Batchelor Daze..

Twice a week, 127 pre-teen boys flooded through the double glass doors smelling of sweat, sugar syrup, and dirty laundry. As soon as school was over, they came to turn in their collections from the days prior. Uninvited, they would dump the contents of their pockets onto my desk. Piles of sticky change mixed with Bazooka gum wrappers, rubber bands, bottle tops, lint balls… One boy had a large, very dead, dung beetle that I particularly admired.

After the counting, sorting and applying of credit, pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters all got stacked into paper rolls that I’d walk down to the plaza at Lake Anne and deposit at our bank with Mrs. Worsham at the window. Her boy was one of my boys. Once the chaos of the kids had died down, I would update the “boards” to indicate who sold what and how many papers they should get on their next delivery. It was always a tricky balance between having enough to go around and avoiding waste.

I finished with college, had my English/Psychology degree in hand, and was well qualified to be in charge of newspaper circulation, or pretty much any other job that required no specific skills whatsoever. But it was all good with me. I was loving life, sharing a four story town-home on the lake that was only five minutes away with three other bachelors.

We were all in our late twenties, and lived to party.

The guys had girlfriends who had their own places. No live-in girls allowed. Most of the girls had dogs and could cook, so after work was over, we convened at our place for a daily celebration of …a daily celebration. Music, food, beer, dogs, doobies…what, me worry? On sunny days the party was down at the lake with multiple rafts and inner tubes strapped together into a flotilla of fun. The boom box and cooler had their own central raft, the joints a waterproof container.

The party lasted four years.

Then Carla got a job with the paper doing classified adds. She was only 20, and cute as hell. Bright, articulate, unguarded, innocent. A Catholic girl. My ex-girlfriend and I had broken up. We each had a fling with people we didn’t care about, got back together for a week and accused each other of bringing crabs into the relationship, and yes Mrs. Doubtfire, I don’t mean Dungeness.

None of it mattered anymore. Carla was everything I wasn’t and I was hopelessly mesmerized. There was never a choice. I had to have her, be with her, spend long hours talking, and then letter writing when I went off to grad school.

She lived a stream-of-consciousness life, always in the moment. I was a planner, knowing what I would do, when and how. She had no embarrassment button. I cared to much about what others thought. Carla was up for anything, just jumping in the car without asking where we were going. Let’s just go.

She was frustrating and charming, and never, ever boring.

That was 42 years, two daughters, and seven houses ago. This morning she finally came to bed around 4am after being up all night as is her norm. We got close, talked a bit, me waking, her fading. Polar opposites. 

I as crazy about her now as much as I was back then. Probably more.

I love my life, always have, but I sure wouldn’t mind a little of that party time flashback in a townhouse by a lake so many years ago...with Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Brown singing just for us.

Retablos...

I brought these retablos here today for Show-N-Tell. They belonged to my Grandparents, George and Ruth Maverick.

Grandma and Grandpa grew up together in San Antonio, TX, with close ties to Mexico and its beautiful culture. I remember seeing these in their house when I was a kid. They had them forever. Now they collect dust on my own bookcase. I’ve had them forever too.

Aside from any religious, cultural or artistic significance, they comfort me. When I look at them, I see George and Ruth, and feel just a tiny bit like they never left.

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A retablo in Mewxican folk art is a devotional painting,  using iconography derived from traditional Catholic church art. Small retablos are devotional or votive paintings, often on rectangular sheets of tin that illustrate holy images such as Christ, the Virgin Mother, or one of the hundreds of saints.

 

Comfort Zone...

My daughters stand on the same soapbox, side by side, pontificating about the benefits of leaving my comfort zone. “Dad, you can’t make any progress unless you do.” They warn me.

I’m thinking: “What progress?”.  It took me a long time to get here and it feels pretty damn good now that I have. At this point I’m not looking for a new job or house or, god forbid, a new wife. I can’t handle the one I’ve got.

The only spiritual enlightenment I look forward to will be when I cross the rainbow bridge, to follow all my dogs. Twenty years from now, thank you.

My Idea of wild and crazy is to go somewhere other than Ned’s Southside for dinner.

Like most people my age, if you stuck me in the freezer and cut me in half, you would find lots of rings. Concentric circles that tell of rapid growth and some briefly dormant times. The point is, I’ve worked a bunch of different jobs, bottom to top. Seven houses, six different career paths.

Having tried the bed that was too hard and the one that was too soft, I’ve found the one that is just right.

Now you’re telling me to get up and look elsewhere? For a different bed? Are you nuts?

OK, I’m not dead though and I did switch it up. I got out of my comfort zone.

Having always been a gym guy, my most recent morning routine has been at the local Planet Fitness. It’s only 9 minutes from home, big, spacious, friendly. I often see friends there, some of whom I used to see at other gyms before Planet Fitness opened 8 years ago.I have a history. But last week, in San Diego with Ruth, we went every morning to her big, new gym. I loved the latest & greatest equipment and decided to look around here for the same stuff.

The bottom line? After eight years, I quit Planet Fitness and joined Anytime fitness down the street. Smaller, cleaner, newer, less crowded, and equipped with the exact machines I was looking for.

Sweet!

You see girls, I CAN leave my comfort zone, especially when I find an even more comfortable zone, that is.

This morning I finished my workout, loving the treadmills and elliptical machines with attached TV screens that I control myself. No more FOX NEWS blaring at me from overhead and people nodding their heads in agreement at how badly The Donald is being treated.

At 6:30 there was a class going on in its own area, but I was the only person out on the floor. That made me very happy.

Oh, and Ruth and Hannah? In my comfort zone departure, I did make real progress: I left the parking lot of Anytime Fitness at 7:31 and pulled into my driveway at 7:32!

You were right, cutting my commute down from nine minutes to one is real progress. My comfort zone just got more comfortable.

But we’re still going to Ned’s for dinner tonight.

Some Girls Do.

3:12AM.

Back home again. Couldn’t sleep. Guess Carla couldn’t either. She just came out half dancing in an old T-shirt, shaking her finger at me and stating emphatically: “I ain’t first class but I ain’t white trash!”

I asked her if she was wild and a little crazy too.

It’s all from an earwig Ruth planted two days ago. A hokey Sawyer Brown song from 1992, “Some Girls do”. I didn’t like it then and still don’t but it won’t stop looping in my noggin.

Every time we went out somewhere over the last week, Ruth played a nasty 90’s country pop station in her nice new Volvo. She sang along and knew all the words. It seemed so out of character that I asked her when in her life she had wallowed in that stuff.

I was embarrassed for her.

She grew up on Clapton, Jackson, Bonnie, Emmylou, maybe some George Jones or Merle thrown in that she picked up from nights when I was drinking beer and playing bad keyboard.

But Sawyer Brown? Really? And that song?

“Well I ain't first class
But I ain't white trash
I'm wild and a little crazy too
Some girls don't like boys like me
Aw but some girls do”

You know, you do your best with the kids, try to teach them right from wrong, but sometimes, somewhere, they just go bad.

I tried, I really did and I assumed nobody really liked that song, 

aw but some girls do

Nalu to the Rescue...

It was too dark and drizzly to open my back doors, no sun to shine in anyway. But even so, I could hear singing coming from the back yard. A chorus, acapella stuff.

"Swing low, sweet chariot
Coming for to carry me home
Swing low, sweet chariot
Coming for to carry me home
Coming for to carry me home

I looked over Jordan, what did I see
Coming for to carry me home
A band of angels coming after me
Coming for to carry me home"

Dark and slow, the voices in unison…coming for me?

That particular band of angles all glared in my direction when I stepped out to investigate.

Shitburgers!

I did a U-turn and reached high over the entry door.

Head-banger in hand, and back out on the patio, I squared off: “OK you black-hearted life scavengers, let’s do this!”

But it never came to that. Just when I had braced myself for the attack, Nalu came from inside.

A Golden streak.

Different music started to swell: The William Tell Overture, Lone Ranger music!

Nalu paused at my feet, looking up. He said confidently: “Hold my beer. I got this.”

He made short work of that committee, nipping at flying feet like his tennis ball in the air.

Afterward, lying next to me, his blond fur covered my feet. Looking down, my toes were encased in "dem Golden Slippers".

That’s when I knew I was already in heaven and that those carrion eaters would just have to put on their big boy bibs and go look elsewhere for a wake buffet to crash.  

Who's A Good Girl?

 

Yes, I’m crazy about my wife and think my kids walk on water. Most of my friends excite and challenge me, and generally accept me for who I am, warts and all. But no one, ever, is as hopelessly devoted, or as ecstatically in love with me, or outright thrilled, to do whatever I want, together, anywhere, anytime, as this little mutt. 

You may well have one of your own like this.

Chica studies me, stares at my face for clues. She alerts if I raise an eyebrow, and knows the sound of the lower right vegetable drawer in the fridge. That’s where I keep the cheap hot dogs. Dog treats. She usually begins staring at the outside door, ten minutes before Carla gets home from work, and hears me putting on jeans to go outside from two rooms away.

Let’s go somewhere fun! Everywhere is fun. Want to go for a ride, maybe take a hike down the trail at Moses Creek Preserve? Want to just kick back, have a lazy day and watch a show or play with your iPhone? I’ll lie on top of your chest and make sure your heart is beating properly. I like your breath. Want me to go to the grocery store with you? I’ll keep your seat warm. Do you want to march into a live volcano, a den of snakes, or even certain death? OK, great, I’m your girl! And at night, when you slip off and softly walk into the bedroom and slide under the sheets, I’ll hear the comforter move and I’ll be there for you, with you.

That’s our routine. Chica mysteriously hears me slip almost silently into bed and comes running, even out of her own deep dreams in the other room. She jumps up and tries to get close to my face to kiss me. I say: “No girl. Go down there” as I lift the comforter for her to crawl down under it and sleep at the foot of the bed. If I get up to pee, she happily shakes the covers off and runs in with me, just to make sure I’m alright. In the morning, we get up together and share light conversation while I make coffee. She doesn’t care what the subject is as long as I’m happy with it. That’s the important thing.

Everything, 100%, all the time, 24-7. This dog is next to me, on me, or staring at me. If I look at the TV, she’s got her back to it, looking at me, always reading my body language like a skilled behaviorist. She often knows what I’m going to do before I know myself.

So bright, so alert and perceptive. Yet she doesn’t recognize her own reflection in a mirror or have any concept of the fact that someone built the chair we’re sitting in. No real concept of time, other than this time right now.

How can this odd, adoring little animal be so smart and so oblivious to many things that I think matter? Maybe I’m the one with stinkin thinkin. They don’t burden themselves with a lot of worries about stuff that never happens anyway, they just enjoy the moment. Idiot savants perhaps. I don’t know, but I’m jealous.

And actually, humans are the dumb ones anyway. We think we’re superior to all other life forms on this blue marble, but maybe we should take a look around at what a mess we make of it all, including our own environment. Even dogs don’t like to shit in their own yard. Humans act so smug and superior, like we’re the be all and end all. Years ago, we were amazed to find that animals are able to use tools. That was a major discovery back in the day, a big deal, but we now know that lots of them do. It’s like the standardized testing in schools. We only measure a very limited spectrum. But even at that, crows can unlock ten different puzzles they’ve never seen before to get a treat. They’re smarter than half of my Facebook friends, and I’m firmly in the wrong half of that crowd. We think it’s so cute and charming that a dog can do tricks. Roll over, stay, play dead, but they can do one hell of a lot more than that, know more than we do, and will probably survive the holocaust long after humans, the smart mammals, have wiped ourselves off the face of the Earth. We’ll be the ones playing dead, permanently.

Dogs will survive, evolve, and probably wind up making their own damn hot dog treats. Maybe a crow or two will help get the factory started. They’re good at figuring out stuff like that.

How Was It Prepared?

While visiting Cartagena, we couldn’t help but notice how the street dogs in Columbia really know how to work a crowd. Savvy, cautious, independent survivors, thin but not starving. They live an unfettered life marked by handouts from the passing crowd and deep sleep on sunlit stoops. I bought a bag of fresh rolls, just for them. A large, shaggy Shepherd mix approached me openly as I waved a bun and called out to him. Taking it immediately into his mouth, he promptly spit it back out, staring at it on the ground as if daring it move. I picked it up and offered it again, he took it and spit it out. Given the number of mom & pop bread shops that are so common on every street, I realized that bread must be the most frequent donation the canine beggars get. This guy wanted something more substantial, eggs, meat, cheese... Some kind of protein. Please, enough with the bread already! He wandered away. Four more dogs came and went, all rejecting the bread. None appeared to be starving, all just working the procession of bodies as they walked up and down the narrow tourist street. The dogs were pros, particular about just what kind of donations they would take.

Back at home, Carla and I had a late lunch on St George Street, the main pedestrian drag for tourists visiting St Augustine. As we walked back to our car, maneuvering slowly through the crowd, Styrofoam leftovers in hand, I spotted a familiar homeless guy lounging on a sunlit stoop by the Coquina wall of the “Oldest Schoolhouse in the USA”. He's a regular at that spot, living off the generosity of the passing parade. I realized that since I hadn't touched my Shrimp dinner, it would be a special meal for the homeless guy, lying with his head propped up on one elbow. “Would you like a nice shrimp dinner? I haven't touched it!” Looking a bit like that shaggy Shepherd mix who spit out the bun, and without taking the Styrofoam from my outstretched hand, the homeless guy looked up at me and asked: “How was it prepared?” 

The guy is a pro, particular about just what kind of donation he would take.

No Place Like Home

We picked her up first-thing on the way back from the airport.

Shooting into the house like a seed from a squeezed tomato, her joyful mood suddenly turned serious when she said: "There’s no place like home. You must promise to never go away again!”

I reassured her: “I’ll try girl, at least it won’t be for a very long time if I do.”

But she didn’t hear me at all. She was too busy running from place to place, finding all the bones she had left behind before her abrupt incarceration. Piling them up in her bed, all only half chewed, we both knew she had a lot of bone cleaning work to do before morning.

The sounds of her gnawing, happily snuggled down on the big green dog pillow, her tail slapping a steady beat, caused me to echo Dorothy's words. to myself as well:

It's true, there's no place like home.

Home Invasion!

A raging beast smashed his way through my front door and into the house, wielding a heavy ax.

Running to investigate, I had little time to react before he took a swing. He mistakenly thought I was properly dispatched when he hacked open my head, scalp to chin.

No dummy, I remembered the Planarian worms I dissected in summer school all those years ago...how they grew two heads when similarly split.

I followed their lead.

Now with two heads and four eyes, I offered the hacker my right arm, then my left. He hacked, I regenerated...times two.

It's true that two heads are better than one, and four arms better yet.

I out-hacked the hacker at his own game, turned the tide of battle, dispatched him with extreme prejudice, and probably saved thousands of fellow townspeople from a similar fate.

Who would have thought those summer school classes could be such a life-saver all these years later?

Now I'm just worried about having to cut extra arm holes into my work shirts.

Fortunately, I already own plenty of hats.

One Never Knows, Do One?

Most of us who have been married or in a relationship for a long time think we know our partner pretty darn well. Right? We know their favorite foods and the restaurants that serve them. We know the music they want to listen to on the way there. 

We understand how they feel about politics and religion, where they stand on child rearing and how to share a bathroom peacefully, without any messy bloodshed.

We each have our own side of the bed. It’s the law.

How do we empty the toothpaste tube, roll it up tightly from the bottom or just squeeze away?

What’s the best way to stack dishes in the dishwasher? Is there a right way and a wrong way? What do we need from the grocery store? Did you make a list? Should we hang wet clothes on the line or just throw them in the dryer?

Rules for child rearing and work sharing are big items but most disagreements are over the little stuff. You know, is the roll of TP supposed to drape over the top or stick out from the bottom?

She signs my name on most documents and I open her mail.

But is it really OK to simply eat that last piece of Chocolate Truffle Pie or do I need to ask first? I don't want to get hurt.

If you’ve been at this a while though, you already know the answer.

Carla and I are in our 42nd year together, at this point you can ask me anything. I know what she wants and what she’ll say.

For the last 18 years we’ve lived near the beach. We love to take the dogs for long walks. They run in and out, sand and surf. We love the views, the places to eat nestled in the dunes. Everything about it is awesome...but the water itself? Not so much.

Carla and I don’t surf, boat, fish or swim. The water is too deep, too dark, and full of things with very sharp teeth that eat toes in one snap like a cluster of live calamari.

We’re not water people. Hell, I don’t even like water in my drinks.

So when my boyhood friend, David, came to town hauling the Boston Whaler that he built by hand, we admired it greatly, complimented his carpentry skills endlessly, and knew, without question, that neither of us would ever actually be in the thing, on actual water.

Maybe, maybe, maybe David would be able to shame me, get me out there in his homemade boat by mocking my manhood, suggesting that I have low testosterone levels. OK, that’s possible, but Carla? No way.

She would never, ever, go out on deep water in that thing. I know the lady. No way, no how.

Then when I went off to work one Tuesday while David was visiting, this happened.

As Fats Waller once famously said: “One never knows, do one?”

No Fats, I guess not…

Bottled Gold...

A friend gave me a jar of his home-made Limoncello for Christmas. Vodka with lemon zest that infuses for a week of nuptial bliss, with simple syrup added to finish. Perfect. I usually drink straight vodka shots from the freezer with a chaser of fruit juice but that gift got me thinking. I remembered the flavored vodkas I used to make as a bachelor 40 years ago. I would save pretty pint bottles throughout the year and fill them up as Christmas gifts for friends.

They were always a big hit.

Now, after going into production mode for the last week, I’m the proud owner of a quart of my own Limoncello, as well as pints of fruit flavored vodkas that don’t have any syrup. 100% proof, made with fresh fruit. Pour over ice and add syrup or mint or whatever. I usually go straight up but the sweet is nice sometimes too.

Lemon, pear, blueberry, mango, raspberry…Kiwi is next up.

They look delicious but I wouldn’t know. January is a no-alcohol, no-smoke month for me. I normally give the liver a break every three months.

I haven’t even tasted them.

If you hear some Lucinda Williams cranked up to “Wow” or maybe that old Johnny Winter album I put on when I’m feeling froggy, rocking the house in February or March, come on in and have a cocktail.

There’s plenty of deliciousness to pick from.

Pied Piper...

When you’re an Instagram star with 6000,000+ highly engaged female followers in the 24-44 age range, advertisers lust for your attention. They send you an avalanche of free stuff, hoping that you may wear it or show it off in one of your videos. It’s the new face of advertising. Very targeted and extremely inexpensive for them. What’s their actual cost on a few pieces of the clothing they make? That extends to shoes, yoga gear, jewelry, beds, blankets, furniture, household items, really anything you can think of that a woman 24 to 44 may use or want. That covers a lot of ground.

The most upscale hotels and resorts are eager to give you an all-inclusive stay in their best suites all around the globe. Be our guest, please! Maybe you’ll film some content for your Instagram account at their place. Hundreds of thousands of devout followers will see it and want to go there too. They want to be like you.

As new clothes come in, the old clothes can be sold on Poshmark, for way more than their retail value, because you wore them once in a video.

And when you are a gypsy Acroyoga teacher, traveling from one workshop or festival to the next, it’s best to use your parents address for your mail.

A two-day accumulation of gifts piles up quickly. The advertisers desperately want to reach the demographic for which you are a Pied Piper.

They want your attention, and for you to play your flute and lead those ladies in their direction.

Painting in the Basement...

Facebook provides us all with a podium from which we can spew. I’ve been spewing here since 2009, starting with a practice run on Myspace before that.

Sure, it’s my “social network” but it’s also a place for me to do what I’ve always done, write little ‘ditties” as I call them. Short stories, jokes, snapshots of life, observations, opinions…whatever I believe to be important for me to get out. Not important to anyone other than myself, but I need to write it down before it’s gone.

It’s been that way since college. Aside from written materials for actual classes, I wrote in notebooks, calendars, scraps of paper, and even bed sheets. LSD nights spawned poetry and prose written onto tie-died sheets with indelible ink.

I’ve gotten myself into trouble by writing poetry and love stuff to girls I didn’t really want any real life love stuff with. So few young men speak openly with raw emotion that It’s like walking a puppy in a crowd and gets the girls every time. Quite often, my frequent letters to the editor angered the majority of readers in the conservative town where I live. At least they were the ones most eager to point out my many failings as a human. That was true on Facebook for my first few years as well. Being politically liberal and espousing views that are considered to be blasphemous to organized religions caused many FB “friends” to pop up and scream at me. The Catholic Church and a long succession of hateful politicians have been favorite targets. Guess I never took the advice of not discussing politics or religion to heart. I do invite civil disagreements and discussions though and would be delighted to listen to a rational defense of any of them.

One guy suggested that I was a pornographer for posting pictures of my daughter taken from her Acroyoga site. She’s beautiful and dressed appropriately for her job. Most yogis don’t dress in heavy cold-weather gear for that. (My other daughter is beautiful too, but she doesn’t wear abbreviated clothing for her work, so I guess I am only a pornographer with the one.)

My opinions are just that. I don’t need the drama or confrontation from those fueled by blind belief without logic. If someone spews negativity towards me without any justification or willingness to discuss it like adults, we’re done. So I’ve played “Whack-W-Mole” here, bonking out the haters as they pop up.

These days I lead a generally quiet Facebook existence. I can post in peace.

Certainly I could post a very long list of things I have no talent for. Don’t ask me to name the winning football team or fix the carburetor under the hood. I’m clueless. I do know that I’m a decent writer though and post my stuff with some regularity. I understand that most people keep scrolling if they see a post that is longer than two sentences. No problem. Of those who plow on, several tell me that I should publish. A book, magazine articles, somewhere, just publish. I guess the conventional wisdom is that if you can do something fairly well, you should seek maximum exposure for it and make some money. I’m not of that school. There are people who do what they do just for themselves. I’m one of them. Hobby artists who paint in the basement. Amateur photographers whose framed pictures only hang on walls in their own houses. That’s me. It’s cathartic. I write to get it out, always have. I do it for me, and I feel no need to do anything more with my posts than put the stuff I like into my blog.

Even fewer people read it there. That’s just for storage. I don’t drive traffic to my blog, hardly anyone reads it but me.

What’s the point? Is there sound in the forest when a tree falls if there are no ears to hear?

Yes, there is.

I write for myself and for my grandchildren, as my Father and grandfather occasionally did for me.

One day, years from now, my daughters can show my blog to my grandchildren and say: “Good or bad, this was your Grandfather.”

For me to be able to speak to them directly like that, to say “This is who I was’” is more than enough.