Nothing But Love :: golf blogger

The Coming Iraq-Iran War

I haven't read about the timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq that George the Lesser has proposed, but I'm sure the first of the withdrawals comes in the last week of October, just before the November elections.

Does anyone else wonder what the plan is for the long-term stability of Iraq? Is the U.S. going to continue to govern the country through its puppet government once the consulate, the 750-million-dollar self-sufficient Xanadu in the desert, is completed? Does anyone else fear that the U.S. will, through third parties (Remember the Iran-Contra affair orchestrated by CIA-chief, George Bush the First?), permit Iraq to acquire nuclear weapons as a deterrent to the fear that Iran will one day far in the future have a nuclear device?

What a deal: Yes, by all means, Mr. Bush, withdraw your troops from our country for political gain at home, but give us the Bomb in case you want us to nuke Iran for you.

India, unfettered by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, would be an ideal ally to supply Iraq with the necessary material and manpower -- outsourcing the Iraqi nuclear weapons program, so to speak.

It's just a thought.

Time Travel

I was walking the dogs yesterday evening when the storm hit. I didn't think it was going to be a huge rainstorm, but it turned out the rain came down in buckets. There wasn't much to do except get drenched ... there is one advantage to being bald -- no wet hair. I tell you this by way of excuse because if it wasn't pouring down rain, I would have taken a picture with my new Motorola Q; but I didn't want to get it wet so soon after getting it.

The street ... it isn't really a street any more, but it used to be a street that passed under the Superior Viaduct, a stone bridge that spanned the Cuyahoga River, built in 1878, and torn down in 1913, part of which still stands on the west side of the river and is home to luxury condos and apartments and artsy places. So, the street is made of stones in the shape of bricks, worn by age and use. It is not even a dedicated street, has not been open to vehicular traffic for many, many years, and dead ends into the bridge built to replace the viaduct.

As I was walking the dogs up the Superior Hill from the park on the east side of the river ... and as I said, it was a torrential downpour that caused a lot of flooding, otherwise, I would have taken a picture ... I noticed something sticking out from between two of the stones that made up the ancient roadway. Well, maybe it isn't an ancient roadway, not like the roads in Italy, which are really, really ancient; but it is a relatively recent ancient roadway that isn't even in use anymore.

And let me tell you this: I'm as skeptical about these things as the next guy, but I find that I'm convinced now ... I saw something ... it was a copper-colored top of a copper-and-black Duracell battery, some black showing with a "D" printed on it, sticking out between two paving stones. It was all beat up, like it had been there for many, many years, but it was unmistakably a Duracell battery.

This, dear reader, is proof that time travel is a real phenomenon. Obviously, a traveler through time lost the battery, either through a hole in his or her pocket or when changing the AA batteries in a flashlight or hand-held computer or time-displacement device and didn't pick it up, maybe because he or she was on the Viaduct and it fell to the pavement below.

And the Duracell battery has remained there for a century or more stuck between the paving stones, only to be discovered by a man walking his three dogs in a rain storm in the 21st Century. It's hard to believe. It sent shivers up and down my spine ... but that may have been because the rain was kind of cold and I was wearing only a T-shirt, but nonetheless, I am convinced that time travel is not only possible, but has been accomplished ... you know, like in Star Trek, the one in which Bones was drug-crazed and went through the time portal and ended up with Jackie Collins and Kirk fell in love with her and then she was hit by a car and killed so that the Nazis wouldn't take over the world ... you know, like that. Sort of. Like that. Maybe a little different. But like that, I guess. You know, time travel.

I WANT ONE OF THESE

found on rollingstone.com

In the Elevator

"Hello ..." the disembodied voice said.

"Hello ..." it repeated.

"What is that?" the woman asked.

"The phone there. Open that little door and see who it is," her companion said, hands full with the groceries, as the red LED 8 appeared on the elevator display.

"Hello?" she asked cautiously.

"Is Richard Benvenista there?" said the voice across the speaker.

"No. I'm a tenant in the building," she replied.

"Is this 8476890876," the voice said in staccato fashion.

"This is an elevator," she pointed out to the voice.

"An elevator?" queried the voice incredulously.

"Yes, an elevator in an apartment building," she told the voice.

"I guess I really have the wrong number."

Monday Moaning

The edict has come down from the British Medical Journal that cell phones should not be used during thunderstorms. A girl was struck by lightning while in a London park as a thunderstorm raged while she was making a phone call. The headnote of the article states that cell phones may attract lightning, which is totally unsubstantiated. Who decides to actually print these things?

This story is similar to the one promulgated by gasoline service stations and petroleum conglomerates that cell phones can ignite huge conflagrations at the gas pump, resulting in serious injury and death, which is simply not true. And still the people behind the glass announce through the electromagnetically charged speaker system to get off my cell phone because I could blow up. And I suppose that I should also be worried that I might spontaneously combust while watching television.

And speaking of myths and rumors, I'm still waiting for my 2% rebate on my Costco purchases I made in 2005. I was conned into purchasing an "Executive" membership, for which I would receive a rebate ... I didn't get a check. When I went in there about a month ago, the lady with the computer in her hand said that I was a great customer and needed to renew my "Executive" membership. I asked what was in it for me, and she said that I would get a 2% rebate ... I told her I never got a check before. She was surprised. She took me over to the customer service counter and told the lady there to make sure my check for the 2005 purchases was re-issued. She chalked up my failure to receive a check to our move and change of address, which didn't make a whole lot of sense because the post office forwards mail. I still don't have my check, even though Costco has my new address. I'm wondering if I'm not the only one or if there are others who have not been paid their rebates.

Then there is Starbucks, which promised to send along some free drink coupons because of the rather poor service at the West 6th Street location ... don't have those, yet. It's been a month or so ... the Pony Express moved the mail from Seattle to Cleveland faster than that. And the door handle, which was also the subject of the complaint, still doesn't comply with Americans with Disabilities Act regulations. I'm beginning to wonder if Starbucks' Five-Star Service is a bunch of crap and whether any other Starbucks locations do not comply with the ADA regulations.

The Velvet Tango Room

I ran into Paulius at the elevator today, as he was bringing two Boston Terriers back from an afternoon constitutional. Paulius owns and is host at a little night spot located on the precipice of the true industrial Flats on the near west side of Cleveland on Columbus Avenue, just south of Abbey Road, he named The Velvet Tango Room. I had promised him several times that I'd pay him a visit there, since we are neighbors, but I'm not a drinker, let alone one with a sophisticated palate; so, I had put off the visit until Friday a couple weeks back.

As the time closed in on midnight, my lovely wife and I made the short trip. I have seen Paulius, wearing a blue pinstripe seersucker suit, dusty-blue-and- cream-colored saddle shoes, and white panama making the trip to work on his 26-inch, green bicycle with balloon tires, one-speed, and coaster brake ... reminiscent of the bike upon which I learned to ride. And walking into The Velvet Tango Room with Paulius coming to the door to greet us with a warm smile, truly excited and happy to have us visit his establishment, was reminiscent of a small club seen in some of the movies of the 1940's ... the ambience and architectural details suggesting that Lauren Bacall or Lana Turner might emerge from the back room into the shadowy, low-key lighted room into which Paulius escorted and seated us.

A piano-bass jazz duo supplied the live background music, which is a nightly staple of The Velvet Tango Room, not intrusive, but adding to the atmosphere. The non-alcoholic drinks the bartender made for us (we gave her free rein on that) were refreshing, one an orange whipped drink, something like an Orange Julius, but smoother and lighter, the other with ginger ale, which is made on the premises, with freshly-squeezed orange juice, and a dash of fresh lemon juice, and a curl of lemon rind. We ordered Bananas Foster, which Paulius made for us tableside in the classic manner, which was rich, but with the various flavors playing together well.

Paulius has written, in defense of the higher-than-average price of his cocktails, that: We take huge pride in our craft. Take for example, a scotch sour. We hand squeeze a fresh lemon and a lime for that individual cocktail, and mix it with homemade syrup. We do not use “lemmix” or any other artificial prefabricated “sour mix”. The “well” scotch we use to make it is Johnnie Walker Black. This costs upwards of $40.00 a bottle. Most bars use well liquor that is under $10 per bottle. The cherry served with your scotch sour is either a homemade maraschino using fresh cherries from the West Side Market when in season, or Fabri Cherries imported from Italy. We ultra purify all waters used for ice and/or mixers.

More than the drinks, however, was the comfortable feeling engendered by our host and his professional staff, who were not obtrusive, but responsive, and were not pretentious, as some have stated. We lost track of time and stayed well past the 1 a.m. closing time without being hurried and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. And we will return ... with a couple friends who have refined palates.

WHY I COOK

i love to cook. i love to eat. heh. i love to cook for my family mostly. i love it when they love it. much has been written about the connection between food and family history. i won't even try to get that deep into it. in the past couple days, a couple things have happened that have caused me to think a lot about this whole thing.

i wrote yesterday about matty and his weird obsession with healthy cooking. i know i played a very small part in his love of cooking. the boys always helped me cook. i talked about cooking while we were working. we tried anything. we were fearless. but. BUT. i am in no way a healthy cook. no way. we joke -- matt is ming tsai, and i'm paula deen. those are pretty good analogies.

i was so happy when matty first asked me for a recipe when he started cooking in his own kitchen while in college. it was the first time i actually tried to write down my pasta sauce recipe. took me forever. matty has his own sauce recipe now. a lot spicier. good sauce. another rung on the ladder. his own kids will probably add to and change that recipe.

i was just telling jackson the other day about how anything and everything you do can have special, spiritual meaning. washing dishes sometimes does it for me. i look at my hands (kind of small, utilitarian) and wonder whose hands they are. did some great-great-great-great grandmother have these hands? what was she like? what did she do with these hands? will my great-great-great granddaughter have them? will she wonder about me?

back to food.

my mom didn't cook very often. when she DID, however, it was always good. often great. she made chicken soup that was the best. it's the chicken soup i still make today. she made a red clam sauce that my sisters and i would LOVE to replicate. it was like italian fast food. her 5-minute specialty. THE absolute best red clam sauce ever. EVER. she made a veal franchese that rivaled ANYTHING i have ever tasted.

but she never cooked with us. sure, she had us helping. we'd clean up after her. we'd be setting the table. whatever needed to be done. but she cooked alone. it's how she wanted it. i don't know why she didn't want our help. i wish i could ask her.

i've been dying for some of her veal franchese. yesterday, we picked up some chicken breasts so i could make some chicken franchese. i was going to make one more attempt to replicate her specialty.

i called my sister "j" to see if she wanted to come for dinner. she was busy. i asked her if she had any of mom's cookbooks. nope, but i've got some notes she kept. I MUST HAVE THEM. "j" never mentioned this to me. i cannot wait to get my hands (heh) on these notes. i feel like i've found the holy grail. "j" is looking for them -- she'll call me when she finds them.

i just finished up the my chicken franchese. it's as close as i've ever come. i think that i'll have to play a little more with the proportions and the choice of wine to approximate my mom's dish. maybe there's a clue in mom's notes. while i was cooking (alone today), i was wishing that i was cooking with my mom. lately i've been feeling her absence keenly.

*********

another funny food thing that got me looking at world maps. i was looking at some recipes on recipezaar today and saw a recipe for rice and milk. for a while, we lived in my grandfather's house when i was little. my grandfather, my two aunts, my cousin, my dad, my two sisters, sometimes my uncle, and me. grampa would make this rice and milk a lot for breakfast on a cold day. the notes on the recipe say it's an african recipe. reminded me that i heard somewhere that grampa (a sicilian) was born in tunisia. i mentioned that to bill; and mr. big brain said, "look how close sicily is to tunisia." so i did. cool, huh?

whoops. didn't label it. tunisia on left, sicily on right. duh!

this mom thing and her recipes? this is one of the reasons why i blog. it's like, here i am. you'll NEVER get rid of me!

Pies

All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it. - H.L. Mencken

We stopped on the way to Columbus for gas and at the side of the road was a roadside stand. Two Amish women and some kids selling pies and cookies. I bought a blueberry pie and a cherry pie, alleged to have been freshly made.

When I think "cherry" pie, I think ... mmmm ... cherries. And when I think "blueberry" pie, I think ... mmmmm ... blueberries.

There were no cherries in the cherry pie, at least the part that I didn't throw out. And there may have been a blueberry in the part of the blueberry pie I inspected ... I could not readily identify it, and the DNA tests have not been completed.

I told a lawyer friend of mine my tale of consumer fraud, and he let me in on a secret ... "Juice. Everybody knows the Amish use juice to make those pies. And the crust is terrible. Amish pies are the absolute worst pies on Earth. Everybody knows that ... well, everybody, but me.

Gin and Tonic

As the weekend approaches, I thought it prudent to point out as a public service that you will probably get drunker faster if you mix your drinks with diet ginger ale or tonic water than with calorie-laden mixers. Sugar-free mixers speed gastric emptying which rapidly boosts blood alcohol levels, reported Chris Rayner, M.D., of the Royal Adelaide Hospital in Adelaide, Australia, in a presentation at Digestive Disease Week.

I suppose that some of you will now have a good excuse ... scientific research.

The Squirrel

The squirrel is gone. I checked over in the bushes. I checked in the parking lot. I checked in the gutter of the street. It was gone. Old friend ... it had been laying on the apron of the driveway of the parking lot that isn't open since February. It looked as if it was asleep the first time I saw it while walking the dogs, but it wasn't sleeping. It didn't move as the three dogs and I approached from the north. Nope ... it was just laying there ... a dead squirrel. It looked like it was sleeping, though ... well, if squirrels sleep with their eyes open, then it looked like it was sleeping. The tail was all bushy. Hmmm ... it wasn't breathing, either; so, I suppose, technically speaking, it didn't appear to be sleeping because it wasn't taking deep, sleeping breaths. That much I could see.

I'm guessing that it appeared to be dead ... except I'm not really guessing because I knew it wasn't sleeping. And I steered the dogs clear of the squirrel that was laying in the driveway of the closed parking lot, even though they were curious about the squirrel, all three straining for a good look. I'm sure that if one of the dogs had a stick, she would have poked the thing ... just to make sure it was not sleeping.

Except for Scout ... she would have grabbed it and scurried off, growling and snarling, then she would have checked its vital signs. I steered them clear because it looked like it just died. I mean, it wasn't bloated ... of course, it was cold; and maybe the refrigeration-effect of the cold air kept the bloating to well-nigh invisible. And if it just died, it might be contagious ... like in the movies, you know how they burn the bodies ... especially zombies because you just never know if they're really going to stay dead -- but zombies are already dead -- maybe I should say "you just never know if they're really going to stay fucking dead," or something like that so you know I knew about zombies. But that's beside the point because I don't know of any instances where squirrels were zombies.

Anyway, I walked the dogs past that spot where the squirrel lay dead a couple times a week, rain, snow, sleet, or shine; and through all that, the squirrel remained in its spot there on the driveway of the closed parking lot. One night, the parking lot was open; and the squirrel stayed where it was.

I don't mean to imply nor should you infer from my statement immediately above that the squirrel stayed as robust-looking as on that first day I found it. I didn't imply anything of the sort, and you would be wrong about the inference you've drawn. (If you take nothing else from this writing, remember the imply-infer difference; don't be like the local news guy who doesn't know the difference). Nothing exposed to the elements like that without some protection could look the same as on the first day -- look at what happened to that goof in that water-filled sphere, and he was in there under water for what, a week or so? What I'm telling you is that, first, the squirrel's tail hair started to fall out. The squirrel, at that point, looked like a rat -- and that will forever be etched in my mind. Squirrel. Rat. Pretty much the same ... except for the hair on the tail.

And then, the squirrel got kind of ... deflated ... flatter-looking, but not in the crushed-by-a-car sense. It just looked a little flatter and flatter each time we passed by. After several weeks, I didn't even have to steer the dogs around the squirrel ... they just walked by, ignoring the flatter and flatter squirrel body with the hairless tail. The head, it was staying the same size, but the eyes were pretty much really a dull black, not glistening like when we first encountered the squirrel laying there on the driveway.

So, there it was, having its own place on the driveway, like a bear-skin rug ... head sticking up, but with a flat hairy body -- except for the tail -- and except it was a squirrel, not a bear ... and I don't think I've ever seen a squirrel-skin rug -- that would be something I'd remember. But I have seen a flying squirrel exhibit at the Museum of Natural History. And I've seen Lucy there at the museum ... the skeleton, which might be just a model, of the ancient hominid ... Australopithecus afarensis, I think, is her given name ... discovered in Africa by the Johanssen guy who used to be with the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

But the squirrel laying in the driveway of the closed parking lot didn't really look like a flying squirrel -- or like a hominid -- well, it was just laying there not hung up to make it look like it was flying. Then one day, I don't know how it happened, probably a drunk driver because there are bars in the area, but it was flat ... I mean, flattened like when you smash down a hamburger that you're grilling and it gets flatter ... you know what I'm talking about. Flat, not like before ... but smashed, head kind of crushed. There was no blood or any other kind of juice, but still, it was not a pretty sight ... that was a little over a month ago.

Today, the squirrel was gone. Not a trace. Oh, well.

WHY, GOD, WHY?

excerpt from conversation with matt this morning:

me: i've got a coffee cake in the oven. i think it's gonna be great. new recipe. what could be bad? 1 cup butter, 2 cups sugar, 4 eggs. and other stuff.

matt: grilled tofu.

where did we go wrong? grilled tofu?

Bernoulli's Dogs

The dogs have been irritated with me since the move to the new place. I figured out why today. There's this thing that they used to do when I took a shower ... I would funnel water down the sliding glass door into the metal track and they would stick their tongues under the door and drink the water. Okay, weird ... but they liked it.

Now, for the first time in recorded memory, we have a shower liner ... the clear plastic thing that is in the tub and a funky multi-colored streamer shower curtain from Garnet Hill that hangs outside the tub. The dogs don't like it. They have no water trough. They no longer come into the bathroom while I'm taking a shower. I tried to interest them in the Bernoulli effect, but they are more into particle physics and quantum theory than stupid shower curtains moving when the water is turned on. I started explaining it today to Scout because she absent-mindedly wandered in and took a lick off the edge of the bathtub, but then she just walked out of the bathroom while I was talking to her ... that's when I figured out they were pissed off about the whole shower-door-water-trough thing.

It's not a serious bone of contention ... not a Psycho thing ... yet.

FATHERHOOD

again, i say ... "i chose wisely."

one of the recurring themes in my lectures to my boys is that when they are looking at women as potential mates, they should always keep in mind that they are choosing the mother of their children. sobering thought, yes?

so, i celebrate my choice today. the father of my children, it was a wise choice.

happy fath's day, will. we love you.

in a related (sorta, kinda) matter, the "guest" room is now occupied by TWO young men, jackson AND his very good friend, drew, who found himself homeless (or WOULD HAVE) shortly after grduating from high school. everybody, say hello to drew.

The Pretenders Come Alive

My earliest memory of riding in a car was the Goodyear sign with a blue background and the gold "GOOD and YEAR" sandwiching a foot with a wing on it. At night, however, it was a blaze of lights, swirling and whirling around, flashing on and off ... at times the flashing "GOODYEAR" would flash a golden "GO," then go dark, then flash a golden "GO," go dark, then a golden flashing "GOODYEAR."

For decades, the blue and gold sign illuminated the valley at night, also flashing the time and temperature. Then, because of one of the energy crises or another, the sign was changed ... the lumens were reduced and the flashing stopped ... a more subdued sign for the economic times.

Then, as Toyo and Bridgestone invaded the U.S., cutting into the Goodyear business, and the price of electricity increased, and the main road south out of the city where the sign could be seen by scores of thousands of motorists a day was by-passed by the interstate highway heading into the south suburbs, Goodyear took down the diamond-shaped illuminated sign and replaced it with a rectangular, unilluminated, billboard-like sign with only the time and temperature flashing below.

Well, I drove down the road the other day ... and I was stunned and amazed/ My childhood memories slowly swirled past/ Like the wind through the trees ... the Goodyear sign was gone.

Blood on Your Hands

President Bush made a surprise visit to Iraq, ostensibly to discuss democracy with the Iraqi Prime Minister, but more importantly, to get some mileage and positive press from the Zarqawi killing.

I don't know what W said, but I'm sure he mentioned, as is his custom, a couple names of soldiers also visiting Iraq and honored a couple of U.S. servicemen who have died in the name of freedom for the Iraqi people. And we got to see the dead Zarqawi's face and body and autopsy along with all kinds of vivid descriptions of what was found and where, unlike the young women and men who have served and died in Iraq ... don't even see a coffin or body bag. And protests at funerals for those who were in the service have been criminalized ... 10 years in prison and $100,000 fine ... free speech? No.

By the way, Bush forgot to mention the names of these brave U.S. fighting men and women and civilians attached to the military who have died since January 1, 2006, faithfully carrying out the orders of the Commander-in-Chief:

Drugs

Today was Root Canal Day. After almost recovering completely Still ailing from whatever was making me cough my lungs right out of my chest for the last five days, I sat in the dentist's chair after postponing the procedure on three separate occasions. Why postpone it again ... already feeling shitty.

So, I wake up from a ghoulish nightmare that I dare not ask my blog analyst to interpret for fear she may say that I am one of the undead, and the Indians lose to the fucking Yankees 1-0, without even pinch running for Hafner in the ninth ... talk about nightmares.

Then I turn on the NBA game and fall asleep again. I don't know if this was real. I think I was awake ... some kind of little cartoon bodies with big Clay-mation heads, I think ... I'm not really sure ... I don't know what they were doing ... Fuck ... I feel like Samuel Taylor Coleridge -- nobody will fucking believe this.

Miami is winning ... finally. I'm letting myself succumb to darling Miss Emma.

Throwing a Dart

I started writing this post about dart-throwing while sitting in court a few months back watching a trial unfold -- it was something about how the attorney representing the accused murderer was moving his arm and hand toward the witness while asking questions, which was pretty annoying for the few minutes I sat there, that reminded me of dart-throwing ... if he did that in voir dire while questioning the jurors, the guy had no chance at all. It turns out he had no chance anyway with 39 stab wounds in the other guy and blood all over him.

Then, today, in my stuporous state brought on by some kind of upper respiratory thing that has been living in me the past four or five days, which I decided was not bird flu because I took no part whatsoever in the cock-fighting extravaganzas over there in the Tremont area that were the subject of a massive raid by federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, I awoke momentarily; and on ESPN-222, there was a replay of the Northeast United States and Caribbean Dart-Throwing Championship, which I may or may not have imagined ... with a camera behind the dartboard (what happens if the dart hits the camera?) ... and two rather corpulent older fellows tossing darts like they knew what they were doing, grimacing and fist-pumping just like in the NBA play-offs. I don't know if I imagined the things I saw; but I felt that I should look through my little leather hand-made jotter that holds my Levenger 3x5 note cards and find what I had jotted down, which is, as follows:

My dart-throwing career began and ended in my parent's basement. The dart board was mounted on the cement-block wall of the unfinished basement, not that my dad was a dart-thrower of any repute. I think it was hung on the wall there to be out of the way. And there were five darts on top of the highest course of cement block, three with green-colored plastic wings made to look like feathers and two with red.

How hard could it be -- throwing darts at the dart board; after all, I could fire a baseball from behind home plate to second base while on my knees ... that's how I had to be able to do it in high school. Darts would pose no problem. I could enter dart tournaments at college and make some cash.

The scoring was weird, but I wasn't going to worry about that. I guess the little rings meant something ... double or triple score, kind of like Scrabble. And a bull's-eye counted 50 or 100 -- whatever.

So, I figured I'd mess around and see what the attraction was about throwing darts. I fired the first dart just like a throw to second, economy of arm motion, right from the ear ... and I expected the dart to thud into the dart board.

But it didn't.

This was not good. I was a good four feet off line. What the fuck was that all about. And a pointy dart thrown at a high speed hitting a copper water supply line makes a hole in the pipe ... do you realize that? ... water sprayed from the copper pipe above the meter where the shut-off valve was located. And the water ... I put my finger over the little hole, but the water sprayed out from around my finger; and I was getting wet. And so was the basement.

Damned if I knew what to do. I couldn't turn off the fucking water because the faucet for turning off the water was below the hole spewing a jet of water into the basement. Nobody else was home. Hell, by the time anyone came home, the whole fucking basement would be flooded. I needed to call someone ... my grandfather, he would be able to help, if he was home. So, I called him ... and he started laughing when I told him what happened, saying something in Croatian ... probably like, "Idiot! Moron!" or worse; and he said that he'd be right over.

And I met him outside, as he pulled his old Pontiac Tempest into the driveway several minutes later. He opened the trunk and told me to take the darkened wooden box. He grabbed the beat-up, gray metal tool box, carrying it without effort, while I struggled with the scarred, wooden box; and we went to the scene of the crime through the side door and down the steps where we were confronted by the plume of water erupting from the small hole in the 1/2-inch diameter pipe.

My grandfather set down his metal toolbox, flipped the latches on it and opened it. He told me to put the wooden toolbox on the ping-pong table. He pulled out a roll of black tape ... and he deftly wound the tape around and around the pipe, magically, because the roll of tape was bigger than the space between the pipe and the wall. How he did that I don't know, but this was a man who could grow figs in northern latitudes that I understand were better tasting than anything from anywhere else in the world. I suppose that qualified him to do most anything, perhaps ... a physical impossibility wasn't going to stop him from wrapping tape around a leaky water pipe to save his eldest grandson from certain death at the hands of his son-in-law, his daughter's husband.

And when the black tape looked like a gall on a tree limb, my grandfather announced that the water had stopped leaking ... well, it wasn't spewing out all over the basement, but just running a little down the pipe and over the meter and onto the floor. "You watch," he commanded; "I turn off water outside," he said in his thick Croatian accent, as he bounded up the steps, some tools in hand, which I hadn't seen any other man of 70+ years on the planet do.

Moments later, he rumbled down the steps. "Billy, take tape off," he said. I started unwinding the 17 miles of tape, as I watched him open the metal tool box, from which he took a bottle of gas and parts for a torch that he dexterously assembled as he had thousands of times before. He put the torch assembly on the wet floor, water draining away from the pipe down the sloped floor to where the washtub emptied into the hole in the floor across the cement floor, and took over unwrapping the tape. His hands moved quickly, like in a cartoon, whirring back and forth faster and faster as the rhythm took over.

"Get torch," he said softly, as he was finishing the unwinding, a huge pile of tape, like mummy windings, heaped on the floor. I handed him the torch and scooped up the tape without being asked. He was heating the pipe with the torch when I returned. He muttered something about "water in pipe," but he clearly wasn't talking to me because the rest was in Croatian. He pulled a roll of silvery metal wire from his pocket and touched it to the hole in the pipe. Nothing happened, and he said something in Croatian to the pipe ... or to the wire solder ... or to the torch. I wished at that point that I had learned some Croatian swear words from my grandmother. He put the torch to the pipe once more, patiently moving the rushing flame back and forth. After a few minutes, he again touched the wire solder to the pipe, and it liquified, filling in the hole. He continued with the torch and the solder until he decided, "Enough."

Without a word, he went back up the steps with tools in hand and returned a matter of seconds later and stood back from the pipe, looking. "No leak," he smiled at me. He took a piece of purple sandpaper out of the metal box and wrapped it around the pipe and sanded the pipe ... he removed the sandpaper and the pipe gleamed like new copper with a small silver dot where the hole had been. "Wow," I said, to which he replied, "Looks good."

He disassembled the torch and returned it to the metal toolbox with the tools, tape, solder, and sandpaper he had taken from it. He motioned at me to get the wooden tool chest on the ping pong table. We retreated from the scene of the debacle up the stairs and to the Pontiac Tempest. He opened the trunk and put the metal toolbox back in its place, and I hoisted the wooden tool chest over the lip of the trunk and into its reserved spot.

"Thanks, Grandpa," I said, meekly, embarrassed that I had been so stupid.

He smiled, lips parting to show his aging teeth, cornflower blue eyes twinkling with unspoken affection over his suntanned nose, larger than most, but slightly irregular from the chunk of cancer a surgeon carved out, which added to his tough exterior, which belied the heart of gold, "Our secret," he said, leaning forward and kissing my forehead.

SAHM

something i read on chucklehut's blog this evening pissed me off.

bill and i married when we were 19 and 20. sometimes i think that it was because we were so young when we met that we avoided that power thing some couples experience. we knew each other as kids. we grew and experienced and planned together.

bill was between his junior and senior year in college when we married. i, on the other hand, had not had the choice of college. it was not an option, my parents dictated. ah well. i knew my time would come. so, i went to secretarial school. bill and i became engaged right after my high school graduation, and we planned that i would support him through the rest of college and whatever grad school there would be. then he would take his turn while i went to school.

i planned for a long time to go to school for an engineering degree. as soon as bill graduated from law school, i started. after avoiding pregnancy for many years, i became pregnant during my second year. a planned pregnancy. we decided that it would be easier / more flexible to start a family while i was in school. i vould take whatever time i needed to finish. there was no hurry, we decided. we wanted it all. i never, for one second, considered staying home and not finishing up and then working.

when i started to feel the physical effects of my pregnancy in january, i took an engineering co-op job and opted out of classes until after the baby was born. matt was due in june, and i planned to be back in school in the fall.

but in may, honest to god, it was may 5, 1981, that i was sitting in the lab at work. we were in the middle of an infrared spectroscopy computer presentation / training that our lab had purchased. i was happy to be off my feet at almost 8 months pregnant. i sat there, feeling and enjoying my baby's kicking; and in one instant, my life changed. i realized that i could not go back to school or work for the forseeable future. i wanted to be home with this baby. wtf? who the hell was i?

it scared the crap out of me. this "decision" just happened. i could only do what i felt i could do. and i just couldn't go back.

what would bill think? would he now look at me differently? would i? when i told bill that night, he was all like, "yeah, sure. whatever. cool." wha? could it be possible that i was not any less the feminist i believed i was, not any less of anything? that i was still just me? that whether i worked or went back to school or stayed home, i'd be the same person?

i wound up "staying home" for almost 20 years. i don't regret it for one second. i know there are many people who think i'm "less than" or at least not in the same league or universe as they are. that i'm not a feminist. that i couldn't possibly be. that i'm pedestrian. bourgeois. that's their problem. their insecurities. wanna have a contest? make my day.

if you don't allow or respect the choice for a woman -- or a man -- to stay home and be the full-time caregiver of their children, then you're no better than those who didn't allow a woman the choices they now have to have any career she chooses. and you're a fool.

FREDDIE

heed my words. do not be tempted to buy one of those cute little froggy aqua babies you see in the mall or target. you'll be tied to the frigging thing for the rest of your life. and the snotty little amphibian won't appreciate your efforts one bit.

i bought / chained myself to freddie in april, 2000. that makes him over SIX YEARS OLD! isn't that like three hundred years old in frog years?!

he was about the size of a dime when i bought him. now he's about the size of a quarter.

that's him with his back turned to me, the snotty, little bastard.

even if you take his age and add it to the other two frogs' ages that bill killed within 2 WEEKS of adoption, you'll still wind up tied to a frog for over 2 years. now i don't know about you, but even that's too long for me.

freddie started out in the house he came in. i soon upgraded him to a double wide, furnished with a tiny porcelain toilet and bathtub, a mailbox, and a park bench. he endured / thrived on all visitors to my office (where he lived in his double wide on my desk). i had to make sure he was fed three times a week when i was out. visitors would knock on his glass. i swear that the cleaning lady brought him treats from home.

my boss brought him to my house while i was out on my first knee leave. he's been home ever since. bill was terrified that freddie would die on his watch when i returned to work. as if.

he survived the move to the city. he even survived when bill knocked him and his double wide to the floor, destroying all. all except freddie. not even a broken mini-frog's leg. he then lived in a ziploc bowl for about a month until we purchased him a new, less ostentatious home. he lived a solitary, spartan life with only a purple rock for a friend. and because his only LIVE friend, a snail, perished in the big fall (i don't have any real evidence of that -- all i know is that snail was thrown out with the detritus of the double wide -- he could be alive SOMEWHERE), his new home became greener and greener. yuck.

it's too hard to put him in a bowl while you clean out his "house," so i decided i'd get another modest little pad for him, get it all prepared just the way he likes it, and just transfer him over. easy, right? 45 minutes of fighting with him, trying to convince him that the frog net (ok. it was the end of a navy blue leotard made into a cup with a coat hanger, so maybe it DID look a little like the big mouth of a fish) was the way to go has just about done me in.

i need a frigging nap. and look at him. THIS house has a plant (ok, so it's fake) and a big shell. what the hell does he have to be so pissed off about?

NEXT!

bill and i (and 2 or three other couples -- dear friends of ours) are going to italy at the end of next year. the first piece of software i purchased for my new mac was a program to learn italian. sure, i already know plenty of nasty things to say to or call people; i'm hoping i won't have to use that part of my italian.

it's a program complete with sound. you hear it, and then you speak it.

so we're learning together. it's hard. not because the language is hard. because i can't stop laughing every time bill "speaks." EVERYTHING he says sounds like this.

sounds like this

i have a year to stop laughing.

32

She was bright, funny, pretty, quirky ... we had the same opinions about a lot of things going on in the world ... and in our hearts. Children? Why would we bring children into the world as it was? That would be cruel. She would support us while I was in school, then it would be her turn. It was 1974.

I sit here at my part of the desk, bright, early morning sun illuminating the buildings and bridges to the west, trees lush green in the Forest City, lake blue in the distance, a cream-colored ship unloading at a dock ... she's sleeping in the bedroom, breathing steadily, woman now, brighter, funnier, cuter than ever, having been on a path that has been rockier than most ... I can be a real son-of-a-bitch ... with two children, altogether different, but the same ... the same intensity, the same fires burning fiercely, the love, wittiness, intelligence, creativity, loyalty -- same as their mother.

We'll have been married 32 years tomorrow; and although neither of us could have imagined this journey back when men with guns guarded the park entrance on the lake shore on a Saturday morning, and in a circle of flowers, celebrating a beginning with friends and family, with a minister with a Southern drawl neither of us could understand blessing the union, I wouldn't trade the love, passion, kindness, happiness, and sadness we've experienced for anything.

IF YOU HAPPEN BY

disclaimer: to my lovely, loving, regular readers -- you may not want to read this. pass on by. this is the post i've been avoiding since i started this blogging thing. i just can't avoid it anymore. it needs to be said. there are only a few people who know the identities of those of whom i am writing. deal with it. it is truth.

i was there. i am a witness.

i know you raped the older girl over and over and over. yes, it was rape because she was 13 when you started. you told me yourself that you loved her as a woman. remember? you were driving me to my babysitting job. i was 15, had known it for a long time; but i guess a 15-year old girl is old enough to be your confidant since a 13-year-old is old enough to be your lover. and yes, it IS rape. tell that story to other rapists and child molesters. maybe they'll believe that bullshit.

i know you left me alone. i don't thank YOU for that. i know it was only because there is / always was something in me that scared / scares you. the time i slapped you for saying you could see through my pajamas. you were pissed. i knew i did the right thing. i know it now. i'm grateful i had it in me. so i don't thank you -- i thank god. i thank me.

i was there when you grabbed the youngest girl's breasts. she came immediately to me devastated. you told her she wanted it when she pulled away shocked.

i am the closest thing there can ever be to an eyewitness. you tell those who cling to the idea of who they want you to be that the oldest girl is a liar. she is not. you know it, she knows it, i know it, and i recently found out that you confided in at least one other person what you did / were doing to her.

we know. someday everyone will know. that's why i posted this. believe it.

Advice Needed ... Elevator Etiquette

The elevator stopped at 12, and a woman stood at the door with a man behind her. She was dressed for business with high heels and a skirt, blouse, and jacket, purse under one arm and briefcase hanging from the other shoulder. He looked to be headed for the airport, dressed casually, but with his laptop case, and two carry-ons.

She stepped into the elevator and stopped. "I'm stuck," she said. She looked over her shoulder at the guy and said more emphatically, "I'm stuck." Her heel was stuck in one of the the channels in the stainless steel threshold of the elevator. She pulled, but didn't move.

Now, in that situation, it is rather obvious that the guy who had accompanied her should drop what he was carrying and extricate her from the trap before the door scissored her leg off at the calf, which would have solved her problem, but would have caused a mess, to the delight of my three canine companions. As it turned out, he did help her. He kicked at the high heel of her shoe until it came out of the channel ... a poor solution in my view, which could have caused damage to the fine-looking shoe, but he didn't drop even one of the bags he was carrying.

The question, however, arises: What if the guy wasn't there? To what extent would I have been required to assist he to get her unstuck?

PROMISES, PROMISES

i said i'd post pictures of the loft when work was finished.

we have spent the past month for the most part spending a shit-ton of money on, and working our asses off on the loft. we hired a contractor to:

paint bedrooms and bathrooms
wire and hang cool little llights over the dining room table
build shelves in the pantry and laundry closet
build a huuuuuge desk and work area

they did an awesome job.

and bill and i did a lot of shopping and cleaning and organizing to get the place the way we wanted it. some new furniture, new STACKABLE lg washer and dryer, new computers.

the place looks gorgeous!

i am really not very good at the digital-camera thing. but here goes. this is my desk at which i am typing this post:

when i turn around in my chair, i see bill's desk and the looong work surface and counter top:

swivel a little more to the right, and this is the long view into the loft:

yup, that's jax on the couch. i took the pictures last weekend when matt and mel had the guest room. he will NOT be a permanent fixture.

Fuck It, Let's Go Bowling

Liberty and democracy become unholy when their hands are dyed red with innocent blood. -- Mohandas K. Gandhi

See, I started to write this post with the best intentions ... you know, like all intelligent-sounding and rational. I planned to set out all kinds of high-fallutin' arguments that would be like persuasive in the extreme. Then, while I was in the shower, brushing my teeth, the thought crossed my mind -- Why?

The mother-fuckers running this fucked-up country don't really give a shit about stuff that really matters. Dude, really ...

And it would be cool if Woody Austin wins the Memorial Golf Tournament today.

IMHO REDUX

i posted this originally on 5/20/04, and am posting it again in response to a conversation / argument i had the other day. and because the issue's in the news again -- bush wanting an amendment banning gay marriage. pfffffft.

the gay marriage "thing" is a big news item again lately. and jax wrote about a possible suicide in our area where rumors are flying at the high school that the boy was questioning his sexuality and worried that "god wouldn't love him." now, i do NOT know anything at all about this boy at the high school, but it just got me thinking about this whole thing again. i'm gonna lay it all out for you. my thoughts. MY beliefs.

#1. homosexuality has always been. always will be. hear me again. there will ALWAYS be a certain percentage of the human race that are homosexual. always.

#2. homosexuality DOES NOT EQUAL pedophilia. there are heterosexual pedophiles, homosexual pedophiles, priest pedophiles, teacher pedophiles, and garbage collector pedophiles. the adjective has NOTHING whatsoever to do with the noun. non-predator homosexuals (just like non-predator heterosexuals) want other homosexuals. tell me you haven't heard a hetero guy say something "admiring" about a lesbian. most people shrug it off. no big deal. but if a homosexual says the same thing about a hetero, boy oh boy, does the crap fly. this is not predatory behavior, people. get over it. nobody's trying to recruit straight people over to the other side.

#3. this is the big one for me. if you accept that there will be a certain number of human beings who will be homosexual (#1) and that homosexuals are not predatory by nature (#2) [if you don't accept these premises, you're pretty much hopeless. and brain dead. in my humble opinion.] given these FACTS -- oh yes they are FACTS - how can we say to a human being: if you realize that you are homosexual, understand that you will never have the right to love and commit to another homosexual person in the same way that WE can. WE are normal. YOU are a horrible mistake. YOU must live unloved and unfulfilled as a human being. live in OUR world. in OUR WORLD, only heterosexuals may marry. that's OUR sacred right. i don't know about you - but *i* believe that there's room for all kinds of people.

so YOU have a choice. two alternatives.

ONE: you do not accept facts. therefore - you are ignorant.

TWO: if you accept the facts, but believe that marriage is only for heterosexuals, you're just a mean, close-minded bastard. allowing homosexuals to marry doesn't demean you or your marriage. your position against gay marriage demeans you.

and this: don't tell me what your bible/priest/dogma/religion tells you. you need to accept the FACT that we are not a christian, jewish, muslim, wiccan, satanist - whatever you are - nation. that is what separation of church and state means.

imho.

edit: i see that the comments are getting into religion.

so don't talk to me about RELIGION. talk to me about the law. and the values of a compassionate, accepting, LOVING culture that we pretend to be. gah.

WHAT'S UP IN THE KITCHEN

come on people! go to the kitchen. do you see that picture of the kitchen there in the middle? click on it!