Where Do Bumblebees Sleep?

Stop worrying yourself silly. Biting your cuticles bloody and missing sleep at night is no way to live. You look like a cast member of “The Living Dead” clutching your morning coffee. It's not healthy for you to spend all your time worrying about where bumblebees sleep!

So I’ll tell you right now and we’ll put an end to this thing.

Most of them sleep in nests. Small nests that can be anywhere: an abandoned birds nest, in the woodpile next to the back stairs, maybe under the wet couch out on the porch next to that rusted old Pepsi cooler you've been planning  to renovate for over three years. 

But not these guys. There are rogues out there.Those are the manly bumblebees. They live outside the nest, often falling asleep right at dinner when the sun starts to go down and cooler air causes their wing muscles to slow. In late summer, they’ll sleep on the last flower they landed on the night before, much like my old roommate in college.

As the sun comes back up again, still groggy from drinking too much nectar, they may stumble around a bit and wonder what the hell happened to them last night.  Pet them if you want, they almost never sting. Soon enough though, after a few good shoulder shrugs and push-ups, they are ready to do it all over again.

Lifting slowly from their brightly colored launch pads, they resemble heavy dirigibles more than real flying machines. Then a light breeze helps to lift them and off they go, already thinking about another party tonight, and a belly full of nectar.

Hurricane Matthew, Gone But Not forgotten...

 

Now that Matthew is no longer huffing, puffing and trying to blow our doors down, we’ve returned to sunny tranquility.

Cool and breezy with a welcome nip. 

As is often the case with insensitive thugs, Matthew left a mess behind. Too many houses fill the street with their water-damaged first floor possessions thrown unceremoniously into piles, ready for a ride to the dump. Long serpentine piles of reeds and trash mark high water flood lines. Beaches are littered with large clumps of vegetation, wave smashed tumbleweeds held together with fishing line, clutching bits of broken Styrofoam.

We were lucky, just a bit of roof damage, now marked 24/7 by two blowers drying the damp ceiling plywood while a refrigerator sized dehumidifier sucks water from the air and sends it down a clear hose that runs out the doggie door and into the yard.

It’s business as usual for us again. An omelet stuffed with fresh spinach and sharp American with a cup of very black Colombian coffee was on the breakfast menu for me. Chica and Rufus got bits of cheap hot dog, torn off and lobbed in high arcs, testing their catching and sitting skills.

We all took a walk, spotting a Great Blue Heron as he caught his breakfast sashimi in the lake shallows. A pair of Anhingas swam undetected beneath the dark surface of the lake, heads and necks breaching suddenly like snakes looking for heaven to save them from electrified waters. Apparently my favorite Garden spider weathered the storm. She was back this morning for the first time, perched in the center of a new web, anchored among the Cattails, also enjoying breakfast in the sun, rhythmically sucking the life-juice from a fat web-encased fly, that certainly should have chosen the road not taken.

Edged Weapons...

Edged Weapons. Even the name captivates me. My fascination has been primal and organic for as long as I can remember. It was my junior year in high school when my parents went to Europe on a cruise with friends and asked what I wanted them to bring back as a present for being a good boy in their absence and staying out of jail. My only request was for an Italian switch blade knife. You’ve seen them a thousand times in cheesy gangster movies, all shiny pointed blades that jump out of their frames with the push of a button. They’re crappy knives, cheap as hell, but they were the gold standard for “sinister” back in the day. “No way” was my mother’s first reaction to my request, but my irritating promotion of the idea teamed up with her considerable guilt at not taking me along, got me what I wanted. 

Of course, Mom was afraid, despite my constant reassurances that I would lock it away and never even look at it, someone would get stabbed. She was right. I was that someone. My dear older brother, Kenny, borrowed my switchblade and stuffed it down his back pocket just prior to deciding to see for the 1,000th time if there was any way in hell that I could out-wrestle him. I never initiated those matches, simply doing my best to survive. He always won, but that particular time it was by stabbing me. Unintentionally, yes, but the blade buried itself about two inches into my right thigh when the push button got pressed during my desperate contortions, sad attempts to get the fuck out of some kind of sleeper hold.

Mom found out and smashed that particular knife on the garage floor with a sledgehammer the next afternoon. Thanks, Kenny. You penis head.

These days, it’s all about utility for me. Jeweled knives with gold inlays that are more works of the jeweler’s art than down and dirty fighters, leave me cold. From spears to fixed blades, long knives or close fighters, I look for great steel, heat treated and cryogenically processed, with embraceable, practical designs. Tactical folders are my favorites, with automatics at the top of the list.  

Thirty years ago when I first started a serious collection, custom knives were kings. “Production” or “manufactured” knives were still too crude and old-school to stand out. They were stuck in a time warp, doing the same things that they always had done with little innovation. That stagnancy gave rise to the custom makers who did everything themselves from design to assembly. Tolerances were tight, scales fit frames with the closest precision, blades deployed with the quality of the opening and closing of the door on a Ferrari 458.

As with cars themselves, manufacturing techniques evolved. Now, with laser cut blades and frames, carbon fiber and other sophisticated materials, manufactured knives offer the same great quality as custom, at a quarter of the price. See that knife on the far left? It’s new. Designed by my favorite custom maker, Alan Elishewitz, but produced in a collaboration with a high-end manufacturer, Hogue Knives. A 5" folder with a black finish G-Mascus red lava G10 frame, perfectly fitted to a 154CM Stainless Steel upswept blade that has been Cryogenically treated and bathed in an extremely durable, non-reflective, black Certakote. It’s a total thing of beauty, flawless and sharp as hell, that would cost every bit of $1,200. from Alan himself but is less than a quarter of that from Hogue Knives.

I know I said that automatics are my favorites, but now I’m thinking about one-handed openers, and some sweet neck and ankle knives I have. Oh well, they can wait until the next “show and tell”. The bottom line is that as is true with so many things that evolve, personal use tactical knives have come a long way, baby.

Hannah Time

We all love our kids, why wouldn’t we? Hopefully, they represent the best we had to offer as parents. We can claim a bit of ownership to wash down with our dose of pride.

Hannah is visiting right now. I used to say that spending time with her was like being sealed in a jar with a beautiful hornet. Colorful and scary. But, to my surprise, she has changed a bit, focused her energy. She brought Pablo, I was eager to meet him. When I had asked Ruth about this guy that Hannah was making good sounds about, for the first time in her life, Ruth told me that he was” “kind of quiet, very smart, and sweet” That sounded good to me, and I was just glad that apparently Hannah hadn’t done a Black Widow thing and eaten his head after mating.

There is a phone call I particularly remember Hannah taking when she was about 14 or so. Some unwitting, innocent boy called to ask her out to a concert or an event of some kind. All I got was her side of the conversation, of course, but it didn’t allow for much feedback from the other end of the line. She said: “If I want to go to that fucking concert, or any fucking concert, I certainly don’t need anyone to “take me” anywhere. I can take myself.” Then she promptly hung up on the poor guy. For years she seemed to think that men are pond scum, and I couldn’t really disagree. I kind of thought: “So what’s your point?” Now, at age 29, she loves nesting, being back in the States for the first time in 8 years, living in San Diego, and having a great friend, lover, and base who is happy to take instructions from a bossy flier. 

As in their relationship, Pablo is her “base” in their Acroyoga practice, Hannah is the “bossy flier” and I wouldn’t expect anything less. Credentialed in many different forms of yoga, and Acroyoga which is a combination of yoga and acrobatics Hannah is passionate about her practice, spending many hours with it every day.   On Instagram., she offers insightful tips and lifestyle choices, along with, videos, and stills. Some 150,000 followers currently help her build her brand, but that number is growing by some 10,000/month. Savvy companies promote their products, in this case yoga and health stuff, by giving their products to Instagram personalities with a substantial following. All her yoga gear and most of her clothing is free, sent to her with the hope that she will plug it if she likes it. Hannah has started to push the numbers, recognizing the fact that higher numbers mean bigger rewards. Three days ago one of her videos went viral in Russia of all palaces, enhanced with Russian subtitles and racking up at last count, well over a million views.

I’m impressed, but you know what? I all of us that are parents or grandparents, are impressed by the kids, that’s just the way it works. Oh, and when they are grown and come for a visit, we shut out almost everything else in our world and focus on them with an intensity and clarity that very likely escaped us when they were young.

I’m so happy to have some Hannah time. I know you understand.

Innocence Lost

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The experience of my first orgasm was quite similar to the first time I got addictively high. Both were magical, special beyond words, private new secret treasures that caused me to immediately realize that new doors had not only been opened, but they led to places that I would eagerly seek out and embrace for the rest of my life. At least with chasing the orgasms anyway. Both experiences were something that I knew existed but had no idea that they could be so damn good.

In the cool, drape-shaded quiet of the ground floor guest room at my Grandparents country house, I stripped off my wet bathing suit. After having been wrapped in that chafing dampness all afternoon down by the pond, it was an exhilarating and overdue liberation, to kick that wet fabric loose. Fishing, boating, swimming off the dock, I wallowed for hours in heaven for a twelve-year-old boy. Grandma had gone into town to shop at the Safeway store, Grandpa was out in his shop using his router on a big slab of mahogany he’d had shipped in from somewhere in South America. Mandy was in the furnace room, sulking.

That guest room had its own bathroom complete with a large linen closet. The shelves were stuffed with a lot of Grandpa’s shaving stuff and overflow from his main bathroom upstairs off their master bedroom. Of course I had gone through everything, examining all the items an older man may collect along the way. Suppositories, electric shaver lotion, clippers, razors, extra soaps, shampoos and toilet paper. Three shelves stuffed with towels.  I had discovered that the heavy black cardboard box held a vibrator though, a “scalp massager” the enclosed pamphlet called it. I had no reason to think differently. But when I visualized that closet, my mind’s eye focused on that black box.

On that particular afternoon, I stood looking at my skinny twelve-year-old body in the full length mirror as I massaged my shriveled, hairless dick. It just felt good and the eroticism wasn’t lost on me. Curious how that scalp massager would feel when pressed into the service of my scrawny nakedness, I brought out the black box, placing it gently on the double bed, lifting the lid carefully as I did.  Plugging it in and going back to the mirror, my vibrating hand immediately went to that little turtle head that had never really had a life of its own. Almost immediately, the damn thing started to swell and stand straight up, one horizontal eye pointing back at me in the mirror as it defiantly declared its own independence. “Look at me! I’m stiff with pride and won’t take no for an answer!” OK, fine with me, I thought. Let’s see where this goes.

That vibrator was as demanding as the mouth of a seasoned old prostitute looking for a quick twenty bucks. The tingling started in my legs, a mild electrical charge that ran from toes to navel, making concentric circles that pulsed and narrowed as they intensified. Waves of pleasure arched my back and pushed my new best friend forward with an unfamiliar urgency that would only be satisfied one way. It was one of those things where you don’t consciously know what’s happening but when it is that spectacular, you just enjoy the ride without the clutter of thought. Orgasm hit me as if the hand of god had grabbed me, revealing himself with an epiphany that excited and rattled every molecule of my being.

Much like the first time I freebased cocaine thirteen years later, all I wanted was more. Unlike that coke though, this orgasm stuff was legal, forced me to wait in between doses, didn’t empty my bank account, and didn’t cause the heart of a good friend to suddenly stop working while sitting around our poker table, and refuse to ever beat again.

Hurricane!

Excitement is in the air here in North Florida. You can cut it with a knife. The Fall hurricane hysteria is one of our favorite times of the year. It’s like the buildup to a big game day. Everyone is buzzing. At the gas stations, serpentine lines of thirsty cars and trucks circle parking lots and block the entrance to all stores in the area that we need to get into. Grocery and home improvement stores are doing a record business in bottled water, batteries, food, candles, all the necessary supplies. And liquor stores (so I’m told) are emptying their shelves. People can’t “stock” enough alcohol. It’s what we do, not that we drink all that, but we need it on hand in case of emergency. Like in the old westerns when a guy gets gut shot, the Doc can dig the bullet out but will need plenty of hot water and some whisky to pour on the wound. We become desperate for booze when a hurricane is looming down on us. The traffic at the Shores Discount Liquors store, shares a common urgency, as if it was just announced that prohibition will be the law of the land again starting this Friday. Put down those plywood window panels and run to the liquor store! Heck, enough adult beverages and people won’t care if half of the house blows into the neighbor’s yard anyway.

The local weather man has his sleeves rolled up on camera, sending a clear message that he’s serious about this thing and has been working hard throughout the night to help keep us safe. He’s so beyond ecstatic about all of this that he has to bite his lip bloody just to appear somber, grinning like a fool wouldn’t be appropriate. That small drop of blood at the corner of his mouth is a dead giveaway. This is his Christmas week countdown. He couldn’t be more delighted. It’s a win-win for him. If the hurricane passes us by, he gets a pat on the back for keeping us in the loop, if it hits hard, he gets the same for warning us to be prepared. Like a fireman, everybody loves him, and he’s elated to get some serious air time too.

Right now, people are throwing prayers all over the place. Prayers are flying around like hurricane debris. That stuff works, right? Maybe it would be more effective to remind folks to put their trash cans away, or fill the gas tank, but that wouldn’t carry the same degree of resigned (all hope is lost unless God suspends the laws of nature and intervenes on our behalf) desperation. Certainly we’ll get lots of “thoughts and prayers” from friends up North, just like we sent to them when snowstorms shut everything down last winter. Thoughts and prayers say you care without having to actually lift a finger, much easier to send than a card, or one of those edible fruit bouquets. Probably safer than that fruit thing actually, it may look delicious but it was assembled by two very pleasant minimum wage workers who both have bad colds.

In the last twenty-five years of living in North Florida, the only trouble we’ve had personally was losing electricity when high winds blew a tree branch down over the electric lines to our house. We checked into a local motel that is across the street from our favorite shrimp place. That was fun. The dogs stayed home with the run of the house and yard, doggie door flapping constantly with their excited ins and outs. We stopped by every afternoon to feed them whatever was thawing out in the freezer. They lived on creamy chicken with noodles, beef burgundy, a few steaks, some crock pot dishes I had portioned out and frozen. It was dog heaven.

Our dogs pretty much have the same “all the rules are out the window” hurricane mentality as we do. Its barely raining but Chicca took it as a sign to go ahead and drop a mini turd pile on the oriental carpet in the great room, I can smell it, but that intricate pattern hides the location of her gifts perfectly. I guess I’ll go get my flashlight and put my head down on the floor as I shine the beam back and forth, lighthouse style, looking for a turd ship on the horizon. That’s the only way I can spot them.

But first? Some hurricane coffee. There’s nothing special about it, but we’re in a 48-hour window which demands that everything be preceded by the word “hurricane”. Maybe after my hot cup of hurricane coffee I’ll drop a few hurricane turds on the oriental rug myself. Like I said, all the rules are out the taped-up windows.

I better go check on the safety of my reserve of hurricane vodka though. Above all else, family pictures and valuables, it must be protected. Who knows when I may need to pour alcohol on a gaping wound… or into my last glass of hurricane ice?