The Book List 2008

Okay, so there are only 26.


1. The Jewel in the Crown by Paul Scott Book one of The Raj Quartet. Densely written doings in colonial India.

2. The Lighthouse Murders by P.D. James Intriguing mystery, neatly solved by Adam Dalgliesh and company.

3. Leave It To Psmith by P.G.Wodehouse Comic entanglements that all work out for the best.

4. The Day of the Scorpion by Paul Scott Book two of The Raj Quartet The continuing saga of India, the British Empire and small histories with large consequences.

5. Sherlock Holmes, The Unauthorized Biography by Nick Rennison Read the first half, skimmed the second. This book is for Homes aficionados only.

6. From Where You Dream, The Process of Writing Fiction by Robert Olen Butler
Interesting ideas. Different approach.

7. Innocent Blood by P.D. James Complex characters in a complex plot with an unusual ending.

8. Fifth Business by Robertson Davies First of “The Deptford Trilogy.” Spectacularly written. Lots of human observations and insights along the way. Not an easy read, but well worth staying the course.

9. Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen Fast paced, fun, circus story. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

10. The Manticore by Robertson Davies Second in The Deptford Trilogy Fascinating character study.

11. I am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe Country Girl goes to college and comes of age among other things.

12. Special Topics In Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl A dark mystery unraveled by the book’s protagonist, a sixteen year old girl prodigy. Brilliant first novel.

13. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole A chuckle fest throughout with a most unusual protagonist.

14. How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas Foster An entertainingly written how to read between the lines book.



15. World of Wonders by Robertson Davies Final book of the Depthford Trilogies. All is revealed and we learn who killed Boy Daunton.

16. Dress your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris Funny sketches by a true wit.

Barrel Fever by David Sedaris Off the wall funny.

18. A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin Book One of a fantasy series. Awesome.

19. The Woman Lit by Fireflies Jim Harrison Three novellas by a great writer.

20. The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde Wildly imaginative fun read.

21. Julip Jim Harrison Three more fascinating novellas. Best character writer I know.

22. A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin Second book of the series. Left hanging. Need to get to book three soon.

23. The English Major Jim Harrison Former teacher and former farmer takes an entertaining road trip following his divorce that makes for an enjoyable read.

24. A Good Scent From A Strange Mountain Robert Olen Butler Short stories about Vietnamese told by Vietnamese living here (the U.S.) and there, Nam. Butler of course has written them all, but each voice sounds original and authentic. This book was a Pulitzer winner and deservedly so.

25. Silent Joe T. Jefferson Parker Layered mysteries with a unique central character. A good read.

26. Killshot Elmore Leonard Pro killer meets amateur killer, both get their comeuppance from a housewife. Elmore’s always fun.

Crawling to the Finish

Doldrums. End of year doldrums. Feel like I haven't had a novel thought or turned a clever phrase in weeks. Probably haven't. Standing at the starting line of the new year shaking out the legs, stretching, waiting for the ready, set, go part. What will 2009 bring? More of the same? A not too bad proposition; more golf, more books, more blank screens to fill with nonsense. More family, more friends, more of life-its-own self. So what am I waiting for, let's get on with it. Nope, can't do it. That's jumping the gun. A false start. Have to wait. Be patient. Hold back those resolutions. Have to FINISH this year. Must be how Obama feels.

And speaking of finishing, I finished two light reads last week, if books of murder and mayhem can be called light. The first an Elmore Leonard oldie entitled "Killshot", and the second a T. Jefferson Parker Edgar Award nominee, "Silent Joe", that was the better of the two books. I typed them onto my 2008 book list as numbers 28 and 29 read this year. Most years my count is in the forties, but this year's list included five books of over a thousand pages. I could read four Dick Francis who-done-its for each of those so my pace is about average...for me. Woowoo Charly read the same tomes as I and roughly a hundred more. I now use her as my personal pre-reading critic. I ask her which book will be my next. I'll blog my list shortly, if I can get my old computer to hang onto the Internet long enough to SEND.

There is an intense rainbow out the window to my right. I wish I could describe it to you but rainbows don't have any of the colors that I know, colors like red, blue or orange. They have artist palette colors with names like cerise, magenta, lilac, shaquille and mutombo. Doesn't matter now though. It's gone to wherever rainbows go. Perhaps in search of a new year.

Sunrise Sunset

My dermatologist, Doctor Panagas, pronounced pain-in-the-ass, no, wait, that's my proctologist, ( kidding, I don't really have a proctologist and hope I never need to despite all the blog potential there) says I should put sun block on my face everyday even if I don't plan to go outside or the sun isn't shining because you never know when an evil ray from Old Sol might slip through a window pane and zap me on the nose. I told him that if I wanted to put slime on my face on regular basis I would have chosen to be a woman back there in the womb when the choices were being handed out. Women thrive on lotions and potions and do not seem to be bothered by the slime factor. (The S in SPF, in case you don't know, stands for slime.) I have met people who unlike me say they can't stand the feel of the sun on their skin. They prefer cool air touching their bodies. Whackos if you ask me, most likely descendants from a dark planet. We ex pats from Venus where the temperature is a mild 220 degrees or something like that, can't stand cold air blowing across our skin. It makes us scrunch our shoulders, shiver and sneeze. We prefer heat and specifically the kind that comes from the sun. What turns out to be annoying though, is that our basking leads to skin cancer. What, I ask you, do the chill freaks get from walking around cold all the time? Do they have some doctor saying take off your hat, roll up your sleeves, put on some shorts and get out of the shade? Is there some slime they have to use to protect them from cool breezes? I hope so, it's only fair.

As I've noted before, it's good to vent.

I'm catching a lot of sunrises these days. (Puppies desperate to go out account for that.) Apart from the fact that seeing the sun come up means you have made it through the night alive and now it's time to put on your SPF 60, sunrises are overrated. Sure there is a nice, subtle brightening of the sky and the world becomes magically visible as nature turns up the dimmer switch, but compared to sunsets sunrises lack the drama, the oomph, and the color that accompany the sun going down. Of course, as the sun sets I am often sitting comfortably on a patio chair, cigar and cocktail in hand, body slathered in slime, hat pulled low on my forehead, doing my best to bask without harm, so I may be biased on the subject.

Bronco Blues

Wombat. Wombatting the Broncos get their butts kicked on national and international TV once again because it is clear the networks hate them and revel in their getting stomped before a world audience. No Bronco game has been shown here in Panama since the first game of the season. The networks have been waiting for just the right moment to humiliate the team and Denver once again and that time has come. The Broncos are on a losing streak, their defense, crappy to begin with, is devastated further by injuries and the whole team lacks heart, guts, grit and leadership, so let's, by all means the conspiring networks agree, show them on worldwide television during Primetime playing a team that has all the qualities the Broncos lack and are rolling along on a nice winning streak. Have these people no heart? No compassion? Don't they know how this is going to affect we poor slobs, who being fans, will be compelled to watch. Don't they know this is the Christmas season when charity and mercy should abound, or do they only care about the larger market share that is San Diego where there will be dancing in the streets at game's end? It's a shame, a crime and an insult to the loyal fans of a good city's team that has fallen on hard times and I'm not going to put up with it. I'm going to write a blog about it and tell the world just how I feel. That'll show 'em.

Alrighty then. It's good to vent.

Christmas Eve Day. Time to go put up our decoration.

Restart

I'm not ready to blog. I'm sitting here sorting through my mind's thought inventory and nothing strikes me as blogable. Of course I never really have all that much on my mind, so the process doesn't take long. I need help, Freud, Jung, Adler, Dr.Phil, maybe even Frazier and Niles. I'm blocked. Haven't written for three days and it feels like three years. What would you do? A couple of writer pals recommend "automatic writing." This is a stream of consciousness, blurt it out, let it flow, write every little thought that comes to mind and see what you get style of writing that works for them. Well, alrighty then, let's give that a try.

Five minutes have elapsed and I got a quick glimpse of something regarding Batman but it slid by before I could type it out.

Okay here we go. That was a good flick and so is It's a Wonderful life. I'd like to see Christian Bale and Jimmy Stewart change roles. "Wha wha wha were is she ca ca ca Commissioner Gordon?" "It's too late now Batman." "You might want to think twice about that twinkie comment bartender. Just because my friend dresses in a Halloween costume on Christmas Eve doesn't mean he can't kick your ass." Oh yeah Christmas, now there's a subject I don't even want to get on. The music is good though. Well some of it anyway. "Jack Frost roasting on an open fire, yule dust snorting up your nose. Although it's been said many times many ways, bah the humbug, bah the humbug, to you." New Year's Eve, now that's a holiday. Time for reflection and nostalgia while at the same time looking optimistically forward. I'm guessing there won't be much nostalgia for 2008 in most of the U.S. of A. what with the financial crash and other catastrophes like the Phillies winning the Series. I enjoyed the year though, for the most part. Great trip to NY, MD and CT. Wrote lots and read much. Losing that dog was sure no fun. Need to come up with a good resolution for 2009. Any suggestions?

Well that almost worked. I don't see anything there that I could blog around the block with. I see some longer pieces I could crank out, but none particularly funny and I prefer particularly funny. I think I'll go back to my own way of kick starting the word machine. I'll type one word and then I'll type another. After that I'll read those two and then I'll type another and so forth into the...near future. Let's get started.

Wombat. Tomorrow.

Poop Patrol

Sung to the tune of "I say a little prayer for you": Whenever I wake up, before I put on my...bathrobe, I let the dogs outside to poop.

True. Everyday. Somewhere between six and six-thirty. I can barely get the door open fast enough. I don't know exactly what is in Science Diet Puppy Food, the listed ingredients are surely a sham, but some combination of rocket fuel and laxative are unquestionably part of the mix. That and an expansion agent that actually allows a greater volume of matter to be expelled than was originally ingested. Yesterday at six A.M. we had a poop free lawn. At ten I counted eleven piles. These from two pups who together can't weigh thirty pounds. I'm not complaining mind you, merely stating the facts. In reality (that place where I live apart from all others) I am actually grateful. These are eleven piles of poop I can snatch up with the scooper and toss into the jungle with a quick underhanded softball snap of the wrist. The poop piles that appear subsequent to the morning cluster bombing frequently manifest themselves mysteriously indoors with nary a pup present. These are stealth poops placed strategically about by puppies who don't want the wrath of the two legged giants to rain down upon them in the form of "Bad Dog! Bad Dog! Outside!" and other such expressions of human displeasure that are so far akin to pissing up a rope for all the good they do. These pungent piles must be picked up with TP or paper towels, an act that places the highly odoriferous substance much closer to one's nose and invariably evinces a "show me your Yaeger face" of disgust. The dogs know that it is okay to poop outside. They know because they are rewarded by exclamations of approval from the same giants who are so unforgiving when they do their doggie dumping inside. What they have learned in their clever canine brains is not "woof woof let me out" but rather "heh heh heh, now's my chance, they're not looking." We three, the giants, are at wit's end, which is to say "it ain't funny Mcgee." We watch like hawks for the opportunity to snatch up a squatting puppy and flee with it to the great outdoors but our efforts are seldom rewarded. I now believe the dogs are working in concert. "Look at me, look at me" one will puppy yap, "I'm doing something adorable and cute." While we chuckle or ooh and aah, whichever is called for, the other quietly leaves evidence of its hyper speed digestive tract and then comes to join in the fun with dog number one. When the evidence is discovered, the guilty pup just looks askance as if saying, "not mine, wasn't me, you can't prove a thing." I have resorted to lecturing at length, but this too has proved fruitless. "Listen you floppy eared bozos" I tell them, "a dog who doesn't learn to do their business exclusively outside has to live outside. Get it?" They don't. But then, as I've noted before, my Dog, like my Spanish, is not all that fluent. I have even tried to emulate Cesar Milan, but the mutts didn't understand whispering either.

Alas and alack and oh well. As my friend Bill Baer used to say, "It's a doggie dog world." And that's the truth.

Doc and the Diet Thing

We had a rainless day yesterday. Weird, huh?

We lunched at a new restaurant, Tammy's, reputed to have the best hamburger in town. I believe the reputers are right. I split mine with Woowoo Charly who had ordered falafel which is pronounced fa...any way you feel like. I don't know what falafel is for certain, but it was served as ping pong ball sized fried things and came with a side order of hummis another thing I can't account for and pita bread for which I can. It's a Greek tostada right? It was all good.

RTGFKAR had a bacon cheeseburger that came garnished with lettuce, tomatoes, pickles and onions and it's always entertaining to listen to him as he removes said garnish with the explanation that if he wanted a salad on his burger he'd order one. RTGFKAR won't eat uncooked vegetables.

The night before, Randy and Maryellen the Texas twosome who are back from cruising the world - okay a small section of it in the Caribbean - took us to dinner at Aura's, a place close to where we live, and there too we were served a fine repast. (It's repast now but it was represent then.)I had an espeghetti con pollo and everyone else had...other stuff. Again, all good.

With that in mind let me tell you how my diet is going. Okay it's not really a diet, it's a goal. No it's not really a goal either it's a plan. My plan. My plan is that every time I reach 170 pounds on our bathroom scale which is clearly unreliable because it always shows me as heavier than I really am, I sure of it, I will restrict my caloric intake until I lose five or more pounds. This will leave me at fifteen pounds overweight, an amount I can live with because it takes so long to lose five pounds that the thought of all the time it would take to lose fifteen more puts me into a deep depression that only high caloric foods can relieve. Pass the cheesecake please. I will then eat whatever I want until I ACHIEVE 170 again and then start over. If my plan works I'm going to incorporate it into a diet book called The Yoyo Diet Plan with a subtitle of How to Lose and Gain Weight for Fun and Profit, because diet books sell like crazy (the profit part, gaining the weight back is the fun part) even if they are exactly that...crazy.
Wish me luck.

Scenario # 3 and More

Scenario #3

Rockmont’s new stable hand was fresh from his second year at veterinary school and seemed to have the caring hands that all good animal people possess. Cynthia Rockmont, just eighteen today, watches as he gently examines the stable’s prize filly and imagines those hands on her own withers and loins. It has been a long summer for Cynthia, isolated out here on her grandparent’s bluegrass acreage where no one, until yesterday, was under fifty and the memory of her last high school caress was fading to nothingness. She longed to be held again, to smell the sweat and pheromones of a boy in heat, to feel his want and his need. She watches excitedly as the new vet-to-be brushes and grooms the sleek animal, gliding his hands over its haunches and hips and down the long slender legs. The horse responds to its gentle care and turns to nuzzle the man with its nose each time he comes near its graceful neck. Cynthia feels herself growing flush. There is an unexpected heat emanating from her groin, drifting over her breasts and onto her cheeks. She knows she is reddening. This is silly she thinks. Why my hesitation? Look at him. He’s beautiful. She suddenly realizes she is desiring a man for the very first time. Well sure there had been plenty of boys in school; after all, she had been prom queen both Junior and Senior years, and though they had been sweet, they were mostly clumsy and immature. They had kissed her ardently and been allowed to pet some, but not one of them had aroused Cynthia sufficiently to get any further. They had certainly never achieved in her the feeling she had now, a feeling so… so… so damned URGENT! She made up her mind right then and there to give herself a birthday present. One she could hold and touch and be touched by. Her grandparents were away at a horse auction and the house was empty. She calls to him from the veranda, using the nickname the other hands had given him. “Doc” she cries out. “ Doc! Come here. Quickly. I want you.”

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

“He comes off a pick and takes the inbounds pass two steps in front of the half court line. There are two seconds on the clock. He turns, rises and shoots all in one motion. Goooooooood!

President Doc steps to the podium and says “Good evening my fellow earthlings. I come before you deeply honored that you have elected me the first world president. I promise you, you won’t be disappointed, I’ve got a lot of good shit planned.

“Doc dives to his left and snags the low, hot liner. He’s on his feet instantly and tags the runner from first who had gone too far thinking the ball was through the hole. Now if he can race to the bag before the runner headed to third can make it back…and he does! Unassisted triple play!

As Doc steps from the wings to accept his Nobel Prize for Literature he thinks back to the opus that had kicked off his brilliant run of critically acclaimed best sellers. Who would have guessed that “Ninjas in Love” would be such a winner?

The ball was a beautiful, twirling spiral right on line to the fleet wide receiver as he speeds into the end zone, but Doc has him covered tight as a too small sleeping bag. With perfect timing and at the last possible moment, Doc leaps in front of the would be hero and makes a one handed, finger tip interception. Now all he has to do is out run the dogs snapping at his heels to the far goal line. When he gets there he strolls in. He’s put a good ten yards between he and his pursuers, maybe more. We’re talking speed Baby, speed!

“I’m whispering here Ladies and Gentlemen, because I’m standing pretty close to Doc Walton as he prepares to hit his approach shot on the eighteenth. He needs a birdie here to win his seventh Masters and break the tie with Tiger Woods. He swings and the ball arches gracefully towards the green. It lands past the flagstick but backspins to the hole, stopping within a foot. Start etching that trophy gentlemen, this one’s in the bag.

Doc sits and tries to imagine himself as a real live hero. He’s pushing seventy, has creaky knees, a bad back and carries twenty pounds too many. He’s still got attitude though, and imagination. On top of that his wife and kids love him and his dogs think he’s swell. That’s hero enough for Doc.

Scenario # 2

She was all mine.

I had separated from my companions when my hunting dog, Leonard, had bolted into the woods in search of who-knows-what. He had never spooked a rabbit or bird in his life, so I doubted if the game was afoot. I trailed after him, listening to his bark grow more and more distant and finally drift off altogether. It was then I realized I was lost. I was deep into a Maine forest and night was closing in fast. I climbed a scraggily pine for a look about and saw nothing at first but other trees. I was set to climb back down when off to my left I spotted a thin column of smoke rising above the forest top. I estimated the distance to it at no more than two hundred yards. Twenty minutes later I was there, standing in front of small, well kept cabin.

A woman appeared in the doorway, looked at me for a moment and then asked if I wanted to come in and “take a load off.” I was stunned and nearly speechless. The woman was like no one I had ever seen outside of the movies. She was tall, real tall, over six feet for sure and when she turned to go back inside after my stuttered “yes”, I feasted my eyes on an ample butt that my friend Johnson would have characterized as “a lot of junk in the trunk.” The cabin was nothing more than a kitchen, a bedroom and a couple of chairs before a fireplace. I sat in one of those, turned so that I could watch her “fix” us a couple of drinks. The light where she stood was bright and I took note of all her features as she went about icing, pouring, mixing and stirring some sort of cocktail I wasn’t familiar with. She had a high forehead with a horizontal line running across it wide as a highway divider. Her hair was roughly the texture of a tired mop and it hung loosely down her back. It wasn’t like any color I had seen before, but that was just the first of her many surprises. She had a thin nose with large nostrils displaying some sort of weed in abundance. When her full, red lip parted - I could only see the one as her under-bite overlapped the top - a set of attractive yellow teeth were revealed. There was a nice gap between the front two that looked a lot like a tunnel entrance. On her chin was one of those cute Kirk Douglas dimples, only hers had something in it I couldn’t quite make out. It might have been a piercing piece, but then again it could have been a hood ornament or a raisin cluster. I was hoping to get a closer look. She had narrow shoulders, but made up for it with real wide hips. Her breasts poking out her biker tee shirt, one about an inch further than the other, looked plump and ripe and especially so as it was growing cooler and her nipples made dents in the fabric like roofing nails not quite hammered all the way in. I was growing increasingly aroused as I watched, but I didn’t get my hopes up until the goddess handed me my cocktail and said, “This is just for starters.” It was then I knew with a certainty that couldn’t be denied. She was all mine.

Scenario #1

Writer's group project for the month is to make ourselves the hero of a piece. To me this says fantasy, so I thought I would do several scenarios in a kind of Harlequin/Argosy style. Here is the first:

I was lost, out of fuel and going down fast. The fog was thick, but I could see what looked like land below and hoped for a stretch of beach to put down on. My engines were sputtering but they gave me just enough lift to keep the nose up. There it was! A fat patch of sand reaching out from the jungle and stretching down to the water, but not nearly enough to land on. I had one hope. If I could hit the surf flat enough I might be able to skip like a stone and make it to the beach.

Moments later my head was ringing and my eyes were giving me cartoon images, but I wasn’t quite out. I had skipped all right, nice as could be, but the sand was soft and I had plowed into it hard and fast. My seat belt had restrained me but something flying loose in the cockpit had given me a pretty good knock. I was trying to focus, regain my sight, but darkness was closing in fast, consciousness slipping away. There were people, natives I thought, outside the plane but I… but I… and then I was gone.

When I awoke I found myself bound and being carried on a kind of make shift stretcher. There were women all around me with wild eyes and hair, dressed, if you could call it that, in animal skins. Most were nearly naked, some fully so. They carried spears and bows and they looked at me with a kind of hunger in their eyes. They took me to a jungle encampment dotted with grass huts. I was propped against a pole somewhere close to the center. For a moment the women just stared at me, but then curiosity or something else I couldn’t quite read compelled them and they closed in and began to touch me. They were murmuring and whispering amongst them selves, sort of fighting for position when a clear voice rang out that startled us all. “Leave him” it said. “My rights as queen make him mine first.” I looked up to see a tall, dusky skinned beauty clutching some kind of silky cloth to her voluptuous body emerge from the nearest hut. She stood apart from the others for a moment as they backed away to clear a path. When she began to move towards me, slowly and sinuously, I could see that her eyes were the hungriest of all. As she neared, her cloth slipped from her shoulders and floated to the ground.

Monsooner or Later

The rain, which had lessened to a trickle, (trickle is a fun word to say) returned in force yesterday afternoon, continued through the night and is with us still this A.M. Swell.

I bundled up and sat out on the patio anoche, (last night), to watch the rain fall with cigar and whiskey close at hand. RTGFKAR and Woowoo Charly were hunkered down in the living room watching CNN and catching up on the doings in the world without rain. Their show was probably better than mine. Mine was akin to watching a landscape painting; nothing really changed from moment to moment. My goal, if I had thought about it and decided on one, was to be present in the weather while letting my stogie and whiskey do the relaxation magic they do, but I wasn't aware of that end as I puffed and sipped and stared mostly into inner space. I don't really do goals anyway. Focusing on the end result of any activity causes me to miss too much of the process where I find the real fun lies.

The weather event we are experiencing has affected me less than others as I am the self proclaimed "last of the great indoorsmen" anyway and much of what I like to do takes place under roof. RTGFKAR is the most affected in our household as his usual, read non rainy, days are spent outdoors landscaping, gardening, building and such. Woowoo Charly, like me, misses golf and is somewhat emotionally affected by the lack of sunshine. We are all cope-ing, though anxious for rain's end.

So there I was on the patio savoring my Crown Royal and blowing smoke into the mist. My thoughts were flying by like fast moving clouds and I only stopped to gaze at a few of them. One of them had to do with the book I am reading in which there are tribes called Quartheen and Dothraki among others. I find those to be wonderful words and there are many more like them in books by George R.R. Martin. I also chuckled (another fun word to say) at Charly's discovery of the ghost on our pup Mattie's chest. I had difficulty photographing it because she wouldn't hold still, but the image is a perfect little Casper. From time to time Charly would join me on the patio for a smoke of her own and we would have short conversations about the pundits punditing on CNN or whatever was in my head at the moment, one time sports, another, the obvious, weather. Throughout most of my sit-out I had pups on my lap curled about each other sleeping. There is something wonderful about stroking their warm fur and feeling their gentle breathing and tiny heartbeats.

Sure there is rain, but life goes on and it is still good. Hope yours is too.

Thoughts, More or Less

I just polished off a piece of RTGFKAR's homemade banana bread and am reminded of the the food conversion scale for elderly humans. That one six to eight ounce piece of banana bread can convert into four pounds of stomach fat is a fair example of how the scale works. The canine conversion scale functions somewhat differently. Feed our puppies the same piece of banana bread and it will morph into two pounds of poop. Both scales defy logic and reason but their truth is unquestioned.

I was hoping to write without mentioning the weather but a phenomena exists at the moment that calls for comment. I sit facing a corner in my office. There is a window to my left that looks out to the southwest and a window to my right that does the same to the northwest. To my left there is a clear blue sky spotted with puffy white clouds. To my right there is gray. Serious gray. Ominous gray. It is as if I were looking out onto two different worlds. It's weird I tell ya Pappy, weird.

RTGFKAR and I are off to Lovely and Talented Daveed later today to stock up on provisions in preparation for our next weather siege; one we hope will include sunshine. Woowoo Charly will remain en casa to puppy sit. Last night while watching Woowoo Chuck play tug-o-war with one of the pups, RTGFKAR and I pointed out how brave the ten pound dog was to take on an opponent who weighed three or four times as much as it did.

The sky is brightening to my right, a hopeful sign.

I don't know about you but I enjoy routine. That is, a schedule of activities I have set for myself, not one imposed on me. I allot time for everything I want to do and by applying self-discipline and sticking to the schedule, I poco a poco make progress in all my tasks. When "real" life intrudes as it does on such a regular basis that I suspect it has its own agenda, it knocks the hell out of my routine and I find it difficult to get back to my good (Good? I think they're good.) habits. When I eventually do return to my artificial, read "not real" but enjoyable grind, time has been lost and it cannot be found. I know I've looked everywhere. Oh well, not to worry, cosas de la vida, c'est la vie, que sera sera and any expression in any language that I can interpret to mean...alrighty then!

More of the Same

The Rains of Ranchipur took a Fair Wind to Java where it hooked a ride East of Eden on The Road to Bali and finally fell on, you guessed it, good old Boquete giving us thirteen days that included all or parts of a downpour. It is raining as I write this morning, so day fourteen is now in the Monkeymind Book of Records an unofficial compilation of anything that occurs to me. The record for uppours, for instance, remains at zero.

Yesterday's rain, having a sadistic sense of humor, waited until RTGFKAR and I picked and shoveled and rocked the the ruts on our servidumbre just enough to allow me to barely - three attempts were necessary - drive my car to our house. After the afternoon deluge, driving FROM the house may now be problematical if by problematical I mean crazy to attempt. Two days of dryness or one day of uppour will be required to sufficiently firm up the road's mud base for a run the gauntlet ride to what now seems like the far away pavement. Ah well, it can't rain forever, can it?

While working on the servidumbre, RTGFKAR and I had to step aside and allow a four wheeled drive something big pick-up truck to pass easily over the wreckage of a road and I thought wistfully back to the Toyota Tundra we had sold before departing The States. It too would have made the trip up the servidumbre a simple four wheel for fun journey. Our little Kia Sportage, a car that would almost fit in the back of a pick-up, has neither the weight nor the clearance to make the trip anything less than a challenge. On the other hand, I thought wistlessly, the 30 miles per gallon of diesel fuel - thirty to forty cents a gallon cheaper than gas - that I get with the Kia has given me a savings over the life of the car of roughly, more or less, quite a bit and by quite a bit I mean a lot. Factor in that while it is parked here at the house unable to drive and you will note that we are saving even more. (I like to look on the bright side even when I have to make it up.)

The Broncos play the Jets today and I am hoping it will be televised here. The Jets and their quarterback whose name should be pronounced five-ray (Say five like a southerner) but isn't, are media darlings and their games are aired regularly. Cross your fingers for me.

What Rain?

I've lost momentum. Can't write without Mo. Need Mo to keep the Flo. Have to force it for a awhile. Shove through the dead zone. Find the light. Write.

I love the keyboard on our new computer. I hit the spacebar with my index finger when I type and our old laptop keyboard required a pounding to make the space. I was continually going back and separating words. (And you thought you had it rough. See the kind of problems I have to deal with.)

Alrighty then. So, on the twelfth day of Rainmas, it didn't. Well not so far anyway. Of course it's not even eight yet, but hell, it's rain free afuera and that's a novelty. If it remains so, RTGFKAR and I will take pick and shovel to our servidumbre (access road) and try to make it drivable again. We have stacks of trash that need to be removed from the premises before they overwhelm us. ("Boquete trio found smothered in household garbage. Puppies chew their way to safety.")

My car has been parked at B and L's for most of the weather siege. Whenever we needed something from town I would walk there,(to B and L's) drive across the mountain, make the purchase, return, park the car and lug whatever I had up the muddy, rocky, slippery slope of a trail. The other day I brought back a propane tank - our water is heated by propane - that weighs, I don't know, maybe fifty or sixty pounds. I drove it to the trail head where I met RTGFKAR. We took turns walking it up the trail until we reached RTGFKAR's car which was parked at the bottom of the concrete carilles that lead to our house. RTGF drove it from there. We had done the same with bags of groceries the day before. Both times were made more annoying by the ceaseless rain. No matter though, we are rugged guys used to the rigors of our primitive lives. Especially me. I use a strict routine of chain smoking cigars, while downing cocktails to keep me fit and ready for any unexpected hardship.

After the road work there will be football. It is "Rivalry Week" for the NCAA (Naughty Collegiate Amos and Andys)and a few of the games promise to be competitive and entertaining. The Gators vs. Seminoles is always a good one featuring as it does actual alligator/indian tussles in the parking lot beforehand. I'll put my gameface on for that show. My gameface is the one with popcorn and beer being shoved into it at regular intervals.

Right now, though, it is still not raining so I better put on my work shoes. I don't have a workface.

Weather Seige

"Rain rain go away, come again some other day."

I awoke this morning to the sound of rain on the roof. It is a sound I have become accustomed to, or rather to which I have become accustomed.(That's for Bonnie) I donned some sweats and then opened the kennel and gathered our two pups into my arms to carry them out-of-doors. I don't trust them to make the walk through the house without stopping for their morning, ah, evacuations. After each ten pound pup had deposited an amount of poop roughly equivalent to their combined body weight upon the lawn and I had reloaded them with Science Diet rocket launching puppy kibble, we moved back into the house, I to write and they to create havoc for an hour or so before crashing and settling down for the first of their many daily puppy naps. We are at that precise moment now. The naps are going well, the writing not so much.

I don't really know what to say. Pictures, video or still, are clearly better mediums to describe the flood that has decimated parts of our beautiful town. You can find some of those at boqueteweather.org by clicking on the word "quick." I could make light of the whole affair by cranking out a humorous account of our inconveniences, but with reports of property destruction and deaths still coming in, I don't feel up to that task even if I do see the irony of having no water from our faucets in the midst of a flood.

Today's rain is light, so far, and I'm hoping it remains so. A partial rainbow, arco iris in Spanish, poked through the clouds an hour or so ago but it quickly disappeared into the soupy thick sky. Lluvia, pronounced you-vee-ah, rain, has visited us for ten consecutive days. I'm thinking that's enough.

In addition to the usual blessings I'm thankful for - family, friends and televised football - I now have a new one to add to the list here on Thanksgiving Day. I'm thankful we didn't fall in love with riverside property. Our house is safe here on the mountainside and the rain has our lawn looking great. Great that is, if you don't mind the piled puppy poop.

Happy Turkey Day to everyone.

Terremoto

Terremoto is not the the name of Japan's visiting Prime Minister as some might think. It's the Spanish word for earthquake. Last night at 1:10 a.m. Terremoto did come-a-calling and frankly I would rather have had Japan's P.M. The quake lasted long enough for me to say "holy shit" six or seven times, but I quit after the third one to hear what Woowoo Charly had to say. She was seconding my opinion. The intensity of the temblors (tremors)was double that of any we had experienced heretofore or even heretofive. It was noisy, unsettling, disquieting, unnerving and four other adjectives with the general meaning of Yikes! When it was over I meandered over to RTGFKAR's side of the house to see how he had fared and he too was in a bewildered state. I did point out to him that "on the bright side" our new home was still standing. It wouldn't have surprised me to have found windows out or roof tiles missing or cracks in the walls. I mean how can you shake an entire building hard enough to make your bed dance on the floor for half a minute and not have some sort of visible damage? I made a cursory check of the interior this morning and found nothing amiss or amister and will venture to the exterior when the monsoon wind and rain that were the earthquake's sidekick let off a touch.

An aside: I wrote a nice earthquake bit in what I called my "Costa Rica Papers" when we lived there and experienced our first serious shake and quake. I lost those writings and the subsequent "Panama Papers" when my computer's hard drive took a dive and never recovered. If any of youze good people should have a copy, por favor, send it my way.

Animals, I have read, often sense the onset of natural disasters before we puny humans do. Dogs, cats, bats and rats have been known to exhibit odd behavior prior to hurricanes, earthquakes, cyclones and the like. Our pups though are apparently missing that early warning gene. They made no sound to wake us beforehand and, at the conclusion of the terremoto, they merely shuffled around in their kennel a second or two and then promptly returned to sleep. I guess when you are a nine week old dog everything is cool with you except the word no.

Later today we are off to lovely and talented Daveed to get said pups their vaccinations - we will see how they feel about that - and another bout for me with Doctor Skinbegone and his trusty companion freezeface. I always enjoy returning from these sessions looking like a wereleopard in mid metamorphosis; especially when I have to appear in public before the spots drop off. Friday night I have to read at our writer's club and I will likely be in full moon bloom by then. Ah well, it's still better than a stick in the eye.

Or an earthquake.

Blogging Time

Blogging aimlessly is the Monkeymind's forte. No point beyond amusement is really needed. That's my amusement I'm talking about. I'll try to share, but there's no guarantee. I could have a central theme, a focus, even an issue I suppose, but then I would have to actually know something in more depth and that, perish the thought, would require research, study and the most perisible of all my resources, time. I spend my time (like all good Enneagram Sevens)in an orderly progression of things I like to do. (When not interrupted by the "have to's", that is.) Among those, obviously, is blogging. Although my writing away from the blog consumes far more time, I still enjoy letting the Monkeymind loose to see from which limb it decides to swing; what turn of gray matter, brain cell, or external stimulation will appear to capture my attention and find its way into words. Today, until now while reading over this first part, I had nothing, which is usually the case. But aha! Eureka! I have found a theme in the phrase "spend my time."

The cool thing about time is that it is distributed in a very democratic fashion. Everyone has the same amount given to them everyday. It can't be saved, hoarded, stockpiled, and it comes with the proviso that you must use it or lose it. The best way to use it is to spend it. (The concept of "borrowed time" comes falsely from people who are believed to have lived past the point of "time's up." When your time is truly up you can't borrow more.) Some people spend their time in large denominations. These are called hours. If you do something that takes hours it best be something that you enjoy. People, por ejemplo, who work at jobs they don't like are just throwing big bills into the wind. Larger time denominations like days, weeks, months, years are rarely spent on one thing so they are cashed in for smaller units. I prefer to spend my time in blocks of minutes. Like a fat wallet full of ones, minutes make you feel like you have a lot. I can spend 45 minutes writing a blog, 120 minutes on a short story, 35 minutes practicing guitar, 75 minutes reading a book, 60 walking the dogs and so forth. By day's end I will have used up my allotment in a very diverse manner. This is much like spending money on a shopping trip for small items rather than on one expensive large one. Occassionally though, Tuesdays most often, I like to spend an enormous chunk of time on one thing. Four, five, six even seven big hour bills can be dropped in the same place, namely, the golf course. I had planned to do that, in fact, this very day but alas, there is rain in the offing. (I had to get "offing" in again; it's such a cool word.) So, as a consequence, therefore and wouldn't you know, it's back to the time mall for me. Right now I think I'll go spend eleven minutes eating cereal and watching Sportcenter. After that, well, there's a pile of puppy poop I've been ignoring. And you? How are you going to spend your day?

New Kids On The Block !

Subscribing to a theory that I just made up which says, "If the hole in your heart is too big to be filled with a new dog, by all means get two", we did exactly that. Monkeymind readers meet Raphael and Mathilda, less formally known as Raffi and Matti.

We were in David yesterday to look for bar stools, a reasonably priced lawnmower and to have another hunk of this hunks handsome face, looking more and more phantom of the opera-ish every day, carved off and discarded by my friendly - he's always happy to see me - neighborhood dermatologist. We got two of the three, the wily, elusive lawnmower still avoiding capture.

A week ago on yet another jaunt to less than legendary David we had stopped and put our name on a Melo The Pet Store list for a call should they happen to acquire either golden retriever, cocker spaniel or, the longshot, corgi puppies. Woowoo Charly suggested that we should go back to Melo and tell them we would also be interested in any mixed breeds if we liked the look of them. We walked in the store and lo there was a sleepy blonde cocker in a kennel. Alrighty then, let's have a look. A clerk there says they have another in the back that they were just then bathing. I wander over to take a look. As I pick up this little, wet, drippy, black ball o love, the phone in my pocket rings. It's Melo's store manager. He's calling me to tell me they have the dogs. I walk around the corner and there we are talking to each other, face to face, with phones to our ears. We both laugh. In that slender interim Charly has bonded with the dogs and says to me I better go get RTGFKAR who is waiting in the car. A half hour later we are driving home with the pups you see pictured here.

No we haven't put Gus out of our minds and probably never will completely, but the business of looking after two frisky new pups who play until they drop, nap and then play some more and whose goal in doing so is to get into everything possible, tends to keep our gloomier thoughts at bay. It feels good to have furfaces back in the house.

Sex and Golf

Saturday night while waiting for the Texas Techies Okie State football game to come on I tuned to a show entitled "Wild Sex, Femme Fatale" because, c'mon, wouldn't you? There was much to be learned from this show, but not exactly what I was hoping for. It was about bugs. I am a little concerned about the bias of television censors toward insects and against people. Insects are allowed to perform all sorts of kinky sexual acts, including tearing off and eating their partners heads post coitus, while people are barely permitted a skin to skin caress. It's just not fair and I don't know what to make of it. Why, I ask you, the double standard? As I watched a televised gigantically overweight female spider impose herself on an unsuspecting, but not unwilling male an actual spider wandered out from under a nearby wardrobe. It stopped to look up at the screen and was clearly appalled but fascinated by what was being shown. After a couple of seconds though, its fascination turned to concern and it scurried back to the wardrobe to cover its children's eyes. Spiders have standards too and although I don't know exactly what they are I'll bet they stop short of letting the little ones watch that head chomping thing.

The rain has been letting off a bit the last few days and by a bit I mean it no longer falls with the density of a barrel full of Gatorade being dumped on a winning coach's head. There is hope that golf will be in the nearby offing. (Hmmm, does anyone say, besides me that is, "in the offing" anymore? And if not, why not? I like the way it sounds even if I am not exactly sure what it means apart from, maybe, soon.) I miss the sound of a mis-swung club striking a ball un-squarely and seeing said ball fly to parts unknown. This sound and this vision are still with me after weeks of not playing because when one has done a thing a thousand times, the memory of same is indelibly planted on one's monkey mind. You know, like, saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. The sound of a well swung club, on the other hand, striking a ball solidly is a sound I only vaguely remember from having heard it on television awhile ago. Televised golf swings are usually amplified and they sound something like swoosh plock. This sound, strangely enough, is the exact sound a female spider makes as it leaps forward and bites off its lover's head. The next time you hear it, don't be disturbed. Just think golf.

Feeling Low

I try to remain upbeat and cheerful and there are moments when I actually feel that way. Waking to find Obama a winner on Wednesday was one of those and waking this morning to read of the Broncos comeback victory is certainly another. These were small spikes of joy in what has become a very flat and featureless world. I miss my dog. Oh sure I do what I have to do to keep moving forward. I still shave, shower, dress and go about the day as if nothing has changed but there is a numbness that hangs on me like a shroud and each day is not a thing to be savored but rather a thing to be endured. Each day passed, I tell myself, puts me closer to being whole again. But I can't feel the progress. I can't feel the weight on my heart lifting. There is just so much pain and it baffles me. I have lost other dogs, hell I have lost people, though the latter not unexpectedly, and I have not suffered like this. I must have really loved this little guy. More, I guess, than I realized at the time. He was a vital part of my every day. I relied on him for more than companionship, I relied on him for something deeper, something harder to define. Unconditional love for sure, affection, loyalty, joy, a lot of things jumbled in there and maybe that is just it. I relied on him to bring a multi-dimensional reality to my world and now he is gone and all that along with him. Oh man, this just sucks.

Sorry if I have bummed you all out. I suppose I just needed to get this said.

Blowout

Don't you just love blowouts. You sit back stress free watching your team pile up the points and you realize the world is a good place, a friendly place, a place of grace under the sun.

Yesterday's election was a blowout almost as much fun as the Bronco's opening day win over Al The Devil Davis' Oakland Raiders. Good triumphed over evil by a large margin and hope was renewed in the breasts of the faithful. A caution must be issued here as Obama suggested in his speech last night. The road ahead is long and filled with potholes. We all know what has happened to the Broncos since that long ago blowout. But those concerns for the future are for another moment. This moment, this present moment, must be savored. My mathematical skills have never been top drawer as I have often noted, but even with that in mind, I figure I can't be too far off when I divide votes for McCain by the number of U.S. states. It comes out to six, maybe even seven people in each state voted for the old guy and his goofy sidekick. I figure they just got confused and pulled the wrong lever. I mean what else could it have been? All the remaining millions voted for Obama. If the election was a sporting event it would be what's referred to as a "laugher", a one sided spanking of the opposition.

That's it. That's all I have to say for today. That and of course, "It's good to be the king".

Sensing Something

It's quiet as an empty church at our house this morning. I can hear the odd bird chirping and a distant rooster doing its thing, but really the only noise of note is the clacking of my computer keys. Well, that and the ohmmmm of the universe echoing in my empty head where thoughts ought to be.

I'm sipping periodically on my third half mug of coffee - if I pour more than a half it just gets cold - and I am staring with wonder at a peculiarly blue sky. What can this mean? Is October truly over? Can sunshine, golf and happy days be here again? Are the Beatles reuniting?

A goodly - as opposed to badly - chunk of time has passed while I read over and over again the two short paragraphs above trying to think of what next to say and this sentence is the best I can do. Lame, if you ask me.

Maybe I'll try a writerly technique like describing my sensory impressions. Yeah, that's it. Now what were they again? Okay, I'm smelling, I'm smelling, I'm smelling and I'm getting...nothing. I do feel air going through my nose though. That's always a good thing. I see over the top rim of my reading glasses a still shiny morning with clear skies but I have already told you that. I hear, and this is a sound that just now began, the voice of Barack Obama coming dimly from the great room's TV. Woowoo Charly has arisen and found the remote, a clear sign that this is Sunday. Weekdays she beelines to the patio with coffee and book. And lastly, except for the next thing, I'm tasting the final bitter dregs of my cold black brew.

Now for the important part. My sixth sense tells me I'm hungry and that I will soon be making pancakes which is not a euphemism for something else. I will be actually making pancakes. After that, my sixth sense tells me, I will be practicing guitar, reading a book and taking a nap. All at one time would be nice but my sixth sense tells me to get a life. These things will be done sequentially as I wait for the political pundits to leave our TV screen and be replaced by men who draw a much larger audience, football players. My sixth sense gets a bit hazy at that point but it is suggesting that the Denver game which has once again been advertised as being shown will - once again - not be. This could be a bummer unless my sixth sense is wrong which is often the case. Right now, for instance, I sense a huge evil presence rising from the floor behind my chair. It is cloaked in shadow and dark and resembles nothing human in size or shape. As it nears I sense vicious, murderous intent so you see my sixth sense is often wron----------------------

Films and Other Horrors

I've been enjoying the annual horror movie fest on television that is a run-up to Halloween. I watched one yesterday entitled "Disturbia", (a great title that) about a kid incarcerated at home, ankle bracelet style, who watches the world from his windows and believes a neighbor to be a killer. Yeah I know, Hitchcock did this in "Rear Window", but this updated and dummied down for teens knock off starring Shia Le Bouef steak was not too bad. The leads were all believable and the heavy, I think played by David Morse, was a credible serial killer. A second flick I watched yesterday, "The Hitcher" was just a gore fest featuring another serial slayer of a particularly bloody bent. Multiple murder murderers it appears, have replaced monsters in modern horror pics in all but the SciFi genre. Truth is I suspect, that Hollywood has determined plausible horrors to be more frightening than the "suspension of disbelief" type. I still prefer the latter but that's probably more nostalgia than preference. Originality and great direction are required to frighten today's calloused horror movie veterans with monsters large or small, but I still believe it can be done. "Halloween", "Poltergeist", "An American Werewolf in London" and Coppola's "Dracula" are some of my favorite forget reality flicks. "Fried Greed Tomatoes", "Sleepless in Seattle", "Pretty Woman" "Steel Magnolias" and "Alien" were frightening as well but of course they were all SciFi.

I'm thinking a giant one bodied, three headed puppet, Dubya, Palin, McCain being the heads, danced about on strings by Carl Rove and Dick Cheney, seen stomping through the countryside (you might even say surging)would strike fear in the hearts of most movie goers today. I know I'd be frightened and I wouldn't even have to suspend my disbelief.

I'm Titleless

A guy whose name already escapes me although I read it less than an hour ago was featured on a yahoo news clip this morning. He's written a short book on what we could have purchased with the trillion dollars we have already spent in Iraq. Some, like paying off every credit card in the U.S. or covering every road with gold plate were whimsical while others were quite serious. Doubling the size of our police forces or a free college education for every high school graduate comes to mind. I'm not sure what category buying an iPOD for everyone on the planet falls under. A trillion dollars is a lot of money the writer makes abundantly clear. It is a sum, in fact, that most of us cannot even conceive. That being said, he then points out that recent estimates put the Iraq cost figure at closer to three trillion dollars! Too bad, is what I've go to I say. I'd like to have one of those iPODs.

Woowoo Charly, RTGFKAR and Yers Trewly are going about the business of getting used to being Gusless. It's a slow business. We keep seeing him in our minds eye in all those day to day moments when we would interact. Play time, feed time, walk time, treat time, bed time, spontaneous mess with the dog time. He's everywhere. But, of course, he's not. We are getting better though. We are able to talk a little about him now without breaking into sobs. We are even making plans to do this and that instead of just mope-ing around the house. Today we were going to play golf if it hadn't rained. It's October though. Rain is a regular feature. Our back up plan is movie rentals. I'm thinking something loud and heroic. Batman maybe, or Indiana Jones. Certainly nothing sad or soppy. It's a process, this grieving thing. We know that. And we know that grief will eventually fade and be replaced by something better. Good memories of happy times. It's a process. A damned, fucking, slow process.

Gustavo

Gustavo was a serious little guy. He went about his job of being the family dog with purpose and intent. He was not, you know, just some silly puppy. He was a real dog he seemed to say and he wanted to be treated with the respect a real, meaning big, dog would get. From the time I opened the door in the morning to let him out until he and I "walked the perimeter" at night to chase away whatever needed chasing away, he was all business. There was serious dog stuff to do everyday and he was just the dog to do it. Even playtime, when he would bring his stuffed Garfield and drop it at the feet of whichever of us he decided should play tug-of-war was done with a kind of "this is important stuff" attitude on his part. It was as if he were consciously entertaining us and not the other way around. He was loyal and dedicated to our little "pack" and was most content when we were all together. He could relax then, hang out and not worry about an absent member.

Gus was, though, almost from the beginning, my dog. Whether he designated me "alpha", as dog trainers like to put it, or whether it was because I took him for long walks and frequent car rides, his favorite things in life and, with him along, a couple of my favorites as well, he became my second shadow. I grew, over his four short years, very accustomed to having him close at hand and always felt vaguely uncomfortable when he was not. I think Charly felt the same. For that reason, she and I made it a practise to take Gus with us whenever and wherever dogs were allowed. Nothing would put more sparkle in his eyes and move his stumpy tail to wag then hearing Charly say "you gedda go, you gedda go" as we walked to the car. And conversely, nothing would make his whole body sag and droop more than when we told him he had to stay home. At those times, we drooped a little ourselves.

When he did "gedda go" Gus would prop himself happily on the back seat with his fore paws on the console between the front seats. This gave him a windshield view and enabled him to get to the serious business of warning other critters away. We were never able to cure him of growling ferociously at whatever beast we happened to drive by. After awhile we just quit trying. What the heck, it only lasted a couple of seconds and it seemed to make him so happy. With Gus serious and happy went hand in hand.

I have written several blogs about Gus, mostly humorous accounts of dog and man that I'm sure Gus would take issue with had he been able to read. Silliness, he would no doubt point out, is a human trait and he was a dog. Dogs he would say, are serious creatures. Then he would roll on his back and wait for the tummy rub.

Gus passed away a couple of night's ago at veterinary hospital in David where we had taken him for treatment of an undetermined illness. The vet said he died of a heart attack related to a heart ailment, probably an inherited condition.

There is nothing wrong with my own ticker that I know of despite the ache of loss that surrounds it. It is where Gus lives now, and always will.

Football Memories

I woke up this morning with a partially remembered dream about playing touch football during the halftimes of Denver Bronco games trying to invade my consciousness. I lost the thread of the dream, but it inspired some nice memories.

Back in the day, a group of friends and we Waltons rotated houses on Sundays to watch the Denver games. The Broncos had John Elway playing for them at that time and win or lose he was always fun to watch. We were all a pretty athletic bunch and if the weather permitted, a ragtag football match usually broke out in the streets fronting our houses. Traffic was minimal in those days on Sundays and even less so when the Broncos were playing. Men, women, children and yapping dogs all took part. It was great fun and often so much fun that we'd be well into the third quarter before someone inside would yell that Elway was doing something extraordinary again and we ought to come and see.

My boys, sons Don and Todd, and I didn't need others to get up a game though. We had our own good time playing wide receiver against cornerback with me chucking the ball to whichever son was on offense at the time. Todd was three and a half years younger than Don and at a speed and coordination disadvantage, but he never let that get in the way of competing with his older brother. He developed a set of moves that were both hysterical and effective. He would run around (parked) cars, behind cars and onto cars to get separation and I would have to get the ball to him at just the right moment. Both boys could always catch well, so that was never a problem. Todd's best move was to run, fall and fake injury. When his brother relaxed his guard, Todd would jump up and burst into the open. Second best was to just get us all laughing one way or another, a thing he's always had a talent for, and then sprint into the clear. My passes weren't always the best at those times. In the early years - we started playing when both boys were very little - it was pretty much a mismatch when Don was on offense. Just pitch and catch, really. If we were playing on grass, I would purposely throw the ball high or low or behind him to make the grab more difficult. It was a joy to watch him dive and make a catch. Later, when both boys were in their teens, the talent gap closed substantially and Don had to play with greater intensity to get open.

It would be nice to get out and throw the ball around right now. Of course we'd be limited to five yard outs and hitches, but just seeing the boys shoving playfully and talking smack to each other would be all I need to make me happy. Since distance apart doesn't permit that - Don in Colorado, Todd in Maryland and Yers Trewly here in Panama - I guess we are left with just watching the games. That being the case...Go Broncos!

The Middle Distance

October is to Panama what February is to wintry U.S. states, a month to endure. Will the rain never cease Michelangelo? Will there be no end of it? Of course rain is easier to tolerate than February's snow, sleet and cold, but we wimps here in paradise still feel that whining is called for when the sun makes only token appearances. With actual life limited and soggy up close I believe the best thing to do is go somewhere else. Somewhere in the middle distance.

Volcan Baru is shrouded in fog this morning which means that if you stare off into the middle distance your visibility has maxed out. It is, though, nice there in the m.d. I can see inside the fog where the nothingness cavorts and dances and all things are possible because they are all imagined anyway. Hope lives there and dreams too. I can see the Past rearranged to my liking and forward to the Future as far as I choose. There's a debate lurking there and a dental appointment to boot and...now I've done it, I've left the m.d. and returned to the real, the up close where the window in front of me could use a washing, my dog is sick and I do in fact have to see a dentista this afternoon.

Screw that, it's back to the middle distance for me.

There is a debate tonight to look forward to and it's shaping up to be a good one. The format calls for the two candidates to stand toe to toe and shout their opinions at each other. When McCain loses his temper which, of course, is inevitable, he will be permitted to pull a handkerchief from his sleeve and use it to slap Obama across the face in challenge. Obama will then have the choice of weapons and I am told he will select nineteenth century dueling pistols as his gun control legislation won't allow anything more modern. The debate committee has ruled out sabers and such as unfair to the older opponent. The Seconds will then be called to join the fray and issued weapons of their own. Palin, who doesn't follow rules, will select a hunting rifle. As a further fairness consideration, she will receive only one bullet. Biden will choose a wolf. The combatants will then stand back to back and pace off ten steps before turning and beginning their assaults. If any two of the opposing parties remain standing after the initial thrust, they will be issued gladiator clothes and weaponry for a second round of debating in which there will be no rules whatsoever. Vegas has a potential Palin vs Obama final at even odds with a Wolf vs McCain the least likely to occur but a good bet at ten to one. Whatever the outcome, this is definitely "don't miss TV".

Yup, it is true. The middle distance is the place to be.

Creative Juice

I have been feeling imagination-less of late. It is as if the monkeymind has found a comfortable branch to rest on and refuses to budge. I'm not sure what is needed - a kick in the pants, a cattle prod, a jump start - but something has to be done soon to get me off the mark.

I am going to a big party tonight to celebrate Woowoo Charly, the Old Redneck and friend Victoria's October birthdays. There will be more Panamanians than gringos in attendance and my lame Spanish will surely be tested. I'm hoping some gaffe or blooper or blunder will occur(not involving me of course, although that usually is the case)to get my creative juices flowing.

Okay there you have it, just what I REALLY needed, the phrase "creative juices flowing." Exactly what kind of juices are they, where do they come from and how do you make them flow, well let me tell you. The nut from which creative juice is extracted sits above my shoulders and is an area often referred to by others as the "nutcase." Peeling away the leafy layers of lethargy to get at the juice in the nutcase is a process euphemistically called "going bananas." The lethargy remains are toxic and must be disposed of carefully. It is highly recommended that you bury them far from televised sports or good books as these influences can reconstitute the lethargy into a vegetative state known as couch potato; a condition to be avoided at all costs except upon weekends. Once you have achieved the gone completely bananas state, it is easy to tap into the creative juice as it is right there in front of you just waiting to flow. I recommend tilting the nutcase towards a computer to start the flow, but others suggest that tilting toward easels, clay, cameras, cooking implements and such works equally well. When the juice has been completely spilled upon your project...quit.

Right Parters

I thought about typing in this whole bit from Vanity Fair magazine, but I'm far too lazy so I will, for the most part, summarize.

Reasons McCain should not be president: He's as much a puppet of the neocons as George Bush. He's a hothead and K street's Manchurian candidate, a man willing to do anything to pander to the fringes of his party. He's too old to be president of anything. Local chamber of commerce, maybe. President of the U.S.? Certainly not. And now the biggie that has me writing this. He parts his hair on the right side.

Brother and sister sociologists John and Catherine Walker "who have spent a frightening amount of time researching the subject, conclude that 'a hair part has a crucial impact on interpersonal relationships by affecting immediate character appraisal, perceived personality traits, self perception and self development.'"
Right parters they note, tend to possess right brain tendencies like obsessiveness, defensiveness, extremism, fanaticism, weakness and woodenness. Alrighty then! Positive traits are memory of pictures and musical perception. A McCain white house should use flash cards and show tunes to accompany classified information. Of the six previous presidents who were right partners five were considered failures, James Buchanon, Warren G. Harding, John Tyler, Andrew Jackson and Chester A. Arthur and the sixth Ronald Reagan was a success to many and a failure to others depending on your opinion of Iran-contra and the sweeping deregulation that has led to today's economic woes.

Left parters or no parters include Abe Lincoln, both Roosevelts, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. Lincoln and Jimmy Carter both switched parts to the left when they entered office. Bill Clinton has no part and Hilary parts on the left. Rush Limbaugh is a right parter. Obama is a no parter like the majority of Americans today.

The final word on who will make it big in D.C. goes to DC Comics. In the Chris Reeve Superman films Clark Kent parted his hair on the right. The man of steel, on the other hand, parted his on the left.

So there you have that.

More Md, NY and Connecticut

Where was I? Woowoo Charly has been rattling beads, consulting crystals, talking to the animals and trying to clear our computer of assorted demons and somehow, along the way, she usurped Monkeymind. I could not gain access to the blog. Even when I answered comments, I appeared as Charly! Rats! I am not, however, without my own devices. Recalling the wisdom and clarity of Casey Stengal, Yogi Berra, Dubya and Sarah Palin, I summoned forth all the intellectual resources available from my enormous cranium and did the one thing certain to fix the problem. I called out into the dawn those mystical words known but to a few that bring hope, faith and charity to all, well to me anyway, I said, "hey Charly you better come fix this thing" and she did.

We partied from sun up Saturday all day throughout the day and into the night. You would too if you were us. D and T sang and played mostly blues in their pajamas first thing in the A.M. while I strummed along quietly when T shouted out the chords and changes. Mostly I was late, off, buzzy and bad but what the hell, I was holding the guitar properly. The boys are awesome and when they performed for everyone on the balcony that night, I just sat and listened, knowing better than to screw up their act. During the day there were store trips and walks through the woods to the playground for Jackson and Keely. I could spend many hours just watching them. I know I'm biased, but I swear they glow. The day went by very fast and in the early eve we were joined by T and D's aunt and uncle on their mother's side - my ex - and their son and his wife. All good folk. I remember lasagna, booze, laughter and music. Also hugs, kisses, dancing and craziness. D, T and I were the last to bed, but that's nothing new, we always are. Morning was bagels and beer, a hardy breakfast if ever there was one, and afternoon brought the parting. Lots of tears then all around. I swallowed mine in a manly way and tried not to look at anyone I wouldn't be seeing for a long time knowing my manly way would dissolve into blubbering if I did. Dara, Dave, Charly and I went back to NY in the rental car, Kira and Laura took the bus.

Ensuing days brought trips to Coney Island and its fabulous aquarium, Little Odessa NY's Russian section, where we sampled vodkas from Russia while a table of Russian men behind us all drank Grey Goose vodka from France. I figure they know which is the good stuff so I'm going with the Goose next time. We ate sushi one day at Charly's request and I had a Subway turkey sandwich to appease my craving on another. Thursday Woowoo Chuck and I trained up to Connecticut to have lunch with my 90 year old Uncle Horace and his wife Ruth. She is an Alzheimer's patient and has a full time nurse from Jamaica to help care for her. We ate at Unc's country club where I snuck in and put a napkin across my lap as fast as possible because I was wearing jeans. Jeans are not allowed and nor is smoking but Ralph Kiner, a club member and hall of fame baseball player is permitted to fire up a stogie when he's there. As I am a hall of fame jeans wearer I feel I should be allowed the same style courtesy. Long story short I didn't get caught. There were restaurants and bars and more laughter rounding out the week and another day long party on which I cooked french toast for everyone including two friends of D and K's. Somewhere along the way the Broncos lost to Kansas City and I still don't care. We left on a Monday that seems like yesterday and had a smooth trip home. Always glad to be there, but missing my "peeps" a lot already. As I've said, they are the best.

The 400th Blog

There is something scary about that...400 blogs. They all emanate from inside my head. I have a small head. How many could be left in there? What happens when it's completely empty and there is nary a creative thought left? Wait! I know! I'll run for office!

The bus ride from Chinatown NY to Chinatown DC (are there Americatowns in China?)took close to five hours or about the same as the plane ride from Panama to Newark. The bus was more comfortable though, bigger seats, no Ashton Kutcher movies and a stop along the way for refreshments. I also liked the part about the bus being on the ground and not thousands of feet in the air. We made it to our destination in the late afternoon and son Todd was there to greet us per the plan. As we loaded our luggage into the back of his car Todd suddenly asks me if I have any change. Huh? Look he tells me, there's a guy over there with a little kid I think needs some help. I turn around and see a man slumped on the sidewalk against a nearby wall with a kid cradled under his arm. Their faces are concealed, his by a hood and the child's turned away. I take a buck off my money clip and approach them saying something like hey buddy could you use some... and that's when the guy throws back his hood and leaps to his feet with his kidlet doing likewise. He's my son Jr. and his daughter Keely. I'm stunned. I'm speechless. Behind me Woowoo Charly screeches and in seconds we are all hugging, kissing and beaming like actors in a toothpaste commercial. Woowoo Chuck and I remain in shock during the long ride to Todd's house. The boys and Keely chatter away.

What has happened is this: Jr. is as broke as advertised, but his good buddy Jeff (JoeBob to his friends) donated his frequent flier miles to the cause. Thank you JoeBob. Daughter Kira then pitched in to help with all the additional expenses. Woowoo Charly and I were in the U.S. on Dave and Dara's tab and daughter Laura, who doesn't travel often, made it a point to be there so we could all reunite for the first time since Woowoo and I moved to Panama five years ago. I'm still sorting out how amazing the whole trip played out.

I don't know what else to say before I go back to the collage except thank you to all my clan for making this reunion happen. I clearly have the best family on the planet. I love them all and I wouldn't swap them for any other. When D and D and K, L, and Jackson My Man arrived the next morning and the party began I couldn't imagine being happier. I was so happy, in fact, that a week later when the Broncos lost to the lowly Chiefs, I was still glowing and didn't even care. Now that's happy.

And a final note before I go back to being my silly self is an additional thank you to Heather, Jr's wife, who couldn't be there but understood our need to see Jr. and Keely. And a thank you also goes to Ziza, Todd's wife, who not only tolerated us, but joined in as we turned her home into frat party. We love you both.

And another big thanks to RTGFKAR who manned the home front and looked after Gustavo the Wonder Dog. He gets a hug and a Taylor Ham.

New York Rambling

Alrighty then, Woowoo Charly and I are back from NY where we had two weeks that can only be described as awesome! (By "only" I mean if one lacks imagination and the ability to depict events using two or more words and yup, that's me. My mind is effectively whited out by the flood of thoughts that arrive when I call for NY trip details. A collage of people and play appears like a fat cloud and hovers about my frontal lobes obscuring the divisions between each NY event. Awesome just keeps popping up and though I love the original intent of the word - a mixed bag of reverence and wonder - I fear its effect has been diminished by over use. Still, there it is, AWESOME!)

I could I suppose, start at the beginning and write a precise account in detail of all that occurred from the get go to the done deal. I could, that is, if I had the focus, concentration and attention span of a ten year old and we all know that's not the case. I mean this blog isn't called Monkeymind for nothing. So...in lieu of being clear and having to write coherently, I'll just give you the collage. (Hmmm, if collage were a Spanish word it would be pronounced ko-yag-eee.)(You see? The mind of the monkey is ever present.)

Hotel Estancia no TV but little bottles of wine and packaged cookies-nice breakfast next morn. Beep beep shoes off then board plane. Long flight, bad movie-Ashton Kutcher-give me a break. Cab from Newark to Brooklyn-yeeha!-we are definetly not in Panama anymore Toto-talk Spanish to Argentinian driver. Hugs and shiny wet eyes from and to Dara and Dave and grandson-Jackson My Man who is almost two but is tall as four-NBA scouts should be alerted. Dave off to busines retreat for rest of week-bummer. Kira arrives-more hugging-lots of excited talking- watch Daily Show and Colbert Report before sacking down-funny funny shows. Mexican resturant for lunch next day-Jackson at preschool-talked Spanish to waiter whose own Spanish seemed very clear-not so fast-later conversation, drinks and a cigar for me in backyard of D and D's as sun sets-Kira over again after work. Next day long walk in beautiful Prospect Park and visit to zoo there with Jackson and Dara. That night Kira picks up Laura at La Guardia. All three daughters Laura-Kira-Dara now in NY-amazing. Next day K and L take us to Chinatown NY and put us on a bus-say what-headed to Chinatown D.C. to be picked up by son Todd. Girls and Dave to drive down in rental car the following morning. Four of our five kid units will then be together-fifth unable to come from Denver-congressional financial bailout doesn't have him targeted.

Tomorrow the big surprise.

Spell check is not working. Feel free to make corrections.

The OPWP Party and the Broncos

The Oil, Pharmaceutical, War Profiteering Party formerly known as Republican took a slight lead over the Democrats in last week's polls. Presidential candidate Sarah Walk Loudly and Carry a Big Gun Palin and her lap dog lackey running mate John Happy to Be VP McCain were delighted at the news and the proof positive that those who earnestly endeavor to achieve power and position will trump those who earnestly endeavor to make things better each and every time. Huzzahs and hosannas could be heard about the land as the OPWP Party ascended and great financial institutions crashed.

Here in Panama, Woowoo Charly had to be restrained as she watched the Sunday morning political gab fests. At one point she burst from her straight jacket and gag to scream "lies, lies, they're all lies" at a Palin spokesperson attempting to paint her candidate as knowing and wise. This outburst frightened our Panamanian plumber who was at the house to do a series of small repairs. "No te preocupe" (don't worry) I told him, "there is only an hour to go until the gentle game of football replaces the violence of politics. Unless you shoot wolves from airplanes, you are safe." We then re-bound and re-gagged Woowoo Chuck and removed all throwable items from the vicinity of our big screen Sony for fear the Democratic demon that possesses her every Sunday from eight A.M. until Wolf Blitzer sinks slowly over the horizon would reemerge and endanger our afternoon football immersion. Despite our best efforts audible grumbling could still be heard.

Even with the daunting prospect of having another angry Enneagram 8 at the White House and possibly even two - we are told that Palin is also a slash and burn, I will destroy you if you cross me, personality type - the day ended on a high note. The beloved by all who can stand to be near the garish color combination of blue and orange Denver Broncos benefited from an inadvertent and premature referee's whistle that saved them from a game killing turnover and allowed them to pull out an amazing 39-38 win over the San Diego Cargadores when a Cutler to Royal two point conversion attempt was successful in the closing seconds.

And speaking of closing seconds I better get busy. I've got a plane to catch.

Where Fore Art Thou Vanity?

I'm eating half of a chocolate muffin as I write this. I'll get to the other half later. The muffin while intact was the size of a softball. I was once able to pass by muffins and their evil minions, doughnuts, biscuits, turnovers, and their like, but alas, no more. In days of old when I was young...ger, I simply said, "shields up" and the tractor beams emitted by sugary confections bounced harmlessly away. I don't know why the Lord of Discipline has morphed into the Peon of Paunchiness, but I suspect it has something to do with my Buddhist/Taoist studies that had me earnestly shedding my ego like a snake its skin or an Autumn tree its leaves. Gone went the ego and all its superficial qualities, not the least of which - and herein lies the problem - is vanity. Without vanity there seems little need to maintain the slender physique of yore. The choice then was between the second doughnut or turning some sweet thing's head and I can tell you sincerely the doughnut had little chance. I was too vain. Now as I watch my face slowly sink south and my girth grow greatly - I'm ten or twelve pounds overweight and heading to New York where bagels are the size of meditation pillows - I feel no compulsion to do battle with my genetically inherited abdominal protrusion. It is what it is, a stomach that grows and shrinks as if on the waves of an internal tide and apart from the frequent belt adjustments this inspires, I care not a whit. I exercise now for heart health and not body svelte. That doesn't rhyme but it's as close as I could come.

Having thought these thoughts and put them to paper, I can now ponder their validity. Do I believe all that I have written here? I can't say for sure, but I sense the second half of the chocolate muffin getting closer and closer and closer.

We leave for NY Monday. NY may be a blog free zone...or not. We'll see how it goes.

Pizza and Stuff

I'm not really in the mood to blog, but I have to say something...anything, to get rid of the Palin pic.

RTGFKAR is building a storage shed behind the house. That's it. There is no further information. I just needed something to snap a photo of. (Never end a sentence in a preposition.) Okay I just needed to snap of a photo. (There, that's better.)

Woowoo Charly, RTGFKAR, friend B and I, (Why is the pronoun "I" capitolized?)(Capitalized? Hey, I can't remember them all.) motored into David yesterday to do this and that and have lunch at Pizza Hut. I have been to three or four Pizza Huts in my life and not a one was actually a hut. I can't explain that. The A/C in the much bigger than a hut building was so cold we opted to eat out on the much bigger than a hut's patio where the temperature was 80 something. There's a nice view of the parking lot from there. While we scarfed our pizzas a couple of gringos we know from Boquete parked and went inside. We are not sure if they came for the pizza or the A/C. They're from Alaska. They may have just needed a touch of home where it is colder than a Palin smile and you are allowed to shoot beautiful animals from an airplane. RTGFKAR and I shared a large "Pepperoni Lovers" pie (Old people will remember that pizzas were originally called pizza pies). We ate every bite and that was clearly a heroic feat. Friend B and Woowoo Chuck shared a medium combination pie that had 147 different kinds of meat, none recognizable but certified not shot from airplanes, noxious weeds in the form of green peppers and unidentifiable vegetables. They fell a couple of pieces short of finishing the pie. The ground opossum and mole chunks may have been too filling. An opinion poll following the meal revealed that both pizzas were as good as any the polled had previously had in Panama and that Obama was a shoo in for president on Pizza Hut's patio.

We went to PriceSmart after lunch because we couldn't find a store named PriceStupid where I'm sure we could have gotten better deals. We stocked up on things we needed like wine, oatmeal and muffins, a gourmet dinner combination favorite and I bought what is called a pair of jeans even though you only get one. I needed to replace the jeans I was wearing as they no longer fit. They had shrunk sometime during lunch at Pizza Hut. It might have been the humidity out on the patio that did it.

On the drive home we played I'm thinking of a person version of 20 questions. "Living?" "NO" "Dead?" "NO" "Bush?" That was fast. What gave it away?

More Politics Schmolitics

So the Repubs convention crashed to a halt last night with McCain saying look out Democrats change is coming. Hmmmm, change is coming. Where have I heard that before? The Dems would never say anything like that would they? Here's what is confusing me. The Republicans have controlled the White House, the Congress or both for 26 of the last 28 years, The White House for the last 8 and Congress 12 of the last 14 and yet somehow the mess the country is now in is the Democrat's fault. Very strange.

I watched the convention during timeouts and commercial breaks of the football game. The impression I got was of overactive children going off in all directions. The two most uttered words were change and maverick while speaker after speaker espoused the same old "be afraid be afraid", "the Dems are snobs", "war is good" "there's nothing wrong with the environment so drill drill drill" "abort abortion" and God likes us better than everybody else." Change? There's no change in that. Maverick? There's not a maverick idea in the bunch. One new idea from the Repubs would be refreshing. Yeah, I know, ideas come from those effete intellectuals. We'll have none of that in our party.

It's too bad Barbara Streisand is not a Republican. She could have sung "Sheeple, sheeple who love sheeple are the luckiest sheeple in the world." Every four years the Repubs trot out the same tired stuff that has brought the U.S. to it's current status, i.e. massively in dept, tied up in a costly, unnecessary war and disliked by even its closest allies and still the shiny eyed Stepford minions cheer, wave their flags and ask for more. I just don't get it.

I do, however, feel a bit sorry for the old centrist Republicans who now have no say and no candidate of their own. What must they think? The Conservatives and the religious fundamentalists now run the show and the party is a far cry from where Dwight, Nelson and Adlai would have had it go. I tell ya, I miss those guys.

And one final thing that baffles me is the Repubs claim on God. My latest writing project has me researching the New Testament on an almost daily basis and I can tell you with certainty that Jesus is clearly, without doubt, no question about it, positively, NOT a Republican. If anything, he's left of the Democrats; an angry Liberal bent on straightening out mankind's ass. The dude would get stoned if he took the podium at the Republican Convention! (And probably the Dems as well) "Yo, John and Sarah. You want to go to heaven? Okay, rid yourself of all your worldly possessions, follow me and we'll go help the poor." Nope, I just don't think that would play well on the convention stage. Fox News would ignore it all together.

Politics Schmolitics

Correction: The Bronco game begins Monday Night at 9:15, not tonight. Giants and Skins kick off the season this eve. What was I thinking?

RTGFKAR has a great idea for a Democratic ad. You show a picture of Sarah Palin during the swimsuit portion of the Miss Alaska contest. In the background you have one of those ghost like images of John McCain. The only sound track is a heart beat, lub-dub lub-dub lub-dub lub-dub. Suddenly the heart beat stops and you get the long screech of the heart monitor as it indicates flatline. McCain's image disappears and you are left with just Palin in her swimsuit. The caption then reads, Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States.

Palin, we are told, is the governor of a state that has seven hundred seventy thousand people. RTGFKAR and I were born in New Jersey. In New Jersey there are checkout lines with more people than that. We are also told that she approves of hunting wolves from airplanes, shooting them down as they run themselves to exhaustion. She, in fact, helped to block a law that would make this illegal. I don't want Sarah Palin for president. I don't want her for vice president. I don't want her for a neighbor. I'd rather have wolves.

McCain's nomination acceptance speech is scheduled for tonight. If the Repubs are smart - a thing Quale, Bush, Limbaugh and talk show screamers prove to the contrary - he will kick it off before the Giants and Skins do. Otherwise, well, for sure his audience will be diminished. I can say for certain, at least by one.

I am finding the race for the white place quite interesting this go around. As Obama pointed out during an interview, the Republicans don't govern well, but they know how to win. Both of Bush's victories came after documented hanky panky in Florida and Ohio. Who will dance at this year's Inaugural Ball and how they got there will be nearly as much fun to watch as the NFL. Nearly. I said nearly.

The Republicans are who they are and the Democrats are who they are and never the twain shall meet. Most people side with one or the other,- sometimes over a single issue, how dumb is that, while those of us who are not represented by either party are left out in the cold - brrrrr - and either don't vote or vote half-heartedly for the person we think will do the least damage. I don't get it. Why not more parties?

Okay, one more thought before I go, because it's bothering me and maybe you can explain. Why are the Republicans so anti-intellectual? Why are they against being smart? I want my president to be smarter than me. I want my president to be a whole lot smarter than me. I want each president to be smarter than the last. I want my kids to be smarter than me (and they are) and I want their kids to be smarter than they are. That's progress, that's growth, that's evolution. To be a Republican candidate you can be a wolf slayer, a war hero, a pauper, a pirate, a pawn or a king. You can be a doctor, a lawyer or an Indian chief, but you can't be smart. If you want to get elected you have to come off as a common man, an average Joe. I don't know about you but I don't want a common man for president and average Joe's are average. I want an uncommon man,(or woman) an exceptional man (or woman) for president; one who thinks deeply and acts wisely. I don't want the word average applied to any of his deeds. The way I see it: if you want an average country, elect an average man. If you want a less than average country, reelect another Bush.

Frazier, Depression and The NFL

I'm like a little kid at the beginning of football season. (Some would say I'm like a little kid most of the time, but as Woowoo Charly likes to say about herself, "I'm child-like not child-ish, so, yeah, I'll go with that.) I just can't WAIT for that first Bronco kickoff. Today is Wednesday and the Denver Bronco season starts tomorrow at 9:15 P.M. My inner brat is seriously tempted to hit the sack early and thus encourage tomorrow to get here sooner. I'm thinking right after lunch would be good. Besides, I'll need to be well rested for that 9:15 kickoff because that's past my bedtime. Fortunately I have this to do and then I have to, I mean I just HAVE to, make some progress on another writing project and then there is the bar to keep my mind occupied and off the blankety blank Oakland Raiders. That's building a bar, not going to one. (But now that I think of it...no, nevermind.)There has been some football on the tube this week, college ball. To me that's like an hors douvre, an appetizer leading up to the main course, the NFL. The En-ay Ef-ay El-ay as they say here in Panama. College ball fans would understand what I'm talking about it they had to watch high school football for a week leading up to their season. What's worse for me this year is that I NEED the NFL to get me out of my deep, dark, two and a half day old depression. You see, what's happened is Channel 212 has dropped Frazier reruns in favor of My Wife and Kids. I'm completely crushed.

Every weekday at 10:30 A.M. I interrupt my mad scribbling to climb aboard my Elliptical Strider to burn calories and laugh my ass off at Frazier, Niles, Roz, Daphne and company. I wish I could laugh my belly off, but alas, it's my ass that disappears. Maybe I'm peddling wrong. I have frantically surfed about for an adequate substitute, sampling Wife And, Loves Raymond, the Queens King and Belucci, and even though all these shows feature hot wives married to funny guys, they just don't compare with Frazier for laugh a line entertainment. Niles alone is good for another inch off my backside! So by now, the third day sans Frazier, the depression has grown to an epic proportion rivaling that of years past when the Broncos were routinely crushed by ever increasing margins in Superbowl after Superbowl. The only thing that saved me then from selling my soul to the Devil and becoming a Raider or Yankees fan was the hope and optimism for the coming season. Now, with Frazier probably gone for good, I don't know what I will do. The NFL needs to arrive in a hurry. My depression and my ass are growing exponentially.

COOL !

There is no better adjective than "cool". If a thing is cool it is as good as it needs to be. It doesn't have to be splendid or magnificent or grand or even grandiose. Cool is enough. All the other judgmental adjectives were invented just so we wouldn't over use cool. Old people shy away from cool because they don't want to sound immature, but if you deliver the word with the proper emphasis, cool can remain a part of your vocabulary no matter your age. Just say it like you're being facetious and stretch it a bit, cooooool.

Alrighty then.

Have you ever read fantasy? I'm reading a trilogy by George R.R.Martin that has me captivated. Apart from The Lord of the Rings and The Harry Potter books that I've read in Spanish, I don't recall reading much other fantasy. Some sci fi for sure, but no fantasy unless you count the Tarzan series as such. Each of the books in Martin's trilogy are close to a thousand pages and I'm told he has written a fourth and is working on a fifth, both continuations of the original trilogy. (I think I would be working on a fifth, maybe even a quart, if told I had to write that much.)Martin's books, the first of which is "A Game Of Thrones", are complexly plotted and densely character-ed, but are written in a narrative style that carries the action forward with little doubling back. There are stories within stories within the principal story, but Martin moves them all along in such a skillful way that the reader never loses touch with any of them. An entire fictional world populated with creatures both real, people, and created, direwolves for example, seems as believable as the one we live in. If I were writing a review here, I would have to give these books the ultimate in praise. In other words, these books are, you guessed it, wait for it, wait for it, these books are.............cool!

Dems, Pubs and Conventions

"What the mind can conceive and believe the mind can achieve." Napolean Hill Hmmm. I wonder why the mind can't conceive and believe in peace. Is it so impossible? Deepak Chopra and I don't think so.

Obama Nation believes all sorts of things are possible. Things like health care, global cooling, alternative energy, calorie free carbohydrates and low cost interplanetary travel, to name just a few. They don't, however, believe it is possible for Barry Bonds to hit that many home runs without the use of steroids or believe there is any hope of getting women to wear dresses again. That last is a crying shame.

Their leader, Barack to the drawing board, is an impressive guy. His nomination acceptance speech last night was a gem. It had to be to follow the Clintons compelling orations. Deadpan Gore would have been a tough act to follow too - his speech was quite good - if he hadn't been on crack yesterday. The man delivered his one hour speech in under 15 minutes. I'll have to check this, but I think that may be a new record.

It will be interesting to see how the Repubs respond next week. I'm thinking holograms of Ike and maybe Reagan will be necessary to fire up the crowd. What else can they do, trot out the Bushes? I'm thinking their last great Prez was Teddy Rose and if he were alive today he'd be a Dem or an Indy. Not to worry though, they'll think of something. They've got all those big brains like Dan Quail, George W, Rush Limbaugh and the shout you down Fox talk show hosts working for their side. Should be a good show. Oh yeah, and they've got that song Happy Days Are Here Again. I've always liked that one. It's got a feel good melody like Zippety Do Dah.

Since The Federation has dropped out of the race to handle that Klingon/Romulan thing and my own personal candidate, Paris Hilton, has decided not to run, I guess I will have to cast my vote for Obama. I have two solid reasons for doing so. One, he's clearly the best choice out there and two, he will be the U.S.'s first president whose name ends in a vowel. Oh yeah, and three, I hear he's got a sweet jumper from the top of the key. I can relate to that.