Don't keep asking what I'm doing...

Don’t keep asking what I’m doing,
You may not want to know,
That I’m thinking of pursuing,
A life like Jaques Cousteau.

But watching seafood live their lives,
Is not my cup of tea.
I’d rather eat it topped with chives,
And crackers spread with Brie.

The mysteries of the ocean,
Hold no lure for me
My driving goal, my raison d’etre?
Cooking lobsters on TV!

Zen and the Dishwasher Fruit

OK, I admit it. I'm a boring guy. No mountain climbing, no sky diving...hell, we live near the beach and don't even swim, much less surf. Although I've never been much of a swimmer, I'm even less so now. I'm convinced that there is a local shark harboring passionate dreams of eating my ankles. Certainly he's with the gang that we see in pictures shot from low flying aircraft,one of the many sharks looking skyward at all the appetizers riding the waves on surfboards above them between their hungry mob and the sun, oblivious to the the dark mugging being planned below. I like to stare at the water but other than that I don't even want water in my drinks, unless it's frozen into little squares. Squares, but not the half moon shapes that my own refrigerator's ice-maker cranks out. Those things hug the rim of the glass and create a dam, so when I tilt the glass enough to get a drink, the liquid bursts out onto either side of my mouth, forming a quick stream that shoots down my chest from neck to navel, soaking my shirt from the inside. Of course it's doubly nasty with sugared drinks or anything other than plain water, which I never add ice to anyway.

What the heck am I trying to say here? Oh yea, I'm a boring guy. Very domestic, a homebody. Maybe I believe that I actually have a small degree of control at home, in my own little cocoon. Being married, I know that's an illusion, but it comforts me to think in those terms. One of my more satisfying and frequent tasks is emptying the dishwasher. I love to put the clean dishes away. Each item has a specific place where it rests until called up for duty once again. For me, emptying the dishwasher becomes an orchestrated dance of specific movement with a focus on being as efficient and fluid as possible. Collecting all similar items that store in the same area before opening their cabinet door and putting them inside en masse is the norm. You get the picture.

It's impossible for me to just turn off my brain and let it happen arbitrarily. So I guess it isn't a Zen thing at all, I just liked the sound of the title. I do obsess about the movement, flow, and overall efficiency of the task though. It may be disturbing but at least it always has a satisfying conclusion. There's a period at the end of it. OK, that's done.

But it's not only about anal retentive concern for my kitchen traffic patterns. Each item plucked from the dishwasher comes wrapped with a memory that the detergent can't wash away. Certainly the lobster pot reminds me of sitting on the deck last night: a steaming cauldron on the table, a cold beer in hand, a heaping plate of anticipation, already served. I marvel at the Ron Popeil steak knives that have held up so well for “only $19.95”...but wait, there's more! Like Ron's solid flavor injector that I used on the pork chops two days ago (a $30.00 value) but wait, there's more... There's a special satisfaction in seeing each dinner plate completely clean, sterile, and free of dog saliva after the dogs licked them dog-clean last night, before I carefully packed them into the dishwasher ( the plates, not the dogs). Although it really isn't logical to be comforted by the cleanliness, knowing that before the sun sets there is a high probability that one of those same dogs is going to get close enough to my face to dart a quick tongue into my mouth before I can pull away. I may as well lick the dogs assets directly. It is nice to see that Carla's two new antique plates she recently uncovered at her favorite Goodwill store are squeaky clean and ready to join the hundreds of others that she's going to do....something, with though. And so it goes, with each item, but wait, there's more...until there isn't, and everything is put away. Period.

Rod Stewart said: “Every picture tells a story, don't it?” Well Rod, every item in the dishwasher does too. But I guess you need to be a pretty boring guy to enjoy putting the clean dishes away as much as I do.

Are you happy?

I believe that anyone who says that they wouldn’t change a thing can only mean that in the sense that they are happy with the way things have turned out. We all have regrets but the road not taken takes us somewhere else. Do things work out best for those who proactively set their course and shoot for a target or do things work out best for those who make the best of the way things work out? Although I believe the latter, it ultimately all gets down to attitude and outlook.

A recent study on happiness found that most of us have our own internal happiness “thermostat” set at a place that is unique to each of us as individuals. So the paraplegic crash victim and the lottery winner both pretty much return to their own “setting” within a year after their life altering event. That said, financial happiness, appears to be relative. In Costa Rica where the median income is about $3,000 per annum, the people seem to be just as happy as in the USA where annual income is, of course, much higher. We may strive to “keep up with the Jones” but that can work at almost any level, assuming basic needs are covered.

One advantage of getting older, I’ve found, is that as I age into official geezer-hood, my give-a-shit level declines accordingly. I prefer to concentrate on things other than the material. So the money becomes less important as we can say “been there, done that”. After all, most of us spend the first half of our lives acquiring two of everything Ron Popeil has to sell and the second half of our lives trying to get rid of that stuff. Turns out the kids don’t want it either (they want to collect their own junk) so it sits in the garage until we move or make a conscious effort to simplify our lives.

So when you ask me: “are you happy?” Knowing that we all choose our reaction, I choose to react with gratitude...and, yes, I'm happy.

Thanks for asking.

The Sound of an Angel

Many of these songs invite me to sit on a red futon in a

log cabin

now long buried under weeds and brier.

Unexpectedly, your little girl voice, so pure and gentle, sings along.

You thought I wasn’t listening but I was,

doing my best to hold close to my heart forever

the sound of an angel.

Just Sayin...

Sixteen black paws churn a sandy path, obscuring tracks of deer, racoons and feral hogs...night traffic punched out now and heading for sheltered hollows. Frenzied breath forms a leading cloud as if over a dog-steam locomotive speeding through the cool, damp air... before the sun claims the day as it's own. Now is our time to run the woods and chase all laggards home. My braying pack of misfits share a vision of what they they once were before couch and pillows formed their beds and meals doled out of cans never challenged them to a foot race...

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No one wants to drive through E. Palatka, much less live there, but the highway West leaves little choice. The area is low. Soggy cabbage fields turn into acres of mud with the slightest rain. Culverts run like train tracks sandwiching roads with dark water as polluted as the local culture. Closed business advertize failure with the remnants of makeshift signs, misspelled words growing smaller and more crowded to the right from lack of planning. Depression and desperation cover everything like a damp blanket, as inescapable as the pesticides that have poisoned the aquifer for more than 80 years.
_______________________________________________________________________________

The restaurant is Corky Bells. You probably remember them from their former location. It was more fish camp, this one is more Jimmy Buffett. Now they front the river in Palatka with tiered decks and tiki bars. Mostly fried seafood, chowder, Hush Puppies, grits, greens, sweet tea...you know the drill. Great location to sit in the sun with a beer, watching obnoxious young men tear up the water on Ski Doos. Hoping that prayer is somehow more effective in Palatka, I pray they fall off and are encircled by alligators who glance in our direction for a quick thumbs down before we get to watch them eat their own lunch for a change.
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Perspective affords our own wise council... and I was flooded with it as Carla told me of the little girl taken prematurely by C section from her crackhead mother. The parent no more than a child herself. There lay the baby in a hospital bed, 3 months old, with a trach tube oozing and bubbling, stabbed into her neck, allowing...breath. Born without a working brain, deaf, blind...her two legs stiff and stretched out painfully in a permanent spasm. As a ward of the state she'll be taken care of as long as she lives...in her crib, alone. Carla spent her shift that night, rubbing the child's back, stroking her fuzzy head. We sat in the sunshine of our back yard after Carla got home and told me of her night. In the face of such horrifically sad images, all I could think about as was how bright and strong our own two girls had been, and are.

________________________________________________________________________________

You think gay marriage is controversial? I think it controversial that there are still those who would try to legislate just which consenting adults are allowed to marry. If the national elections were held today, Obama would get my vote. I have never played nor watched a game of football in my life and could care less about it. I believe that religion is largely a reflection of the culture one is born into and that there are many paths to spiritual fulfillment. You and I may be on opposite ends of many things and that's OK, but I also believe the world would be a much better place with more people like you in it and am proud to call you a friend. Republican, Democrat, black, white, gay, straight, Christian, Hindu...we are all more alike than different and that in itself is cause for celebration. Conversely, it is the closed minded zealousness of each different group insisting that their way is the only way that hurts us the most as we travel together through this blink of an eye we call our lives.

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Carla: Where's the scraper?

Hugh: The scraper? What scraper?

Carla: So I can get this stuff up off the bottom of the pan.

Hugh: You mean a spatula?

Carla: Yes

Hugh: It's in that end drawer with the can opener and ladles... where the kitchen scissors are.

Carla: Oh

Hugh: It's been there since we moved in, just a little more than...what? Three years ago?

Carla: Hum...

Carla knows and cares as much about the kitchen and things that go on in there as I know and care about most professional sports...or her collections of china and old fabrics...

Athens Alabama, 1969

Orlando, Howard and I were sitting on the twin beds in my place, smoking, up a storm. A room on the front corner of the top floor. I split the cost with Al Wheeler since the college had to pay for the new dorms and forced everyone to rent a room. Al had rented a place off campus, so our dorm room became a private room for me. Anyway, we had the obligatory towel rolled and stuffed in place at the base of the door to prevent the hallway from getting too smelly and with vice grips holding the lock handle, even a master key couldn't open the door from the outside. Al Wheeler had turned me on to the Derek and the Dominoes album, “Layla”, and it was cranking away. With Mescaline jammed down into my bedpost, some great Panama Red bagged and taped up under the sink, and a couple of hits of LSD flattened into the lining of a blanket...I was well supplied to weather any storm life could conger up, or possibly go to jail for a very ong time. A loud knock on the door told me that George of the Jungle, a townie known mainly for his pot sales, had arrived as expected. Unlatching the vice grips, I got down on my knees and cracked open the door, looking up from floor level just to goof on George. But it wasn’t George. Dean Hayes was standing there smiling down at me as clouds of smoke rolled out of the open door and gave our beloved Dean of Men a big smelly, welcoming hug.

Standing up straight with shock and almost faint with paranoia, I stepped aside as Dr Hayes walked into the room and sat down on one of the twin beds, shoulder to shoulder, between Orlando and Howard. I had never known him to visit any of the student rooms or even having been in any of the dorm buildings before. Dr Hayes sat calmly, almost Buddha like in his demeanor, between a very stoned Orlando and our wild-eyed mute playmate, Howard. An obscenely bright knife of light from the still slightly cracked door cut through lazy clouds of exhaled ganja in my dimly lit room. We all sat silent, watching the smoke clouds drift in the light like huge gray jellyfish undulating in and out of dark shadows. Dr Hayes broke the silence with unrelated pleasantries. Mumbled responses followed embarrassing silences.

That was it. And then the good doctor got up and left the room. Yes ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has left the building. To go get the cops and have us thrown in some Godforsaken Athens Alabama jailhouse? To prepare the expulsion papers for an obvious bunch of losers? No, the nervous passage of time told us that he just left our room, no more, no less. But his visit had made quite an impression.

Although I never had Dr Hayes for any classes, my understanding was that he was well traveled. Whispers of exotic experiences in Morocco were probably spun by students who wanted to add to his mystique but helped me put his visit into perspective none the less. Expulsion would have served no purpose. The fact that we were young guys smoking pot in 1969 in an extremely conservative area of the country was just an ironic twist of fate. A broader, wiser world view added a balance that we were too young to appreciate.

Later that year, just before my own graduation, Dr Hayes offered me a job as his assistant. I think he wanted some team members from outside of the cultural island that was Athens in the late 1960’s. He was seeking balance, as eventually, we all did.

stined to join.

Letter to Jim Koch, Founder of The boston Beer Co/Sam Adams Beer

Hi Jim,

Love your beer! That said, I had a problem yesterday with a Summer Ale and thought it best to bring it to the attention of the big guy himself. (Don’t start looking around the room…I mean you!)

Call me crazy, but I like working weekends. That way I take Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s off during the week and I feel like I’m on vacation while everyone else is working. Sure, I spend all day on Tuesday doing the honey-do stuff and generally running around. Yesterday I took my wife, Carla, to her Orchid club meeting and pretended I was interested. We ran errands together, had some lunch out, and, all-in-all, I was a good hubby who cared about together time and being a couple with a common direction. We got stuff done and had a good time. Great.

Don’t get me wrong, I do like all of that. It’s just that if I were to be perfectly honest, which could be dangerous, it is the second day of my “weekend” during the week that I really look forward to. That’s when I have earned my time to have my own fun. Sure I work hard all week, go to the gym, cook, clean, pay bills, run my daughter, who doesn’t drive, all over creation…but my own time is Wednesday…day two of my “weekend”. That’s when I can justify to myself and Carla that I have earned some “me” time. I cleaned the pool but it could always use a little extra. That’s where our story really begins.

Years ago I brewed my own beer at home. It was good but the time and hassle were just too much. Then you guys came along. Very soon I knew that you should brew beer, and I should concentrate on my own work. You’re good at brewing beer and I’m good at my own job. Frankly, your beer is better than my home brew was, so the decision to buy Sam Adams and let each of us just do what we do best wasn’t very difficult.

So anyway, I had earned my time in the pool. Carla works nights so she was sleeping. Chores were done, bills paid, lawn mowed, I went to the gym in the morning. OK, now I could have a few hours of “me” time. Sam Adams Summer Ale was just the ticket. I put my Styrofoam cooler next to the pool, cubbies at the ready. It was late in the day with the sun shining hot in a cloudless Florida sky. Accompanied by the low drone of the pool filter, I jumped in the water and repeatedly threw the Frisbee for Kira and the ball for Sasha. The fact that I was exercising the dogs was even more justification for a cold, hops laden, reward.

A little slice of heaven. Beautiful June day, chores all done, Carla sleeping, dogs getting their exercise…what me worry? I plan this stuff out. A six pack of Samuel Adams Summer Ale put into my Styrofoam cooler with some ice packs. My I-pod and a speaker to plug into. Towel, cell phone. I was all set for a few hours of fun. And that’s what it was. Cool blue water, hot sun, frequent underwater Manatee swims across the bottom of the pool. Surfacing to the sounds of Alison Krauss and Union Station… Sasha waiting poolside, panting rapidly, ready for me to grab the ball from her mouth and throw it down to the far end of the lawn. Life is good, and that was great. But reality struck hard and fast.

I plan well. Everything is within my control. Right. So as this epiphany unfolded, I came to my last beer. One last cold Samuel Adams Summer Ale. Perfect. That lone beer, right then, was everything. Seven days of working toward various goals, several hours of total, vacuous pleasure, capped by the best-of-the-best. My final Summer Ale. It was like Chevy Chase said: “This is all I need…just this last Sam Adams Summer Ale...

I grabbed the opener from the Styrofoam cooler, and did the deed. That’s when my world turned ugly. The glass ring at the top of the neck of the bottle broke off. Shards of glass fell into the bottle as the beautiful head of that last Summer Ale rose to taunt me. Even though I though about it, I knew that I couldn’t drink it. How would you feel if you had to pour your very last Sam Adams out onto the ground, your last beer, on your last day off work, knowing that this was it for another week? Bummer.

So here is my point. I’ve been grievously injured. Psychologically turned upside down. Physically threatened by shards of glass poised to rupture my innards. I even got a cut on my thumb that bled at least a drop or two. So I’ll ask the question: How about a replacement beer to help me through my pain? I know that the faulty bottle top wasn’t specifically your fault but certainly you don’t want one of your biggest fans to be traumatized for life. I mean, how will I get over it? I guess I could try…with a cold Summer Ale…or two…

That’s it. My sad story. Almost too much to overcome…unless I had a good beer and a Wednesday afternoon…

Thanks for listening, Jim, hope you can help.

Cheers!


Hugh Haller

PS- If you ever get down this way, give me a call. We could hook up for dinner & a cold one… (If I can ever get over yesterday’s trauma).