of my target area. I sent a cast just past an old post standing in the water. My retrieve was medium speed and with a couple of yanks on the rod. In just a few seconds, the whole tone of the morning took an exciting (for me, not necessarily for you) turn.

My lure paused for a split second, then took off in a different direction. I yanked on the line hard, and the fight was on. The big fish ran like a torpedo (not actually “running” since it lacked legs) and I did my best to turn and reel him in. The fight was spectacular, with me grinning and laughing like a big idiot. At times when trying to slow his progress, my line started to sing from stretching so hard. I am impressed that it held together, but for a few seconds I was in doubt.

I finally got the fish into my net, removed from the line and put on the stringer. He was a hefty, strong and by now, tired 26 inch red drum. During the fight with the behemoth, I saw other reds take off out of the vicinity; so they WERE there!

I fished for another hour and a half, and in total, hooked 12 fish; three that I kept, five that were undersized (but very strong and vigorous fighters) and four that broke my line in several creative ways.

I have to say, fish breaking the line is not too uncommon, but I have never had four of them in one fishing trip. The first ran up on a partly submerged fencepost and broke the line. Next, one of my hook eyes broke the line that went through it (the knot was still intact when the slack line flew back in my face). The third one used his brothers on the stringer to break the line by diving beneath them at three-quarter speed. The most ingenious was the last one.

After a fierce fight, line singing, rod bent in a big “C”, me laughing and straining to keep my foe away from that fencepost (yes, that one again) the creature made a run at me. At the last second, he dodged left and ran to the fish on the stringer. I was smart enough not to let that happen again, but the angle was nearly impossible to turn a fish this strong. He ran under my stringer, turned right and circled my right leg. I felt the line through my Wranglers and eventually it gave way with a muffled “ping”.

I was only a little aggravated, it was a sizeable fish and I would have liked to put the tape measure on him before I let him go. I already had my limit of three reds on the stringer, and another big one would have just been illegal.

My Dad later asked how big that last fish was, and since he broke off, I told him it was as big as I wanted it to be. I’ll say it was 32, no 52 inches long.

The epilogue to this “best day of saltwater fishing ever” is that I cooked the big one for dinner this evening.

Twelve hundred and fifty words to say, “I had a great day and a great meal today”.

Berry Good Times

Blackberries are among my favorite forms of produce. Especially the extra large Brazos blackberries that my parents grow. They are juicy and tart, and this year there is a higher proportion of really sweet ones. Many are the size of a pigeon egg. No lie.

They are coming to the peak of their season now; a couple of gallon buckets every couple of days. I went to the Soderberg Farm and Chicken Resort and picked on Saturday after our fishing trip. My mother and Dad and I went back there with our little one-gallon buckets ready to harvest some of the easy picks. It was around noon, and the shade was gone by that time. Though it makes the berries easier to see and pick, the bright sun drains the impetus from the picker.

As the picking progressed, there were some just too full of juice to allow them to be crushed by their own family. These I had to eat immediately. I checked each one destined for the gullet, having learned my lesson too well a while back. And not one berry passes my lips without the thought of something unseen that may be in there haunting me. You see, there are bugs that lay eggs in a berry to ensure that their offspring has a great first meal. There is always the danger (read “probability”) that I am eating some insect’s progeny, but I usually justify it by allowing that the extra protein would be beneficial. And you can’t taste them. Mostly I try not to think about it.

I never even knew about the worms, and thus never worried about it with all of the dewberries that we picked when GranMommy and GranDaddy took us to the wild berry patches when we were kids. The short version is that in the spring, they would take us to San Leon near the railroad tracks and pick berries till our fingers were purple and there were gallons of dewberries ready for use. We had our little Coke case stools, buckets, hats and a snake stick, all issued by the ramrod of the operation. I remember once when I was taking a break; drinking water out of the bleach bottle under the seat of the Dart and then laying on the back seat. When I shut my eyes, I saw berry vines. And berries. Just an image burned into my retinas. And I learned that some of the berries just needed to get eaten right away. We were never scolded or admonished for this; part of the reward for stooping, crouching and kneeling in the sticker, ant and mythical snake-infested berry patch was the joy of popping in a nice, fat, perfectly ripe dewberry.

I’m sure there were larval passengers in them as well, but I never was a witness to them. These days my parents soak their berries in the buckets for ten or fifteen minutes when they bring them into the kitchen to evict the interloping worms. With a few minutes under water, the poor little guys begin to wriggle and float to the surface for a breath of air. That’s when they’re nabbed. Either plucked out and squished or simply washed (warshed) down the drain.

So we always soak the berries. When I got my parcel of about five pounds of them home Saturday, I soaked them dutifully. After the required amount of time, I checked to see how many bug children were present. My mother’s statement from a few days back, “We didn’t have hardly any when we soaked them the other day…” rang in my ears as I watched probably ten or twelve of the little buggers float to the surface. Some were small; less than an eighth of an inch. Others, however looked as though they were outside the slot limit for length governing the harvest of black bass in some Texas lakes! Writhing eels, anacondas, mostly not the pearly white of their smaller cousins, nay, these were long purple colored streamers with a heft and ominous look overall.

They weren’t really all THAT big, only about a quarter of an inch long, but still I was glad there were no game wardens in the area. You never can be too sure.

I made a great cobbler out of three cups of our little purple friends, and there are others refrigerated for eating on cereal in the morning, or just to snack on.

And I am secure in the knowledge that the rest of the big Brazos blackberries that are harvested at the Soderberg Farm are destined for delicious, worm-free blackberry jelly. This goes well on PawPaw’s angel biscuits.

Are you hungry yet?

You Call THAT Music?

What passes for music these days.
NOW I know what the geezers from my past were talking about. The music that kids listen to today barely qualifies as music.

Don’t get me wrong; there are plenty of artists out there on the popular music scene who can actually make music. John Mayer, Jason Mraz, Grace Potter, and a few others are first-rate musicians and songwriters. These guys are not the focus of this rant.

And I guess that’s what it is that bothers me so badly. A new band may actually have a decent song; tolerable lyrics, lead singer that’s not too annoyingly “urgent” and some musicians who can actually play their instruments. The most maddening detail is the drummer, pounding incessantly on the cymbal with each and every beat with no variation or sense of rhythmic patterns. Just banging on the cymbal. Sometimes through the chorus or even the verse. I hate it. I have even unwittingly ruined a band or two for my oldest daughter. Sorry. But this is a widespread problem, a disturbing trend, and the stuff of geezer chronicle.

Apparently the only requirement to be a drummer these days is to have a drum kit and a pair of sticks. Oh, and enough brain power to carry a beat. But that’s where it ends.

No more Neal Peart, Richie Hayward, Mick Fleetwood or the other greats who could play complex patterns of interesting rhythms, and keep a steady beat at the same time.

These guys were back in the day when guitar players actually played the whole way through the song, not just little breaks at the appropriate places, then a fifteen second bridge. Paul Barrere of Little Feat (a band that many have not heard of, but who were very cutting-edge and influential in the 70s) was a phenomenal guitarist whether playing lead or rhythm. Most of the songs, he is just playing behind the vocals, not just chords, but complex rhythms that are hard to hear unless you are listening with headphones or at volumes to make the neighbors a little angry.

My point is, that musicianship is getting passed over for a decent hook, over-produced music and a cute face/fancy dance moves. The old guys, and I’m going way back to Tommy Dorsey and Bob Wills, the 1930’s and 40’s, were definitely not lookers, nor did they even have singing voices that were beautiful, but they could play their respective instruments and assemble others who could technically and creatively complement them.

Now all you need is an aggressive manager and a good producer.

*Note*
I don't know the band in the picture, I just wanted to show the young, vapid musicians prowling around these days. They look like they would play the kind of tripe that I described above. For all I know, they could be the next band of geniuseses that make the Moody Blues look like a bar band. Just judging the book by the cover. Geezer stuff.

I am a Victim.

A victim of Warner Brothers cartoons, specifically Bugs Bunny. I enter into evidence the fact that Monday, while dutifully working on workish work, I was listening to Rossini’s Barber of Seville. There was a concrete job being done in the parking lot by a guy using a jackhammer.

The problem is, that even while working on workish work, my mind conjured the image of the unseen worker in the parking lot, manically wielding a giant jackhammer, with his feet coming off the ground, bouncing all around, in time to the music. Purely unintentional, but some of the pauses in his hammering coincided with the pace of the music. I was watching a cartoon in my head.

I also saw Bugs Bunny abusing poor Elmer Fudd with the mud pack on his face in the barber chair, cracking it with the chisel and hammer. Which progressed to the scalp massage, fertilizer and flowers sprouting from Elmer’s head. The chase scene in the barber chairs. And “You’re so next”…

This is my life. Fully 25% of my observations are easily relatable or reminiscent of some Warner Brothers animated situation. A quote, a picture, anything.

Everybody has a burden to bear. If mine is to be a giant 11 year-old that likes a 75 year-old rabbit, then so be it. I guess there are worse things I could be.

Like Daffy Duck. Now there’s a jerk…

Wordy Guy X

That's "X" as in "Ten", not something naughty. You guys know me better than that...

Yes, looking back, it was back in June '08 since last we heard from our Wordy Guy. Here is his latest puzzle-ette.

Answer in the comments, first correct answer in order gets bragging rights and not really much else. As if "bragging rights" for this blog is not an oxymoron. Anyhow, no cheating.

Pinnace
A. A sleeveless garment worn as an apron or a dress

B. A light sailing ship

C. A thin, light-weight saber

FINAL RESULTS
Well, knowing the author and readers of this blog, I suppose a straight answer would be outside the realm of possibility.
Innominatus seems to be the unclear winner, he confessed to looking up the answer, but his mini-narrative was hilarious. I almost prefer it to the real answer, which up until the time I read the first entry was a simple B, a light sailing ship. In fact, I am contemplating changing the rules. The entries should/might/could be accompanied by a sentence putting the word in question to good use, made up or not.

The Epic Battle

Saturday was the first day of battle. The enemy troops have been massing since a couple of days after the kittens tried to invade. There was an inch of water in out back yard for a few days; the flower beds have gotten out of hand. The gerber daisies are nearly three feet tall, the ornamental boxwood is more like an ornamental crate, the trumpet vine could open its own jazz club.

The mosquito queens did their job well. Laying thousands of eggs that hatch into millions of larvae, that metamorphose into billions of sinlge-minded bloodsuckers that waited to descend on the human population at once.

May 2 was the day of the beginning of the epic summer struggle; man vs mosquito. The mosquitoes had numbers, a hollow proboscis and an unquenchable hunger for hemoglobin.

I have a Black Flag fogger. It took a try or two to find the ammunition for it. Walmart sold out yesterday. Dang it. I went to Stanton’s and found what I was after. I got two jugs of it.

I got home and devised my battle plans. I would wait a little until the blasting South wind died down a little. My trigger finger got itchy. I needed to test the amount of propane in my weapon. It was still a bit early, and since my foe is mentally unsophisticated, I decided to chance a test fire. I filled the reservoir with my toxic ammo, opened the propane valve and heard the hollow hiss. Yes! I touched the igniter and after a quick “pop-poof”, my instrument of war was warming up. After another minute for the fogger to be fully ready, according to the directions that I read and understood, I was ready for the test firing.

The wind was still a bit strong, and knowing that the most intelligent and resourceful of my quarry liked to stay in the garage, I fogged in there first.

Great, it worked. Worked really well, as a matter of fact. So I loaded the agave plant with smoke. I just rounded the corner and fogged along the side in front of the gate. The wind was lower over there, lets just see what will happen along the side of the house. The mosquitoes rose in clouds to meet me in combat. I squeezed the trigger and sent forth a beautiful plume of poison. I could see the silhouettes of my enemy against the white haze.

None of them dropped immediately, that would have been very rewarding, and I should not have gone after individual fliers since they don’t immediately succumb. A couple of the bravest got a puff to themselves anyhow. The back yard, with all the vegetation and shielded from the as yet strong breeze beckoned me forward. I sprayed the daisies, the caladiums, the trumpet vine. I even sprayed the cracks in the deck.

I continued around the house, and then to the front yard, and the neighbors’ yards. The sense of purpose that drove me around was very fulfilling. So fulfilling, in fact, I repeated the entire exercise when the wind did die down. And I plan on repeating it this evening as well.

Our little winged enemy, small though it may be, comes in innumerable throngs. Culicidae is the army, the divisions are many; Aedes, Culex, Anopheles. Some are small and aggressive, others are large and frightening. They all must die.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, “I will fight them in the front yard, I will fight them in the backyard, I will fog under the deck and under the shed, I will never surrender, I will never give up.”

Yet ANOTHER Swine Flu Alert, Really.

Yes, you have all no doubt heard about the swine flu and the attending symptoms and panic warnings. The news media is constantly mining the scientific journals and secret medical networks for any other information that will protect the public from this insidious and frightening illness.

The indications are similar to and include the normal flu symptoms of fever, lethargy, lack of appetite, coughing, runny nose, and sore throat, the porcine version may also incorporate nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.

Yuck. You only thought you didn't want this stuff. It gets worse.

Further medical sleuthing by yours truly has unearthed yet other warning signs that the swine flu has been contracted. Some indicators the alert patient may notice are:
• in game situations, hogging the ball increases
• in social situations, hogging attention and even hogging the camera intensifies
• melancholy at the smell of bacon or pork chops cooking
• aching in the ribs when hickory smoke is detected
• Snorting/oinking when coughing/sneezing

Please be aware of these symptoms in addition to the regular discomforts. While serious and certainly nasty, for the most part this illness is not fatal, but I hear that by the middle of the second day, you'll wish it was.

As an added precaution, please gargle after any display of affection from a pig, hog, boar or even javalina. (While the last is not technically a swine, it has a generally malevolent disposition and will likely bite your face off after it pretends to want to give you a nice peck on the cheek. Your nose will likely be running, but not from congestion. More like running for the border after being removed from your face.)

Just be careful out there. I can't afford to lose any more readers.

That is all...stay well.

Cat Update: Happy Ending!

Well, the kitties did indeed get re-rescued by their biological mother. While she didn’t knock on the door she did come back for the kids. My girls are bummed, but I am relieved.

We left the kittens out in their box lid and let mama cat overcome her shyness; she did come and gather them back up. Every time we went out last evening to check on them, all I could see were a pair of eyes glowing from the bushes in the beam of my flashlight.

I went out this morning and got the puddin' scared out of me when the black mama cat jumped and hissed at me like some wild, evil spirit flying from the shadows. Lucky I didn't kick her over the fence. Of course, that's hard to do when you're jumping backward with chill-bumps colliding with each other all over your body! She had obviously secured her progeny and for some reason was returning to the scene, possibly to make sure the mittens were recovered as well.

Ms. Kitty had a home under our shed anyhow, I think. We had a frog-strangler rain on Saturday and I think that they just got displaced temporarily. My 13 year-old found them before the mom got back with her FEMA voucher.

I am, once again, a free man. No kittens in the house, no cat food to buy, and hopefully, the family will control the “abundant wildlife” that is in the neighborhood. Sometimes this wildlife finds its way into our attic or pantry. If these cats are going to illegally squat under my shed, they need to make themselves useful. Especially after the fright that mama gave me this morning.

Dang cat.

Dang Cats

Driving home from church in my middle daughter’s car, her in the passenger seat, my youngest called with the news that she found two kitties in the back yard.

Great.

The youngest didn’t go to church this morning because she didn’t feel very good. Well, she apparently felt good enough just before noon to slosh around in our rain-soaked backyard to find these wayward little cats. Actually, the dogs found them.

They’re fat little things, not like they have been neglected and abandoned. Most likely the mom had a batch of them under our shed, and the rain drove them out.

The girls have already taken them in, made a box/bed for them and laid claim to each one. Oh. My. Gosh. They’re getting ready to go to WallyWorld, I think, to further celebrate the coming of the feline children.

I am hoping to see a mama cat come knocking at the door looking for her lost kittens. I imagine her showing tiny mittens that she had been knitting for just these-sized kittens to prove that she is indeed the parent.

Whether the mother cat comes to request the children from foster care or not, I feel like this won’t be the last you will read about these little animals.

The cats. I meant the cats.

Golden Memories

Memory is a funny thing, especially for the geezer. For the important things; an onion, toilet paper, paper towels, angel hair pasta, butter and ummmm, what else was I supposed to get?, the memory is an unreliable sense at best.

But for the “unimportant” things; the smell of “vampire blood” that you got for Halloween, what that girl’s favorite headband looked like, the feeling of the sand eroding in fast motion from under your feet and hands as the Gulf waves recede from the beach, the memory is a beautiful, golden picture frame.

We all had great times when we were 16 or 17 when we were at our best. Those days stick in our heads more tenaciously than the grocery list or, in certain situations, the correct names of our children.

My old buddy Charley D. up in Oregon has a blog, Skippin’ Rocksand there resides a series of posts, four to be exact, that start to chronicle the beginnings of his love of playing music. I need all of you fellow geezers, and interested non-geezers, to go over in a couple of spare minutes and read Charley’s thoughts.

Cereal. It was cereal that I was supposed to get. Cap'n Crunch. Yeah.
UPDATE
Be sure to scroll all the way down to the very first section, or you'll miss the beginning of the story, and obviously that's pretty important!