Durn near the dog days.....

“Sumtimes we can’t see what’s right in front of us becuz it’s behind us ’n we’re looking in a mirror wond’ring who the hell is that looking back at us…” 

Justin Other Smith

Workin’ in the front yard, cleaning under a live oak that ain’t been raked ’n cleared for about 6 years or thereabouts…neighbor lady walking her dog comes by, “Lookin’ good” she says…..Well, it ain’t really looking good…it’s looking a little better but considering the wear ’n tear of age, it’s looking okay….

My friends ’n I are all of an age ’n when we happen to meet ’n greet, we generally tell each other that we’re ‘lookin’ good!’…..The unspoken caveat is, of course, that we’re looking good considering the age ’n mileage….like the old ranchero parked in my driveway….lots of people tell me, ‘That’s a pretty good looking old car….”  What they’re really saying is that it’ud be a good looking old car if someone would just fix it up ’n take care of it….

You can restore old cars to the point where they look like new BUT, they ain’t new ’n ain’t never gonna be new again…life is funny that way…you only get t’be new once….’n it don’t matter whether you’re a person or a car or anything else….

“and don’t throw the past away

you might need it some other rainy day

Dreams c’n come true again

When everything old is new again,

When everything old is new again,

I might fall in love with you again.”

Peter Allen

Sunday evening dining out.....

“Money burns a hole in my pocket…”  Dean Martin

Sunday eve ’n we tho’t to go pickup some teriyaki to go just to have sumthin’  a little different, don’cha know?…

But when we got there, the cupboard was bare ‘cuz we’d forgot that they take Sunday off…so we dropped in to Coco’s which we like to do about once ever’ other year or so…not that Coco’s is not a nice little coffee shop with quite decent pie which we almost never ever order ‘cuz it is, it’s just that we hardly ever go there…until this evening…

Anyhow, in my wand’ring roundabout way, I discovered t’nite that cauliflower ain’t really any worse than brocolli…

Over the course of my lifetime, I pretty much avoided any acquaintance atall with foods like cauliflower ’n brocolli…I wuz aware of their existence, of course, but basically I treated them with the indifference I tho’t they deserved…

As you might imagine (or not), I took a bit of heat from fam’ly ’n friends for my avoidance of what I considered t’be ‘rabbit food’ but with my advancing years, I somehow developed a tolerance for what I consider t’be the more esoteric veggies…y’know, sumthin’ other than onions (which, for some reason my body will no longer tolerate)…

At any rate, this evening we found ourselves dining impromptu at Coco’s where our waitress, Simone, wuz relatively new at her job (’n being watched surreptitiously by a manager)…and being tired of my usual fare ’n in the mood for what we white southeners consider t’be ‘soul’ food, ordered m’self some chickenfried steak which came with mash potatoes ’n pepper gravy ’n what wuz described as ‘seasonal veggies’ that turned out t’be brocolli ’n cauliflower…

Now, I recognized the brocolli right off, not a doubt in my mind what it wuz but the white stuff that wuz mixed in with it, I had to ask Millyrose…’n she informed me with that condescending air that wives often have, that it wuz cauliflower ’n that they were steamed ’n looked fresh ’n were really healthy….

As I grow older, I find myself lacking in the character that I use’ta have ’n, after shoving the pieces around a few times, bit into the cauliflower ’n found out that it wudn’t really much worse than the brocolli, so I ate pretty much most of what wuz on the plate…’course, I kind’a mixed it in with the pepper gravy ’n mash potatos ’n remarked to Millyrose that a bit of melted butter wud have improved the taste somewhat…

Anyhow, that’s my story for this evening ’n I’m sticking with it….

“A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.”  Mark Twain

A dogs life....

Too darn hot!

The Mobile Groomers came t’day ’n sheared Rusty ’n Willy…Willy don’t seem to mind them all that much but Rusty seems to get traumatized ever’ time…’course, after it’s all over ’n he’s back inside looking sternly at me ’n I get him a treat ’n let him up on the sofa, he gets over it pretty quick….

Dogs are funny that way…they got a heckuva mem’ry ’n they don’t like change…Rusty is old(er) 'n on the suspicious side 'n knows when the groomers get here…I don’t quite know how he duz it but he knows…

Willy, on the other hand, is just a happy-go-lucky mutt ’n I believe he’d take up with anyone that’d offer him a treat...I'm thinkin' that's 'cuz he's more of a teenager…

I’m no judge but Rusty stresses over lots of things while Willy don’t seem to stress about much at all….

Take a walk~Yeah!  

Chase a chicken~Yeah! 

Have a treat~Yeah, Yeah!…

Nuthin’ t’do~take a nap!...  

When we’re young, we run, Lordy, we run after ever'thing...sex, drugs, rock ’n roll ’n the almighty dollar, 'specially that almighty dollar 'cuz we think it'll buy us ever'thing we'd ever want...

We lust after fortune ’n fame ’n what we think is ‘the good life’…..one gold rush after another…like a bunch of durn lemmings, we’ll run over any cliff, take on any challenge, forfeit our lives for a shot at the golden ring, all the time knowing in our heart that all the gold rings in the world are made out of brass….well, we ‘know’ it but we run more on hope than anything else…

And even when we get the stuffing knocked out of us 'n grow weary 'n cynical, we still hope...maybe only a little bit but it's enuff to keep durn near every lottery in the country solvent several times over...

And life being what it is, some people have a good ride ’n some people don’t…some people fall out of the damn rollercoaster on the very first turn…some people stay for the whole darn ride but vomit all the way…(Hey, life c’n be scary)….

Some people get to ride all the whole blessed way, feet up 'n grinnin'...fame, fortune, the gods smile on ‘em all the daze of their life…or seem to…we don’t really know ‘cuz we ain’t one ‘a those people…most of us ain’t…

But those of us who manage to hang on long enuff to know that the ride is coming to an end can only hope to emulate that happy go lucky dog that knows when all else fails, you just take a nap ’n fahgeddaboutit….

When life on the run has another meaning.....

“Have you ever been bitten by a dead bee?”  Eddie (To Have ’n Have Not)

So yest’iday was warmish ’n just a bit on the humid side ‘cuz of all the rain comin’ out of the south….’course, all the rain wuz really up on the high sierra ’n entailed a number of thunderstorms with the requisite lightening strikes ’n brought absolutely no water to northern California which no matter what the durn politicians tell ever’body ain’t got enuff water for the ‘hull darn state of California…I’m thinkin’ that there ain’t enuff water in the ‘hull darn southwest to satisfy southern California which has prob’ly the largest ’n greediest bunch of slackers in the western world…

Anyhow, that’s just me venting a bit ’n got nuthin’ much to do with what transpired yest’iday….what I did wuz go out early in the morn, fire up the leaf blower (electric), get out my trusty rake ’n hard plastic shovel ’n fill five big ol garbage cans, it being green pickup day t’day….worked up a sweat at it too….generally speaking, it’s so arid around here that it’s difficult to work up a sweat unless you’re young ’n ackshully trying which I ain’t that young ’n I definitely ain’t tried to work up a sweat for more’n several years now…anyhow I took a lunch break ’n then afterward finished up around 2 or 3 o’clock, took a cold shower ’n drank a couple dos Equis ’n patted m’self on the back for a job almost well done….

But the self congratulatory stuff wuz a little bit premature…we (Millyrose ’n me ’n Dave ’n Kris) went to dinner at Carmelita’s where I passed on another dos Equis ’n had a tall glass of ice water instead, picked at my chicken tamale ’n beans ’n rice ’n came home where I decided to spend the evening with alternate bouts of diarrhea ’n vomiting…

So, I did’t really get bitten by a dead bee, what I did wuz stay too long at the party, not drink enuff water, compound that error by pouring a couple beers into m’self ’n otherwise ruining what had started out t’be a relatively nice evening with fam’ly, opting instead for a relationship with that old standby, the porcelain bowl….

Kermit the frog says, “Life might be fun when you’re having flies but don’t forget the consequences of otherwise…..”  (I kind’a adlibbed on part of that quote)

"The Debatable Inflatable Moosehead"

My daughter has a moose head hanging over her fireplace…it ain’t a real moose head, of course, my daughter being a longtime vegetarian…I’ve seen cartoon moose that look realer than the inflatable head staring down from above where there ought’a be a mantel but she finds it amusing so there y’are….

I’ve known people who have real heads stuffed ’n mounted ’n hung artistically from their walls…I asked m’buddy Victor why he had a deer head on his wall ’n he said ‘cuz it’s pretty.”  I told him that his Mama wuz pretty but he only had a photograph of her….I tho’t I wuz being funny but he didn’t laugh….

Contraty to what sum might think, we do NOT have a pet deer residing in our south forty…we DO have an 8 point Buck with possibly a broken leg who has taken up residence in our neighborhood, grazing back ’n forth from the property acros’t the street to the wayback of what I customarily refer to as our ‘south forty’…with the exception of the limp, he is an outstanding example of his specie….

We also have approximately 20 bee hives out there (courtesy of a Ukranian bee-keeper acquaintance) altho they don’t seem the least bit innarested in our sorry-looking tomatoes…the neighbors tomatoes look so good while mine (thanks prob’ly to my black thumb) resemble a Charly Brown Xmas tree…..ah well, my geraniums are still grimly hanging on ’n the Chinese Stink Trees are thriving….wish the darn deer’ud eat them but he don’t seem to like either them or the geraniums…..

The Second Rising.....

The Delta Breeze has lowered the temp (thank Gawd) to a much more reasonable setting on the old guage so I went back t’bed which created the ‘second rising’ if you will~or even if you won’t…..

The ‘second rising’ wuz greeted with great elation by dos Weinerz (so wuz the first rising when all four of da collective boyz insisted that I get out of bed ’n accompany them on a nature call to the south forty)….Of course, great elation seems t’be the orders of the day (ev’ry day) for dos Weinerz as they leap, tails wagging, into motion if I so much as move from one room to another….

 “I’m just bidin’ my time ‘cuz that’s the kind’a guy I’m…..” Yeah, bidin’ my time out in the south forty t’day…didn’t really spend much time out there during our recent hot spell…just going by that old adage that a little work never hurt anybody ’n I’m doing my part t’do as little as possible…I make it a rule, ‘specially in hot weather, to not work too hard ’n to make up for it by not working too long either…

‘Course, I expect I c’d spend most of my declining years chopping out Chinese ‘Stink Trees’…..otherwise known as the Tree of Heaven….I figure those Chinese got a pretty warped view of Heaven…

Anyhow, I took my new machete out there t’day ’n worked up a sweat before lunch…..now I got to rake ‘em up ’n get ‘em out’a  there before they  take root ’n multiply…fecundity, thy name is Chinese Stink Tree…..

“My feeling is, you plant stuff; if it grows, great!  If it don’t, you shouldn’t take it personally.”

The best way to fight racism......

“The best way to fight racism is with solidarity.”  Bobby Seale

Back in the day, I wuz taught by my Irish mother to never, never, ever use what has come t’be known t’day as the ’N’ word, an absolutely nonsensical appellation dreamed up by politically correct morons who would prob’ly like to say Nigger but just don’t have the balls for it..

It’s an ugly word!  An absolutely reprehensible word!  And it shouldn’t be used, but my God almighty, hiding behind such a ridiculous euphemism only adds credence to the covert racism inherent in the liberal philosphy that you can somehow make up for the sins of the past by handicapping white America while giving black America a headstart...

Anyway, ‘way back in those golden oldies, those more innocent days, if you will, the ’N’ word wuz used not only by most of my peers but also by most of my parents peers in referring to Negro Americans but not, howsumever, in  polite society which used the more commonly term ‘colored’ as in ‘those of the colored persuasion’ whatever in hell that’s supposed to mean…

Anyhow, in the exuberance of the ‘sixties,  those self-same Negroes let it be known that they preferred to be known henceforth as ‘Black’ Americans…The media spread the word ’n I guess the word wuz good ‘cause the rest of America quickly acquiesced ’n so it wuz for several years until someone in the Black community decided that they wanted t’be known henceforth as ‘African Americans’ and the media jumped on the bandwagon ’n it came to pass that the rest of America once again acquiesced…As an aside, I have no idea why they want t’be known by a hyphenate but I’m for whatever keeps peace in the family, y’know…..

And speaking of peace in the family, I just happen t’be a fan, y’might say, of Paula Deen Y’all…she’s a caricature, of course, a comic book stereotype with a southern drawl that takes a lot of butter to maintain but she puts on a good show…I’ve heard said that if you strip away the phony tinsel ’n glitter of show biz, you’ll get down to the real tinsel ’n glitter underneath…I think what that really means is that if you look too hard at our celebrities, you’ll find out that there is no real there, there……

I have not the vaguest idea why the media have jumped so hard on Ms Deen for her long ago usage of what wuz in her youth ’n locale, a common albeit not completely respectable derivation of the appellation, Negro.  

And, it ain’t as if she claims to have used it indiscriminately in her everyday dealings…

As with most ‘white’ girls of her southern antecedents (upbringing) she wuz undoubtedly taught that it wuz an offensive ’n common (read vulgar) word that proper girls didn’t use in polite company ’n I very much doubt that Paula Deen, whatever her failings, would have dared to flout the unwritten rule regulating the behavior of southern women…

So, no, I don’t believe that Paula Deen is racist…I don’t think most of white America is racist, at least, not anymore…at one time, there was a lot of racial inequality that white America was part ’n parcel of, mostly, I believe, out of ignorance…that has changed…when I was a boy, there was a casual indifference among whites, sort of a head in the sand mentality, about the plight of black Americans that wuz fostered by segregation but I don’t recall most white Americans showing any animus or hostility…it wuz simply the way things were….

But that changed.  The change began with the military, then moved to the schools….There wuz resistance, of course, as there always is to change but change happened.  And for the better.

And, yeah, I’m aware that there is still a great deal of suspiscion ’n even animosity among the black community and that’s understandable.  Hell, it don’t hold a candle to the suspiscion ’n animosity prevalent on the Indian reservations. Still, the fact remains that this country, this America, has put racism under a spotlight and that light will eventually put an end to the cancer of racism not only here but in the world at large…so you might want to give a big shout-out to Paula Deen whose public humiliation at the hands of a toxic press just might prove to be the turning point that exposes the hypocrisy that is keeping racism alive in these, the United States of America…and if there was ever a good time to end this travesty, this Fourth of July is a really opportune time to begin….

“I dunno who said it, but if Al Sharpton had been around at the time, Lincoln would have known he was the victim of racism.”

Oh, 'dat sweet delta breeze.....

"Work expands to fill the time available for its completion; the thing t'be done swells in perceived importance 'n complexity in a direct ratio with the time t'be spent in its completion." Parkinsons Law

Yest'iday it got t'be a hunnerd 'n ten degrees or maybe a little more.....plainly speaking, it wuz just 'too darn hot.....me 'n da boyz (all four of 'em including the two little weiner dogs) laid around all day...I sucked down umpteen bottles of water, a can of diet soda 'n three dos Equis....'n I can't even remember how many times I had to refill the water dishes for da boyz.....I'm tellin' ya, it wuz too darn hot.....'n I had the very devil of a time trying to post anything....now, it could'a been the computer or it might'a been.....ah heck!  it wuz just too darn hot 'n the computer might not have wanted to play or more'n likely it wuz just me hitting the wrong buttons as usual....anyhow, da boyz were sprawled around the house whiles't I spent most of the evening kicked back in the new red recliner (that's just the least bit too small for me) watching old movies....then, I didn't want to get up this morning 'cuz the delta breeze slipped in durning the o'nite hours 'n it wuz a good morning for sleeping.....unfortunately for me, dogs just don't care about stuff like that (prob'y becuz they flop down 'n sleep whenever they feel like it) so I had to get up 'n take 'em out...all four of 'em at the same time for that morning call of nature....when I walk 'em during the day 'n evening, we go two at a time 'cuz they're pert near impossible to handle otherwise (guess I cudn't even qualify as a dog-walker these daze)...

It wuz a good mornin' howsumever....I jumped in the 150 'n  hightailed it over the river 'n thru the traffic to Costco where I mortgaged the farm 'n replenished the water 'n dog food along with a big bottle of aspirin, dragged the loot back home, unloaded 'n set off ag'in, this time in the Matrix for O'vale where I made the requisite stop at Custer Ave before heading for Winco (sliced turkey, rye bread, chips 'n more dos Equis) then back to the homestead to spread a little cheer among the plant family before walking da boyz.....I'll tell'ya, getting old ain't for wusses...

"A pickup truck 'n a dog, can't ask for much more'n that....well, maybe two dogs."  Justin Other Smith

Evening dog walk.....

"The way taxes keep going up, I'm glad I married for love 'stead of money."

Brother John wuz complainin’ that I ain’t been bloggin’ near as much as usual…I told him it’s just been too darn hot but that ain’t really the reason…with the Obama doctrine imploding all over the place, there’s just too much p’litical stuff to rant about ’n pulling the legs of friendly Democrats ain’t so much fun…it’s like being able to say, “I told you so.” when the truth of the matter is that we, all of us, whether we voted for the SOB or not, are getting screwed at pretty much the same rate…..anyhow, it’s just the same old rant that republicans have been screaming about since the Pretender assumed office ’n no one wants to hear it anymore ’n I’m tired of saying it….

Sooooooo….I got me four dogs to take care of this Fourth of July, Rusty ’n Willy ’n now, two little weiner dogs who dart from here to there ’n back again so fast that I can’t keep up with their names…

Anyhow, it’s hot here in paradise ’n Rusty ’n Willy are both still in recovery mode so when I walk them, Willy pretty much ignores the chickens ’n only half-heartedly goes after the cats but the two little weiner dogs seem to think that maybe they’ve died ’n gone to doggie heaven becuz THERE ARE CHICKENS HERE!…

Y’see, there ain’t any chickens for them to chase out on Custer Ave, only a few squirrels ’n blue jays that come by just to tease them…I let ‘em run on a long leash ’n they seem to think that every time just might be the time that they catch a chicken…I don’t know how they’d fare if they ever got hold of one of these wild birds…lot of fighting chickens mixed in with this bunch ’n the weiner dogs ‘ud  prob’ly get their butts whupped…I ain’t about to find out becuz I’m sure if they got into a scrap with one of those birds, I’d end up with another vet bill ’n I’ve already gone beyond this years vet budget ’n can’t stand no more…..

But I let ‘em run ’n run ’til their tongues are dragging on the blacktop ’n then I bring ‘em home ’n call it a day…..