Things that go bump in the nite.....

Among other things…..

Dave ’n Kris are here….well, here ’n not here perzackly since they’re rushing around doing last minute things before leaving here in the middle of the night to catch their flight that will eventually take them to Oman (pronounced O-Mon for those of you in doubt but I personally think Oh Man!  with the exclamation point is prob’ly more apt given the present state of the world)….

I find that I have a tendency to become ‘snide’ lately…I apologize for my snideness, not sure where it comes from but dotage prob’ly has sum’thin’ t’do with it…that’s become my ‘go to’ excuse for durn near ever’thaing lately even tho’ I know full well that getting old ain’t a valid excuse for anything…

Well, the clan gathered to bid their farewell to Dave ’n Kris…gathered around the olde oaken table for a veritable feast of…beans ’n rice ’n tamales ’n fajitas ’n guacamole ’n other stuff, all washed down with Dos Equis ’n Tecate (they ain’t gonna get that in Oman)…

They’re planning on leaving here around 3:30 in the AM…

We got up at 3:00 in the AM to watch…well, most of you know what parents are like….they rolled out of the manse here in Olde Faire Oakes at 03:25 for the drive to SF International for their early morning flight to Dulles where they had sumthin like 45 minutes to catch their o’seas flight to…well, wherever it is that will eventually lead them to Oman….but, there is almost always the Old Murphy’s Law at work ’n the best laid plans o’ mice ’n men aft gang astray (so I’m told)….at any rate, the last word (at 9:30 or so this morn) finds them still at the aeroporto in Baghdad by the bay….

Anyhow, we wish them well on their stop ’n go journey….

A rose by any name...

Just musing on what seems t'be an ever-changing world.....

“Even old New York was once New Amsterdam,

why they changed it, I can’t say,

People just liked it better that way.

Istambul was Constantinople,

Now it’s Istambul, not Constantinople,

Why did Constantinople get the works,

That’s nobody’s business but the Turks…”

Son Dave is a traveling man…he’s flying in tomorrow for an o’nite stay ‘fore he flies out again, this time to Oman….when I wuz a boy, long ago in Beattyville, Ky, I had a teacher named Miz Fanny…she had her desk at the back of the room so if anyone turned their head to far to either the left or the right, she saw ’n acted immediately…sumtimes sooner…she wuz a sneaky old witch ’n every boy ’n girl in the 3rd ’n 4th grade wuz scairt of her (’n anyone who sez different is lying)…

Anyhow, one of the subjects that wuz mandatory in that long ago age wuz geography ’n we wuz supposed to memorize all them countries ’n be able to identify ‘em on a map where all the names had been covered….sort of like learning to type on a typewriter where all the keys are blank…(for ever’one who don’t recall typewriters, they’re sort of like a computer keyboard…for all those who don’t remember what a computer keyboard looks like…well, they keep sayin’ technology is wunnerful)….

Anyhow, not so long ago, son Dave wuz in Vietnam, in Ho Chi Minh City, going to a branch of Cambridge University…says it’s a very interesting place ’n he intends to return sometime ~ in the future ~ funny, but that’s what I said about the Grand Mesa in Colorado, among others that I never seem to be able to work into my scedule…

Ho Chi Mihn City use’ta be Saigon, well, since the 17th century anyway, ’n many of the South Vietnamese, at least those living in the USA, quite vehemently prefer Saigon ~ but, as we are so often reminded, the winners get to write history pretty much anyway they want...

Burma, which wuz really a big deal when I wuz a kid, what with the Brits getting their butt kicked pretty much all over the world (t’be fair, they were spread pretty durn thin) ’n then all the war news about The Burma Hump…’n, yes, I wuzn’ t very old ’n didn’t read all that much of the newspaper (much more innarested in the latest comix)…

The Portsmouth Times wuz a real newspaper back then ’n adults read the war news, ’n listened to war news on the radio, ’n talked about the war news (adults only since children were t’be seen ’n never heard at that time)…

There wuz usually a map on the front page denoting where we were ’n where the bad guys were ’n they was all strange names…Burma ’n Wake Island ’n Bataan ’n other hard to pronounce places were in all the adult conversations ’n yes indeed, little pitchers have big ears...

The Burman Hump wuz p’tick’larly puzzling to a little boy in Beattyville, Kentucky…I knew what a hump wuz, of course, but I think I wuz a little confused about what a Burma wuz…It sounded like a place but you could never be sure what adults were ackshully talking about…

Fortunately, there were news reels ’n movies ’n such but it wudn’t until I saw Burma on the big screen (in magnificent black ’n white, of course) ’n the announcer talked about the mountain range that separated Burma from China that I understood why they called it ‘The Hump’….

Anyway, t’day’s Burma is offically named Republic of the Union of Myanmar (dunno why Commies seem to like such complicated names) but to most of the world, the old world, anyway, it’s still Burma as it has been called that since…oh, the 9th century or thereabouts….

And Russia, oh good God, Russia has been Russia for…oh, hell, I don’t know how many years ’n I don’t want to look it up tho’ I suppose I could (9th century ’n named for a wildass group of nomads that called themselves, the Rus…well, makes sense then)... 

For awhile, the Commies renamed it the United Soviet Socialist Republic (long, complicated name again) but now, it’s back to just plain old Russia…unless Putin c’n pull it together again ’n I ain’t got a clue what name he’ll come up with if he gets t’be King or Tsar or Vlad the Bad….

And China, or if you prefer, The Peoples Republic of China, since 1949 anyway…Well, ever since Formosa became Taiwan ’n almighty China became the PRC ’n seems like everyone just has to start changing names that have served humankind pretty darn well for thousands of years, well, the ubiquitous ‘They’ say that the only true constant is change….howsumever, if you go to a Chinese restaurant ‘most anywhere in the world ’n order Peking Duck, you pretty much get Peking Duck ’n not Beijing Duck….I don’t know if that holds true in Beijing/Peking or not but if anyone would like me to personally check it out, I will be happy to accept donations to defray the expense of the trip…

Caused me to wonder, if the Germans had won World War II, would they have changed the names of Paris ’n London ’n what might todays world call them…

As King Mongkut of Siam said, “t’is a puzzlement.”

Over the years, I’ve become a pretty good at keeping up with yesterday……

Ahh…the late August Doldrums…basically come around every year like unwanted birthdays….when I wuz a boy in Beattyville, folks called it The Dog Days of August but it wuz really the doldrums…it’s a period of long, slow, hot days when y’know that the cooling days of Autumn are just around the corner’n you can almost feel ‘em…but, not quite…d’ya know what I mean?

It’s that time of summer when it’s too late to make any plans to go off ’n do anything…that raft that you were gonna build…you know, the one you wanted to float downriver on….It’s too late….same for the treehouse that you just never quite got around to…now, it’s too late…pretty much worn out on baseball ’n too durn hot for basketball…AND way too hot for football…creek’s too low to even cool your feet ’n apples not big enuff to steal…prob’ly a good thing we didn’t have teevee back then, it’ud all been re-runs ’n just one more thing to grouch about…

That old river is lookin’ kind’a peaked, low ’n slow but still muddy as sin….hay is pretty much cut tho’ ’n if you go barefoot, the stubble hurts your feet…s’almost time for some new school clothes tho’….new jeans, new tennis shoes, couple shirts ’n a jacket…you know it’s the doldrums when you’re kind’a looking forward to school starting….

Life today is a little different…school has already started for a lot of kids…seems like they pretty much go to school year ‘round now ‘cept every time you turn around, they have some kind of holiday…I don’t even try ’n keep up with them anymore…don’t suppose I could even if I did try….seems like most of the highschool girls of today spend the last few days before school starts in bleaching ’n dyeing their hair…lots of blues ’n greens ’n pinks….I dunno, maybe the boys do the same things…I have only two granddaughters ’n they’re getting awful close to the end…junior ’n senior ’n I swear I don’t know where the time went….

Too soon old ’n too late smart, I guess….’n I still ain’t sure about that smart part of it…I maybe missed out on that also…..

You should thank God for wine ’n beer, they’re constant proof that He loves us ’n wants us to be happy.

Weekends! Bah! Humbug!....

TGIF!

Laugh ’n the world laughs with you,

Cry, ’n the world tends to laugh at you….

So, the motorhome has a small hole in the roof now but on the bright side, the hole allowed the smoke from the fire to get outside ’n let someone know that the darn thing wuz on fire so the fire wuz put out…not sure of the extent of the damage yet…the hole in the ceiling of Sophie’s bedroom has a bright side also…Sophie had been blissfully comatose until Mama called ’n said, “Get up. You have homework to do.”  Sophie, being an obedient (somewhat, sometimes) daughter arose ’n wuz in the shower when the ceiling came crashing down on her bed….There being, howsumever, two sides to ever’ coin, the downside is that bureaucracy stepped in ’n now they have a couple dehumidifiers running 24 seven until the tests come back about the possibility of (gasp) asbestos in the crumbling drywall ’n insulation….

Life goes on regardless…..our baby daughter, the youngest of the four, just turned 43 t’other day ’n was lauded (jeered) by her siblings at a gathering of the clan in The Peoples Republic of Davis…it wuz a nice day ’n wuz suppozed t’be a ‘pool’ party but never got near the pool….

Now, if you’ve noticed, I began this little piece on Friday morn ’n it is now Sunday morning…all it means is, that at a ‘certain’ point in life, time has a tendency to become somewhat meaningless…y’know, days ’n weeks ’n months go by in a whirl ’n somehow, they all add up to years…..

Someone recently asked me if I had a bucket list….I told them that only the young go in for such things but I remembered that as a boy, I wanted to raft down the Ohio to the Mississippi River ’n thence to New Orleans ’n go to Mardi Gras…I opined that  prob’ly a lot of Ohio River boys had wanted t’do the same thing…I imagine that some ackshully did it but I never got a round tuit ’n now I don’t really care…as I advance deeper into my dotage, I ask m’self two questions when offered an opportunity to do sumthing that I’ve never done before…..First, do I really want to do it ’n Second, am I physically capable of lifting m’self out of my recliner to ackshully go ’n do it…both those questions take an inordinate amount of time to ponder but lazy old men tend to ponder pretty well….

“Always speak the truth, think before you speak ’n write it down afterwards.” L. Carroll

Dog Days of August...

Coffee ’n newspaper on the front porch…

these days start out warm enuff that I automatically turn on the overhead fan…paper is full of Robin Williams, as is the ‘net ’n most likely the teevee…can’t help but think that if he’d but known how many people were devastated by his decision to cross over that he might not’a done it…’course, there are a lot of people who make the self-same decision ’n devastate their friends ’n fam’ly just the same…

Ah well, he wuz a funny, funny man…

“He was born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.” R. Sabatini

I made the mistake some time ago to let Willy sit on my lap whilst enjoying my morning coffee on the porch ’n now he’s come to expect it…he likes to face the street so’s he can warn me of impending dangers, I suspect…mostly, the chickens, I think, but he barks a lot at the bees that come buzzing ‘round the water dish on the porch…we get a lot of bees…they come for the sugar water that we have for the hummingbirds…the first one we put up wuz so popular that we put up a second one ’n then a third one….four or five hummingbirds ’n uncountable numbers of bees…seems the bees like the birdbath as well…looks like a crowded beach scene some days…

V’s Bees, which some of you know, inhabit a section of our south forty…last year wuz a bad year ’n V (Vasili Vukovich) lost about 65% of his small army but they seem t’be making a comeback this year…Bee’s are important in this life of ours, without ‘em, we might not last too long…which, if you pay any attention at all to the news pundits might just come sooner than any of us suspect….

I try not to pay undue attention to the doomsayers among us…those scholars who insist that Armageddon is just around the corner…prob’ly having coffee with Prosperity…(old joke from the previous dark days of the last century)…

Lots of dark days down in Missouri where a black kid lost his life to a white cop…made the news all around the world…I’ve heard that 96% of young black kids that are killed by gunshot are killed by other young black kids but nobody riots over them….I don’t know anything about the shooting in Missouri ’n I’m never one to rush to judgement but I blame Obama and the Democrat Party ’n their divide ’n conquer tactics for the riots…I believe that the last time our country was so divided was in 1860 and we had a civil war to settle our differences….

Talk about times trying men’s souls…..

A rose by any name….

“Even old New York was once New Amsterdam,

why they changed it, I can’t say,

People just liked it better that way.

Istambul was Constantinople,

Now it’s Istambul, not Constantinople,

Why did Constantinople get the works,

That’s nobody’s business but the Turks…”

Not too long ago, son David was in Vietnam, in Ho Chi Minh City, going to a branch of Cambridge University…says it’s a very interesting place ’n he intends to return sometime ~ in the future ~ funny, but that’s what I said about the Grand Mesa in Colorado, 'n several other places that I passed thru at one time or another...

Anyhow, HCM City use’ta be Saigon, well, since the 17th century anyway, ’n many of the South Vietnamese, at least those living in the USA, vehemently prefer Saigon ~ but, as we are so often reminded, the winners get to write history pretty much anyway they want...

Burma, which wuz a big deal when I wuz a kid, what with the Brits getting their butt kicked ’n then all the war news about The Burma Hump…’n, yes, I wuzn’ t very old ’n didn’t really read all that much of the newspaper, but the Portsmouth Times wuz a real newspaper back then ’n adults read the war news, ’n talked about the war news, ’n there wuz usually a map denoting where we were ’n where the bad guys were ’n they was all strange names…’n Burma, along with Wake Island ’n Bataan ’n other hard to pronounce places were in all the adult conversations ’n yes indeed, little pitchers have big ears...

The Burma Hump wuz p’tick’larly puzzling to a little boy in Beattyville, Kentucky…fortunately, there were news reels ’n movies ’n such but it wudn’t until I saw what separated Burma from China that I understood why they called it ‘The Hump’….

Anyway, t’day’s Burma is offically named Republic of the Union of Myanmar (dunno why Commies seem to like such complicated names) but to most of the world, the old world, anyway, it’s still Burma as it has been called that since…oh, the 9th century…..

And Russia, oh good God, Russia has been Russia for…oh, hell, I don’t know how many years ’n I don’t want to look it up tho’ I suppose I could (9th century ’n named for a wildass group of nomads that called themselves, the Rus…well, makes sense then) 

For awhile, the Commies renamed it the United Soviet Socialist Republic (long, complicated name again) but now, it’s back to just plain old Russia…unless Vlad the Bad Putin c’n pull it together again ’n I ain’t got a clue what name he’ll come up with if he gets t’be King or Tsar or whatever....

And China, or if you prefer, The Peoples Republic of China, since 1949 anyway…Well, ever since Formosa became Taiway ’n almighty China became the PRC ’n seems like everyone just has to start changing names that have served humankind pretty darn well for thousands of years, well, the ubiquitous ‘They’ say that the only true constant is change….howsumever, if you go to a Chinese restaurant ‘most anywhere in the world ’n order Peking Duck, you pretty much get Peking Duck ’n not Beijing Duck….I don’t know if that holds true in Beijing/Peking or not but if anyone would like me to personally check it out, I will be happy to accept donations to defray the expense of the trip…

Caused me to wonder, if the Germans had won World War II, would they have changed the names of Paris ’n London ’n what might todays world call them…t’is a puzzlement….

One thing about getting old, you don’t have to fret about avoiding temptation; it'll avoid you.

Some days it’s really easy to say a bunch of nuthin’…sort’a let my fingers do the talking…surprise m’self sometimes with what comes out….

Have you ever wondered what kind of mess you could make if you poured six cups of water into your drip coffeemaker, added filter ’n coffee, ’n turned the thing on without noticing that there was NO coffee pot on the burner?  No?  Not dumb enuff?

That’s pre-zackly what I did this AM…I think maybe c’uz I’m up too durn early, I should probably go back to bed for another two hours ’n ask for a do-over…

As a general rule, life don’t give do-overs….’specially not with dumb mistakes… 

I hear a lot of people say if they only knew then what they know now, they wouldn’t a’made such a damn silly choice…’course, they wouldn’t….nobody ‘ud make a damn silly mistake if they’d only known in advance how things was gonna turn out…..the Japs wouldn’t have bombed Pearl Harbor when they did…Hitler would’a finished England before turning on Russia…Heck! Napoleon prob’ly wouldn’t have gone into Russia at all if he’d only had a clue….and imagine all those people that signed up to have that first ride on the Titanic…bet your butt they would’a waited…

On the other hand, what if you'd been there when Apple 'n Microsoft were still in their garages looking for funding...which dream casually overlooks the fact that you prob'ly wouldn't'a had any money then either... 

All of which has nuthin’ at all t’do with a floor full of coffee at a few minutes past 7 on a Friday morning ’n nobody less interested than two little dogs that are anxious to get started on their morning S&P tour….. 

Hump Day S&P tour.....

“Getting old is no problem, you just have to live long enough.” Groucho Marx

Just back from Wed mornin’ S&P tour…for a change, we didn’t meet any other dogs ’n I’m ever so grateful…several pedestrians, howsumever, strollers, chilluns, ’n such….otherwise, on the quiet side…still a little muggy altho’ the sun is back ’n I expect temps will rise accordingly…

Somebody posted a picture of J. Paul Davis on FB t’other day ’n I got to thinkin’….the first time I met him, I ‘uz just a boy ’n my Dad took me inside ’n introduced us….Mr. Davis was a gentleman of what would'a been called back then, the first order.  I called him Mr. Davis at the time c’uz way back then, children didn’t address adults by name….Come to think on it, I believe I called him Mr. Davis after I wuz grown 'n could prob'ly have got away with calling him Paul....same with Brud Hannah...could'a called him Brud but Mr Hannah seemed to come easier...

Oscar Howard, for example, wuz my Mother’s step-brother but we called him Uncle Oscar all the same…Terry posted a picture of Uncle Oscar ’n Aunt Edna (who wuz a distant relative of Mom’s) along with Terry, Gayle ’n Steve…I’d never seen the picture before but it brought back mem’ries...

Uncle Oscar would sit in his front yard in the evenings in the shade of his trees ’n read his newspaper…shade or not, he still wore his straw fedora just the same…

Seems like people in general are a lot less respectful of others t’day…a lot of them, just downright rude…not so much rude in a face to face thing, y’understand, just rude in general…get outta my way when they’re walking kind’a thing, y’know…rolling the windows on their autos down ’n blasting out rap music with its raunchy lyrics…y’know what I’m saying, as tho’ they’re telling the grownups they meet that it’s their world ’n they know all the dirty words ’n they don’t mind proving it….(sighhhhh)…I suspect it might shock them to know that all of us know all the same dirty words also…

One on one is sumthin’ of a different story, howsumever….I’m old ’n beginning to creak, I guess, ’n that must be a tip-off for a lot of ‘em (I suspect their hearing is a lot better than mine) ’n in a general meet-’n-greet way, most of ‘em call me ‘Sir’….

I c’n still recall the first time a bank teller called me Mr. Smith…I looked around to see who she wuz talking to before I figured out it wuz me….

“’n if you ain’t getting any older, it’s c’uz you’re already dead.”  

WOW!  Just barely into August ’n cloudy skies like I’ve not seen before, well, at least here in norCal at this time of year….common, of course, in the rainy season…

I’ve seen rain in August before…in 1962, I think, it rained for about 30 minutes or so ’n back in or around 1970, it rained pretty good one July day….

I wudn’t home for that one, I was in the mountains with a station wagon full of people looking for a dry place to eat lunch c’uz it wuz rainin’ in the mountains…

I had a TR3 at that time, parked in front of the house with the top off…(top got so ratty I just took it off ’n threw it away but, that’s another story)…found several inches of water inside but I just took out the rubber grommets 'n, Voila, water away...

Summer rains in the central valley of California happen but you c’n durn near count the drops as they fall, even while wearing sunglasses…

Yest’iday, me ’n da boyz walked in the rain during our evening walk ’n none of us actually got wet…you c’n do that in a norCal rain…

Heck, you c’n darn near do that during our rainy season…I’ve often walked to the mailbox ’n back during one of our winter rains sans jacket or bumbershoot ’n the only thing I’ve had t’do is wipe off my specs…

What I’m saying, of course, is that when I came to California midway through the last century, I learned a new word…Virga: a mass of streaks of rain appearing to hang under a cloud and evaporating before reaching the ground.  And virga is what a lot of our winter rains is…’course, if we ain’t in a drought mode, we c’n get that kind of rain for a couple months at a time…gets downright wearisome at times….

Aniyhow, these cloudy skies ’n cooler temps are a welcome relief, albeit temporary c’uz the sun’ll come back with a vengeance, prob’ly by the end of the week….

Saturdays tend to come 'n go no matter how we may personally feel about them....

No news on the RV front (or rear, either, for that matter)…waiting for another inspector..

On that note, me ’n da boyz went for our reg’lar Satiday mornin’ S&P, down the block ’n around….met a new neighbor just moving in, she was soooooo excited that she wuz gonna be living on such a unique block, in such an iconic village ’n so close to the shopping….not quite sure she should be so enthused about the shopping since most of what we got downtown is 2nd hand stores masquerading as ‘Antique Treasure Troves’….’n most of what they sell seems t’be what we at the Manse live with but I guess that’s what happens when you get old….

Ah well, comes to all of us that manage to remain on the green side of the sod….

Seems like I start out most days by calling up the Portsmouth Times on the old  ‘puter to read the obits….gotta keep track of my friends ’n wondering about the day that I find my own name there…

Anyway, back to the S&P tour from which I wuz so easily diverted…lots of traffic ‘round the village this AM….turista’s searching for their own Holy Grail…surprising how many of ‘em carry little dogs with ‘em….’n they all seem to think that my two dogs ‘ud like nuthin’ more than to meet ’n greet with theirs….then, of course, I have to apologize when Rusty ’n Willy make that magic switch from affable, agreeable little tail-waggers to snarling, fang-showing monsters…..

’Course, I do try ’n tell people before they shove their little doggies into the abyss that develops in Willy’s mouth…they’re always shocked….or, at least, that seems t’be the most common reaction…I explain that dogs on leash tend to be very protective but I don’t think they believe me…

The other day, an older woman let her placid, well-behaved Austrailian Sheepdog off leash and wuz really surprised when he turned into a snarling wolf loose in the chicken coop that is our Plaza Park…..I’m not sure how many chickens he killed before she (’n the well-wihers that helped her) got him corralled ’n back on-leash…tsk, tsk….”Dogs will be dogs” I somewhat snarkly remarked as I passed by…..reminded me of the time that Buddy, the German shorthair that I wuz dogsitting for my daughter, got away ’n wiped out a small flock of the feral fowl that inhabit our neighborhood….well, German shorthairs are, after all is said ’n done, bird dogs….

“The cat will mew ’n dog will have his day.”  Wm. Shakespeare

Ah, the Dog-Daze of a long, hot summer....

On ‘The hurrierder I go, seems like the behinder I get’ front, lemme play a little catch-up here….

T’other day, seems like there wuz a small fire in the motorhome…CSAA claims agent came out, looked at it, asked me if I’d been up on the roof to look at the damage…Nope, I sez, I don’t like heights!  Turned out, he didn’t like heights either but, we got him a ladder so’s he could climb up to the motorhome ladder (he wuz kind’a short) ’n up he went with his camera slung around his neck…

When he came down, he told me we had some roof damage, at which point I explained as  how the Safari has a one-piece, molded roof that is kind’a pricey…he winced at that but plunged ahead…asked me if I thought I could drive it to an RV place so that a more experienced person could look at it….”Nope!, I sez, “not sure it’ll start but I wouldn’t drive it anyway.”

Well, he mulled that over ’n said he guessed they’d have to tow it…I allowed as how it might be cheaper to have a more qualified assessor come here to look at it…he perked right up at that suggestion ’n said he’d get on it ’n that I’d hear from him in a few dayz….

and that, dear friends, is where we are at the moment…..more (unfortunately) to come…..