How to Watch TV/ In the Twenty-First Century

 How to Watch TV/ In the Twenty-First Century

So what did you think of Archie Bunker last night?  He took a swallow of water and crumbled his cone-shaped paper cup, hesitating and looking up, just before he cast it into the used, cone-shaped paper cup bin.  She gave the TV show a moment’s thought and said, I laughed so hard I thought I’d pee.  They shared their favorite lines from the night before that was when the boss came through the pantry doorway.  They both turned chuckling and walked back to their desks. 

The desks were both gray metal with rubbery tops full of pencils and files.  She had a phone on hers but he did not.  His had a bag lunch in the bottom drawer.  She went out at noon to Chock Full of Nuts.  They met at five-thirty for a drink in the bar around the corner from the Woolworth building then she took the subway to Riverdale and he drove his car.   Over the GWB to Fort Lee. 

He kissed his wife hello and, it being Thursday, commented on her hair.  He ate the meatloaf listening to WABC and looking out at the view from the eleventh floor.  She had a Swanson’s chicken pot pie and watched the New Jersey sun drop out of the sky.  At nine o’clock they both tuned-in to a re-run of the Twilight Zone.  The one where the little man in the future is left all alone with broken glasses and now he can’t read.  At the water cooler tomorrow they will dissect the show and conclude it was not quite as good as the tiny people in the tiny town or the one with the ape on the wing of the plane. 

He left his wife twenty years ago.  They just had differences they couldn’t resolve.  She never married.  Her career came first.  Now she lives in Long Island in a house on the shore and she hardly watches TV anymore.  He tells her about Netflix and his digital recorder at lunch over drinks in a midtown restaurant and she can’t help it but her mind just wanders.  She walks her dog and takes a dip in the ocean and her TV just stays on the cooking channel.  She turns it on while she eats her dinner and does the dishes and reads a fat novel. 

Entry Construction

Here I post progress pictures of the entry project just to show the work as it moved along.  It was a hard project for me.   Luckily I had some help.  Thank you Benny and thanks to Don and Barry too. 

This was the demolition.  You can see the underlying structure is gone.  I guess "pressure treated lumber" has it's life span and twenty years is it!

This is the starting course of the first (lower) rock wall.

Note the concrete used between the inner and outer stone wall to give the wall its strength.  Some of these stones weighed about 200+ pounds.  It was a challenge to get them into place. 

After the demo came the construction of the stone retaining walls.  Some help from my neighbor with a backhoe- instrumental in preparing the areas for these structural walls.   Benny and I pulled all the stone from the woods and he helped me with the wall construction as well.

Floating forms over the rockwalls.  6x6 10ga. wire and 1/2" reinforcing bars throughout.


I took a little lesson from the "stitch and glue" technique of boatbuilding to form out the curved face of the slab.  Tie-wire on 12" centers stitches the form together.  It worked well.

I formed out the 18 inch "border" concrete pour directly over the stone walls.  Steel reinforced and "keyed" into the future slab with rebar.  This actually was more labor intensive than building the rock walls.

This was the first band of concrete I poured.  I am NOT a concrete finisher so the resulting job was not as 'professional' as I would have liked.  Still, it was in character with the stone and the concept that I had in mind.

These photos show Benny mixing and placing the lower border concrete.You can see the upper landing border has already been placed and stripped.

The second (lower band) and my boy Benny was a life saver on the mixing.



Above you can see some of the bogus concrete (already hardened in the bag) that I bought.  I hauled the sixty pound bags, ten at a time in my VW.  We mixed and placed about 20+ bags for lower border pour.  I mixed about the same for the upper.  I had to do it myself as Benny wasn't available that day.  I think it took me a week to recover.

After placing the borders we filled in the slabs (top, middle and bottom landings) with 4 yards of redimix concrete off a truck. 
This photo will give you an idea about how the concrete turned out.  My skills at concrete finishing leave a bit to be desired.  I hope the overall project is pleasing. 

Carpentry With Miyer Nelson

The work on the front entry is moving slowly, but moving.  I cobbled together the two sets of stairs last week.  I reused complete the old set of steps up to the porch and reattached the accompanying old railing with minor modifications.  But the steps up to the new concrete landings needed to be done from scratch.  I tried my best to use the old lumber from the demo of the stairs and landings but I ended up cutting new stringers and mostly new treads.  Now the railings are in progress but I need to go to the lumber yard to pick up a few more 2x4s to finish.  I think I can use most of the other scrap wood to make planters and a bench.  When they, and the steps, are completed I will need to scrape off some concrete droppings and some flakey old finish before I can coat everything with sealer.  Probably the additional work of cleaning will negate the savings in lumber but there will be less trash to throw away or to pile up and let rot. 

It is important to me to work like this.  I believe it is not just in my training but my genetic make up to be frugal with material.  It is the result of both nature (the continuity of the genetic material passed down to me from my mother’s side) and nurture (my early experiences working with people who were sensitive to waste in general-and planning projects so that there would be no waste specifically). 

My earliest experiences with tools and wood and materials came at the foot of my grandfather Miyer Nelson.  He seemed like a giant to me when I was five years old but I know now that he was a slight person, probably not much taller than I am now.  He had the same hollow cheeks and bony face as I.  Mostly my memories are vague but there are a few that stand out clearly and they all have to do with tools and working.  I remember his tool box.  It was a small suitcase perhaps 18” x 10” x 10” with a thick leather handle on top of the hinged lid.  Surely the concept of purchasing a purpose-built storage container for tools never occurred to him.  The suitcase was sufficient to carry his small array of tools.  The only tool I can absolutely remember was an ancient hatchet that doubled as a hammer and had a notch in the base of the blade with which to pull nails.  The handle was wood (probably hickory darkened with age) that at its base was as thick as my wrist.  I took it out of the “tool box” and marveled at its heft.  Miyer rewarded my curiosity with a light smack on the hand as he took it away from me, admonishing me for ‘playing with the tools’ and telling me to ‘be careful unless I wanted to get hurt’.   Knowing that this tool was off limits made it very special in my eyes.  I longed to use it.  I had to use it.

Mier took me to the lumber yard.  Lindsley Lumber was the name of the place.  After stopping for a few minutes in the office he and I went out into the yard to pick out the material he needed for the repairs he was doing.  The yard seemed impossibly large and smelled of pine and oak tannin.  There were wooden barrels with rusted metal bands full of nails and screws.  There was a ‘butchers scale’ hanging from a rafter to weigh the nails.  There were units of lumber stacked to the rafters and moldings standing in bins.  I was overwhelmed.  It was a place that I wanted to explore but my grandfather held my hand tightly and pulled me along until he found the material he needed and then he cautioned me not to move while he picked through the pile for just the right boards.  When he was satisfied that he had what he needed he hoisted the boards up on his shoulder and reattached his big hand on mine and we went back to the office to pay.  When the clerk returned my grandfather’s change he included a cherry red lollypop for me. The lollypop was not on a stick.  It was on a white loop of string so that you could put your finger into the loop and suck away.  When that sweet cherry lollypop hit my tongue I knew that lumber yard was my favorite place on earth.

But to return to my training and genetic bent in construction, at home I was ready to build!  I watched, mostly, and handed Miyer the tools as he required.  He never let me actually do any of the work but I watched him carefully and this is what I noted.  He pulled old nails and made piles of them which he took great care to straighten and reuse later.  He put the extras in a coffee can and I saw where he stored them.  He reused small bits of wood and screws.  I know now that his repairs were inexpert and crude but back then they seemed epic.  When he was done for the day I put the tools into the ‘tool box’ and he put it into a closet and I saw where they were kept. 

The first time I took Miyer’s tools to use I lugged the heavy box out into the yard and I took the hatchet out.  I took a nail from his stash in the coffee can, intent on feeling what it was like to hammer a nail into a board.  I hoisted the hatchet up and, on the first swing, hit myself in the forehead with the ax side of the tool.  Bleeding I could not hide the wound and paid for my experimentation with a spanking.  Mom put a band-aid on head and Miyer applied the punishment to my ass.  But even a spanking could not stop me from stealing into the closet and taking that ‘tool box’ out again and again.  Miyer finally gave up and we shared the dull, worn out box of tools from then on.  I learned to hit the nail on the head (instead of hitting myself in the head!) and I became an expert with the hatchet.  I used it to de-husk a coconut in minutes.  I learned to pop the ‘eyes’ of the coconut with the hammer side of the hatchet and a screwdriver, and drain the sweet milk into a glass.  Then I would crack the coconut shell and use a knife to extract the ‘meat’.   I worked with Miyer whenever he had a job.  I became his helper.  I learned to straighten nails.

When we moved from my grandparent’s home into our own house I became my mother’s helper.  She did projects too.  She covered shelves with liners.  She built a triangular table and covered it in cloth.  It sat in the corner behind the curved couch in the living room.  She put peg-board up in the utility room and shelves for the laundry soap and bleach.  We branched out to do some wallpaper.  She let me help.  The same ‘tool box’ that my grandfather had used found it’s way to that house.   The contents were augmented by tools that she must have purchased-trowels and paint brushes and even some new nails and screws. 

Hal-0-ween-io!!

Thursday, October 31, 2013

Hal-0-ween-io!!

Working on the front entrance steps today.  Stopped after a couple of hours to get the porch lights working and strung around the perimeter of the deck.  Swept the driveway and erected a sign that says “Happy Halloween! Honk for Treats”.  I hung a bicycle horn from a rope just above the sign and have a rawhide work glove tacked to the sign pointing at the horn. 

That horn is a loud MotherF*#ker.  If anyone has the guts to walk up the shadowy driveway and squeeze that sucker he/she deserves a fistful of candy.  I will probably throw it down on them from the porch.  I am sure the dog will wanna be barking too.  Can’t wait. 

But, probably no kids will come up the drive to get any candy here.  This house looks too forbidding perched on the hillside, the driveway steep and up hill, and long and dark, and there are no blow-up sculptures from Party City or Walmart on the lawn to soften the blackness of the silhouettes of the bare trees or the stark pinpoints of the stars and the cycle moon.  When it gets dark in our community it is really dark.  No street lights or nearby cities to light the sky.  The glow from Peekskill two and a half miles away is orange and dim and offers no comfort to the foot traveler on our roads.  The roads are padded with deep leaves, slightly soggy from the misting rain.  The breeze is damp.  The overall effect is chilling.  I would not walk around here and knock on doors (or honk on horns) for candy on a night like this.  A scary night with a sweet tooth.  This is a good night to remember the dead too.

I lit a memorial (Yerseit) candle for Mom.  Put it on the railing so I can see it from the bay window in the living room.  Folks can see it from the driveway as they walk up too.  Probably won’t know that the candle is far spookier than the sign or the glove or the old F*#ker up on the deck throwing candy down on them.  It is a token of my love for a woman who died in a car accident over thirty years ago.  It is a token of the power of a person to make an indelible and lasting impression on another person for ever and always.  I don’t know if it is actually her Yerseit tonight, I just know that she died on Halloween.  I use the milestone of a pagan holiday to keep track of the years since she died.  I don’t think she would mind. 

More Little Things, Like Water

Little Things-Water

There is water almost everywhere.  In clouds in the sky.  In the ocean.  Under ground.  In the lake across the street from my home.  This year we had so much rain at the beginning of the summer that my garden damned near failed.  Too much of a good thing.  Last year I had to struggle to keep the garden hydrated because there was so little rain and I try to use only the rain I collect to water the garden.  There is something disturbing about watering the cucumbers with water I have to pump up 750 feet from the underground springs.  I have a system of rooftop collection, rain barrel and holding vessels that I try to rely on for my garden.  Sometimes it works great.  Last year…not so much.  When you think of water in terms like that it takes on a special value that you just can’t appreciate when you only know ‘water’ as something that always comes when you twist the handle on the kitchen tap or the bathroom shower.  

I am not ashamed that I am a ‘tree-hugger’.  Just the opposite.  I am proud that I love the earth and the water and the blue sky that the good lord gave me to enjoy during my brief time here on the Earth.  And so it puzzles me that other God fearing people take the bounty that they have been given for granted.  To whit:  the farmers of Pennsylvania (and other places) who have convinced themselves that selling the mineral rites to their farms is a good thing.  They are selling those rites so that extremely deep wells can be placed for the production of natural gas using the process of hydraulic fracturing.  If it were not for the extremely profitable terms of the leases down-to-earth people like these farmers would laugh at the logic that the energy companies tout in defense of their methods of drilling.  The almighty dollar is responsible for their complete suspension of disbelief (ie-they were bought!) Tell me, what do you think of the technique of hydraulic fracturing?

Drilling a well for the purpose of “Fracking” (hydraulic fracturing) involves boring a hole vertically a mile below the surface.  The hole is encased in cement and a mixture of proprietary chemicals/petroleum products and water is forced under extreme pressure down the hole.  This hydraulic slush fractures the rock which releases gas which is brought to the surface through the lined casing.  The mixture used is proprietary in that the petroleum industry refuses to divulge the ingredients and, through a convoluted and thoroughly devious twist of the legislative system, (ie-they bought and paid for laws that allow them to keep the mix secret) no one knows exactly what it is made up of but it is stuff like diesel fuel and other petro chemicals (???) But the industry says it’s safe so that should be good enough for us, right?  Mind you, this well is penetrating the same rock through which the underground aquifer flows.  Through the water that has been stored for millennia.  Through water which we tap and which sustains the very civilization to which we belong.  Our showers, our crops, our cooking and (Lord help us!) our toilets flushing, our carwashes washing, our theme parks watersliding…But the petrochemical industry is going to keep all that water safe!

I know the men who are doing the drilling are the most conscientious and skilled workers in the world.  Brain surgeons.  They would never cut corners.  The concrete casing for the wells is of the finest concrete so it will never crack like a concrete foundation or a slab on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.  The “fracking” soup they use, I am sure, is always disposed of in the safest and most conscientious manner.  The supervisors are of the highest moral character and would never fail to divulge a mistake, accident, incident or knowingly (or unknowingly) falsify a report.  So what is there to fear?  Have we not completely learned from the lessons of Three Mile Island and the Exxon Valdez?  Are the safety measures not completely in place that would short circuit any catastrophe associated with deep drilling like that of the Deep Water Horizon in the Gulf?  (read: Hercules 265 natural gas blow out in the Gulf)  Everyone knows that the petroleum industry has a wonderful record of protecting the earth, the people and nature!  So I can understand why someone would want to give them the rites to their land to drill on.  Can’t you? 

All my sarcasm aside, it is inconceivable that anyone can be so deaf and dumb to the importance of the water which lies below us that they would be willing to risk that resource for any amount of money, gas or oil.  And yet they are, willing that is.  Please, wake up farmers!

Little Things that Matter

Little Things that Matter

I just had an interesting discussion with a dear friend-someone I like and respect but who has a very different political perspective and viewpoint than mine.  He was in his office listening to a conservative talk show host when I barged in and just started talking.  He’s never seemed to mind my audacious interruptions so I never hesitate to bother him when I feel the need to talk/argue/contemplate…  The topic for the morning was Detroit and financial problems that plague the motor city.  Going through a bankruptcy right now, it is the biggest municipal default in our nation’s history and bound to complicate a lot of lives.  Retired municipal employees who waiting to hear how their pensions will be affected, vendors and bond holders who are owed money, property owners who wonder how the city’s services will be affected, and current employees waiting for the axe to fall.  Messy.  Very messy.  

This is the type of financial debacle that haunts the American news-scape.  It seems like we are treated to a new and more spectacular failure of government or business every day.  

I am trying to understand how we can be so wrong in our planning, so blind to our mismanagement, and so naïve in our faith in the honesty and competence of our fellow man?  Given these weaknesses I begin to lose faith.  My friend has lost his.  He is convinced that, given the flaws in the system and in the human character, that there is no hope.  I believe he is wrong but we require reevaluation, not of the vast, complex and interconnected machine of our world but, rather, of the small steps and building blocks of the systems and practices.  We need to look at the tiny acts of everyday people in our society-because they are the keys to the problems.  

Focusing on one problem and dissecting that problem into its smallest parts, I believe, will see answers to the great issues evolve from the tiny actions.  I commence to ramble.

Sunday night the community prepares for the garbage collection on Monday morning.  Each home gathers its waste and piles it at the curb where it sits waiting for the maw of the packer truck in the morning light.  People drag their plastic thirty gallon pails of trash, bags full of leaves, lengths of wood, old toys and bicycles, etc out to the spot where a huge truck with a crew of three men will come and stop and dump the trash and fling the lids of the pails and pull away to the next stop.  A scene as American as apple pie.  Except it isn’t.  It is as human as…well, I don’t know…??  It is a scene you can see in Germany, or England, or many other places.  But it isn’t exactly the same everywhere.  In some places there is no trash pick-up at all and in some places, like Germany, it is very different.  In Germany there will only be one “bin” awaiting the garbage truck.  That is all that a household is allowed to put out-one!  If you put out more than one, or any loose rubbish, it will not be picked up and you will be issued a ticket for violating the regulations.  If you put your junk out before a certain time of day you will get a violation as well.  They are very serious about garbage in Germany, but everyone buys into the concept of limitations on garbage.  These limitations have resulted in very serious changes in the way things are packaged.  Packaging becomes trash.  Trash must be disposed of and since it is going to cost you money to get rid of extra (more than one bin’s worth) people won’t buy things with a lot of packaging.  Bottles and cans are not trash in Germany.  No one would dispose of them in their trash.  They are too bulky and, besides, if you put them in your trash you will get a violation!  No, you bring them to the recycling bins at the supermarket when you go to shop.  Same goes for cardboard and paper, into the bin.  Compare this to my town trash pick-up.

Rain Barrel

In my town the houses might put out one trash can or there might be 
four or five.  I walk my dog and regularly see homes with multiple bins.  There are also some houses that pile furniture and bicycles and toys and old wood cut into lengths and boxes full of other trash…I could go on.  The collection team will more than likely just chuck it into the packer truck.  Sometimes they will leave it.  No one ever gets a citation even though the pile of junk might lie out at the curb for a week or two.  Eventually it disappears.   I suspect there are some homes that actually do clean-ups at other properties and dispose of the trash in our town’s trash pick-up.  It is a business.   We have recycling in our town, which means on one day the truck (with the same crew of three) picks up cans and bottles and on another they pick up the paper and cardboard along the same routes as the regular trash pick-up.  We even have a “bulk pick-up” every month or so for the express purpose of helping rid households of large items like hot water heaters and furniture.  All of this service paid for by taxes.  The same taxes that go for road repair, schools, and all the other municipal services we expect.

This system works because people have money to pay for it but it is not a good system.  I am positive there is/was a similar trash collection scenario in Detroit.  Ask the people in Detroit if they would have taken a different path with regard to their garbage if they knew it could have helped avoid the stink they are in now?  I believe they would have gladly moderated the system.  Here is how.  Look at the small steps that build this system into the monster that it has become.

First, there is no incentive to be conservative in our consumption (read: waste).  Why bother restricting our waste if the truck/crew will pick it all up regardless of how many cans we put out?     

If there are no bins for glass, paper and metal at the supermarket who cares?  Of course we must pay to have them picked up but who is considering the cost of those additional pick-ups?  We have to go to the store anyway so why can’t we do double duty and recycle at the same time we shop?  

Simple composting bin

Why compost?  (Composting eliminates about 25% of all of our worst, ickiest, waste and turns it into soil.  How much more logical can anything be?)  But if it simply disappears every Monday, mixed into the rest of the crap from our homes in two, three or four plastic bins why bother?

If we continue to think that this waste disposal is free than we will not think about the useless plastic/paper/cardboard packaging that we regularly accept on everything we purchase.  If we don’t think about it and just continue to accept bulky, wasteful packaging,  then I assure you the manufacturers will not give it too much thought either.  

There is no reward for performance anywhere in this system.  This is how the system will work better.  

Recycling should be convenient and dropping off recycling should be as regular as shopping for food-put the bins outside the grocery stores and department stores.  Stop the deposit bottle laws and institute recycling laws.  Enforce them.

A single house should have pick up of one container each week of trash.  Institute rules about overages and enforce them.  It will not take long for people to figure out how to pare down on their waste and that will trickle up to the manufactures and plastic bag makers and they will get the hint fast enough.  Toys, furniture, bar-b-ques will also be recycled/sold/repurposed more regularly.  Make it easy to make reasonable arrangements to dispose of totally unwanted items but it should not be free!   If there is no cost to disposing of something the system will not work.

Bulk clean up should be the business of commercial carting companies.  They charge for dumpsters and pick-ups because they know the real worth of the service.  Appliance disposal should accompany appliance purchase.   Commercial carting companies and appliance dealers are in business and they pay taxes and employ people who pay taxes and buy homes.  Government should get out of the trash business wherever possible.

Make and enforce very strict litter and dumping laws.  This should go without saying but I’m saying it anyway.  Enforcement is crucial.  

I think that we (and the people of Detroit) should consider all of our systems more closely.  We have been living a cushy life without regard for the realities of the economic impact of the small things/actions that make up the systems we rely on in our daily life.  

Next time: think about Drinking Water! 

Chest Pains.
Clears up a lot of misconceptions...Fast!
Sit up and take notice of the time that is left.  Don't know how long it will take to make the concept stick but I will keep on until I get the point.  Here it goes.

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Rode home from Phyllis/Stuart’s in a tremendous rain storm.  From my seat I could see long bolts of lightning out in the East over the Shawangunks.  The vista from some of the hill tops on route 17 was enough to crank me several notches on the Caution meter. Then I hit the rain and the Caution meter broke off as it cranked all the way at the end of the scale and snapped.  I had hit some showers just  as I passed out of Wurtsboro but they were nothing.  When I got to Blooming Grove and turned onto 17 the temperature dropped and it got darker, grayer. 

Right after the on ramp the downpour started but I thought it was hail.  The sound it made when it hit my face shield was like pennies hitting a storefront window.  A .22 caliber sound muffled by the padding in the helmet.  It was cold too.  It began to soak through on my boots and the deerskin gloves.  They became nothing more than sponges.  The rest of me was dry-ish.  I figured I would be soaked through if the intensity of the rain continued. 

Surprisingly the traffic slowed significantly.  Usually people in cars and trucks have a false sense of invulnerability when they hit a heavy rain.  I felt stable despite the rain and comfortable at fifty, maybe fifty-five.  But traffic slowed to forty-five and I felt boxed in with the “wakes and wind” of tons of automobile all around me.  Not to mention a tractor-trailer or two in the mix.  I can handle the road and the weather but I was straining a bit trying to predict what all those autos might do in the blinding downpour.  My mind was processing a thousand bits of information a second.  My eyes scanning the wheels and the lights of the cars and the water on the road and the buckets of water coming down.  Truthfully, riding the motorcycle is not something I was thinking about.  That was happening automatically.  All systems were  in survive mode.  If I don’t know how to ride by now, I thought to myself, I won’t be learning here.

Exit 130 off of route 17 was like a river.  If anything the rain was getting harder.  On the north bound side there was a line of cars pulled off the road with their lights blurry through the rain and haze on my helmet shield, they looked like a string of pearls on a gray velour display.  I was in the ramp up the Long Mountain Parkway-in the left lane wanting to go about fifty.  The cars were remarkably all on my right and I pulled past and into the front of the line.  No trucks in front of me with their accompanying, buffeting wind.  No super slow economy car full of grandparents and kids doing thirty.  Nothing but road and a few miles of very wet, but none-the-less, magnificent scenery.  I was very lucky.  I only looked back in my rear view mirrors once and I saw the line of cars and trucks half a mile behind me- I never looked back.  Didn’t use the brakes once until I hit the traffic circle at exit 18.  Same on the “Goat Path” below the Bear Mountain Bridge.  Just lucky. 

When I got home I was high.  I had taken on less water than I had thought.  The rain suit worked.  I pulled the over clothes off and hung them to dry.   There was a dry towel on the work bench.  I dried off the instrument cluster on my bike and the face shield on the black helmet.  Then I dried my hair.

Rebecca Licker Revisit

I decided to pull the post Rebecca Licker down.  If you are interested I will send it privately to some people who couldn't possibly guess who "Joe" is.  My discretion.  R.

I Had a Dream-JFK and Dinner Rolls

As dreams go this one was pretty peculiar.  I can’t figure out where it came from at all as it bears no resemblance to anything going on or that has gone on before in my life.  I never knew Jack Kennedy.   I am sure that he was never the owner or manager of a bar and grille-a seedy one at that-and I am most positive I have never tried to (or had to) wipe my ass with a dinner roll.  And yet there he was, the president or once president of the United States of America following me around a run-down bistro with a bar towel draped over his arm.  He was trying to get me to do some work for him fixing up the place and I didn’t want to. 

I woke up and looked at the clock on the little black table next to my side of the bed.  It is very bright and the numerals on the digital read out are very red, casting a red glow onto the wall next to the spot where a head board might start if we had one.  Lizzy has been wanting a head board for years.  It is a project I've planned to work on for her some day-making a decorative headboard for her.  But I am not in the mood for headboards right now.  Anyway, the clock said 3:12 and I had to pee.  But I thought to myself I can wait ‘till 5:30 and tried to go back to sleep.  The president was still following me when the shadow of my eyelids blocked out the red glow of the clock.  He followed me into the men’s room.  I hid in a stall and sat down on the toilet.  He was right outside the flimsy metal cubicle door pacing back and forth with the dishtowel on his forearm.  I figured since I was in there I might as well take a dump.  Why waste time.  I did.

But then the dream takes a turn for the worse.  I look for the toilet paper and realize there is none. 

At work everybody likes to use really soft toilet paper with two plies.  The rolls are like fluffy quilts on a roll and the stuff feels like tee shirts or diapers with fuzz.  I am not used to paper like that.  When I use it, it makes little pills on my ass and I imagine all nine million people in the New York City area walking around with linty asses.  And all nine million of them flushing huge cotton swabs of fluffy paper into the sewer and a river of cottony muck flows under the ground.  It grosses me out.  I like single ply papery toilet paper.  I know how to fold it right and it doesn’t leave a bunch of cotton bolls up my ass. 

So, I say to JFK…under the stall door,  “Is there any toilet paper out there?”  and without an answer he slides a wicker basket with a cloth napkin full of dinner rolls under the door.  I don’t know why I never consider using the napkin.  In fact I just thought of it now.  The napkin was definitely in the dream but it never occurred to me to use it to wipe with.  I assumed the rolls were what I was supposed to use and I tried.  They were beautiful looking rolls…kind of like dinner rolls with egg wash on top that made them look golden and glossy.  But as toilet paper they were a complete flop.  They must have been too fresh or too stale I don’t know.  All I know is that they turned to crumbs the minute I tried to wipe with them .  The entire area around the toilet was littered with crumbled dinner rolls and I was still not clean, and John F. Kennedy was waiting outside the stall (pacing back and forth and back and forth) just waiting for me to finish so he could show me more restaurant repairs.  

I offer this up for your consideration.  Maybe someone will know how it is we dream what it is we dream?  I don't know.  

Sixty-Five

Sixty-five.  Hoodathunkit?  In two more days I’m gonna be 65.  It is an important mile-marker, I think, though age is, in some respects, just a state of mind.  I don’t feel 65.  That is something I have heard a lot of people say-that they don’t feel their age.  When I look in the mirror I expect to see a pup of 20 or so looking back at me but I see an old man instead.  Sometimes it is a shock.  Mostly I am used to it now.   My beard is fully gray and my hair is turning too.  My muscles have lost a good bit of the tone that they had all my life.  I am reconciling myself to the ‘things I can not change vs the things that I can change’ and the things I can still do easily and those that I cannot.  It is more a function of what my body can do as opposed to what my mind can do because my mind is aging more slowly than my body.  At least that is my feeling. 

Things I cannot do easily any longer:

-drive for long periods of time.

-tackle large, labor intensive projects.

-jump off of scaffolds higher than 3 feet off the ground.

-stay awake for the eleven o’clock news.

-put up with stupid people.

Things I can still do well:

-drive to my job in the Bronx (though I wish I had an automatic transmission for when I get caught in traffic jams on the Taconic.)

-work in my garden until I get tired then take a nap.

-climb up scaffolds

-sleep until 3:35am at which time I can sleep no longer.

-keep my mouth shut when confronted with stupid people.

I look forward to whatever is coming.  I used to think I knew what was coming but now I know that I know nothing about what is coming.  I love my wife and I am glad I never cheated on her.  I love my children though I know they are more important to me than I could ever be to them.  I love my dog more than my own life-and she deserves it. 

Pulling up the Vines

Pulling up the Vines

The nasty corkscrew roots

clinging, not just tangled in,

the rocks

and yellowish soil,

makes me wonder if

the plant knows?

The way it sends

its orange roots out

just under the surface

of my garden

scouting

getting the lay of the land.

The way it winds

around my plants

like a constrictor

in perfect coils,

I suspect a plan.

And when I try

to pull it from its

devious exploration

under my garden

it travels and unravels

like a zipper

and snaps

before I can get it all-

there is always a tiny bit

left behind.

That is all it takes,

a tiny bit,

and next year

it will again

be grown

as prosperous

and cloying

and strong.

"busted clay pot garden-by Matt Gartman

photo by Matt Gartman-used without permission. 

All the Time in the World

All the songs on the radio have banjos in them.  Listening to the FM radio someone dropped the bluegrass in the blender.  I’m going all spaz over the music.  Don’t know if I should tap my feet or snap my fingers or lay back on the arm of the couch with a cold compress on my skull.  Thank God for Mississippi John and the Candy man and my new found friend the i-pod. 

We are suppose to depend on little flat phones with TV screens but they only work when someone is listening for the “ring”.  (Ring!  yeah, that’s a laugh.  They do almost anything but ring.)  When I call North Carolina the only thing I get is “Leave a message.  Later.”  I reach out to touch someone and get a lesson in flat, remote, electronic rejection.  I wouldn’t mind so much except I just got a message that said it’s all gonna end!  Not when, just that it would...someday.  And I here thought I had All the Time in the World.  

The Reggae Bagel/Banana Song

A bagel

A banana

(A Song--must be read/sung with an island accent and Reggae beat* )

A bagel

A banana

Some peanut butter too

Some coffee

Some milk and sugar

Thinking about you...

Next year might be a great one

Next year might be a bust

Might be in Jerusalem

Might be groveling in the dust

I’m not making any predictions

Past this day, this time, this food

I could be flying high tomorrow

Or I could be totally screwed. 

A hot sip of java

A sweet turn of phrase

A walk in the sun

That’s all I got

Goin’ on these days.

A bagel

A banana

Some peanut butter too

Some coffee

Some milk and sugar

Thinking about you...

goes out to the girls at the Library-only 28 more days of Winter!)

An Aliquot of Pennies

An Aliquot of Pennies

If I had not turned around for a quick second as we were walking back into the house I would not have noticed that the trunk of Ian’s car was open.  It might have stayed open like that for the whole day and nothing would have been taken because the neighborhood is very quiet and safe.  But I called back to Lee that I was going back to close it anyway.  Lee said his dad often accidentally opened the trunk with the remote and didn’t notice.  It is the kind of thing that Ian does, like wearing two different colored socks (which I am not saying he does, just that wearing two different socks exemplifies a certain ‘non-observatory quality’ of life that Ian is know for throughout the family).  At the top of the driveway the poor Volvo sat with two brand new flat tires and an open trunk full of money.  I won’t go into the blown tires story right now but the money was very interesting.  I will explain.

The trunk was full and in disarray-as I would have expected.  Plastic bags with empty egg cartons was the first mystery.  Lee had followed me up.  This is disturbing in so many ways, I said, peering into the maw of the trunk.  Why would anyone drive around with empty egg cartons?  And then I noticed another bag with a couple of pounds of small change which I picked up and felt the weight of in my hand.  Under that bag was a pint Chinese food take-out container similarly filled with nickels, dimes, pennies and quarters as well as a tangled length of dental floss.   I removed that container and Lee gently nudged me to the side and he began investigating the trunk himself.  He uncovered multiple containers and bags containing stashes of coins and pretty soon there was a formidable collection of money extracted from Ian’s trunk and piled up at the top of the driveway.  Lee found a canvas sack into which he dumped all of the money and, with some difficulty, because it weighed quite a lot, he carried the sack into the house. 

Back inside the house there was a lot of discussion-between Ian and Rebecca and Lee-as to how long the money had taken to accumulate in the trunk of the Volvo, who was going to bring it in to the coin machine at Krogers and convert it to ‘real money’, how much it must cost in extra gasoline to run a car around with all that extra weight, and (for reasons I understand only very, very loosely) how many men firing rifles at the same time it would take to physically stop a speeding train.  We did determine that the empty egg cartons were being transported for ‘recycling’ though I am still unclear how long Ian had been carrying them in his car and when he actually planned to unload them.  There was no further mention of the dental floss.  All this discussion spawned a debate about the total value of the accumulation and a scientific collaboration to determine same. 

So, to briefly summarize- we now had an M.D./general surgeon (Ian), a former chemistry major and know-it-all (Me), a researcher from the C.D.C./PhD (Lee), a dentist and major player in the National Dental/Sleep movement (Sheri-though she was mostly napping on the couch with a warm blanket), and a salesperson/cum dental hygienist (Rebecca) working rigorously on theories/calculations/spreadsheets/scales and internet investigations in order to determine the value of approximately forty to fifty pounds of loose change.  It was an inspired team of highly trained professionals on the trail of truth.  We worked for an hour (and change!) and I will set forth below our basic hypothesis and very briefly describe our scientific technique.

First we fiddled excessively with our iphones and hand held calculators and postulated on various formulae we might use to come to a successful valuation.  Then Lee got down to business and opened an Excel spread sheet which he informed us he does for all his projects including selection from the lunch menu at the C.D.C. cafeteria.  Rebecca set forth combing the bag, picking out all of the foreign coins and tokens from the Atlanta public transportation system.  Ian had lunch and Sheri closed her eyes and snuggled under the blanket after finally giving up on the entire scheme and leaving it, in what she called, qualified hands.  I was instructed by Lee to ‘draw and aliquot’ of coins and weigh them accurately on the kitchen scale.  We then determined how many pennies, five cent pieces (also known as nickels), dimes, and quarters were to be found in our scientifically drawn sample.  All of this data was plugged into Lees spread sheet and we determined that there was approximately $320-$328 in the bag.  Of course this was all predicated on a theoretical weight of the bag of money itself, which we guessed was fifty pounds.  Unfortunately there was no instrument for verifying this estimate anywhere to be found in the house as Jeffery (since gone to California and not available for comment in this particular experiment) had thrown out the bathroom scale one day when it was particularly insulting to him.  Next years budget for equipment will include a replacement.  But for now we could only guess…I mean hypothesize!

I will leave the nuts and bolts description of the experiment design and implementation as well as the final determination and results to my colleague, Lee, who had promised to “write it up” in his usual uber-professional method.  It has been a privilege to have been a participant.