Weblog 69
June 3, 2007~ 12:15am
Almost back to 100% with the voice (and health in general) but lemme tell ya, the heat and humidity in Pittsburgh is enough to make me still feel sick! I think it's gonna be a doosey of a summer.
Nothing to be done about it, but simply slog through it. Ah, and I came across this cute puppy picture: it seems the verdict is in on 'Wired Karisma'...........
I'm going to a 50th Wedding Anniversary picnic this afternoon for the my daughter's in-laws, a truly charming couple. I bought a braided bamboo plant for them. As you know, I kill all growing things- but Joan was born with a green thumb, and she'll have that thing thriving and lush. So much so, pandas will begin to stalk her, wanting a small treat from her wonderful bamboo grove. It should be a lovely time with picnic, food, music- and dancing. I'm taking my mother. We will not be dancing, however. We will be eating and watching the little ones run around, happy in the sun, with the two of us aching and moaning about our knees, as we are wont to do when we get together.
At least we are not the Royal Family, so the sycophantic behavior will be at a minimum, thank God. And nobody has to wear unattractive hats. No curseying. (Not even shallowly) -and no protocol to follow. Burps and guffaws permitted. Hell......even encouraged. Here's to the common man in our roughshod, ramshackle best. Here's to non-stiff behavior and smiles that don't threaten to crack the face in half. Here's to the colonies, the hooligans and scoundrels, loud-voiced and rowdy- not kings and queens, but jacks and jokers. (Throw in some half-pints and some marshmallows, you have my day in a plain paper sack.) Hope it goes well....
June 3, 2007~ 12:00pm
Up and sipping coffee, preparing to hack about 2 inches off my hair and shampoo, bathe, and get ready for the picnic. I hope I don't end up looking lop-sided as all get out. It seems I have the desire to cut my hair whenever old humidity and heat rolls into town, and today is the day. (No matter what I do, the hair will end up limp and frizzed, that's a given. lol)
The water tank pilot light went out yesterday. I re-lit it, but there's moisture in the bottom, and I fear there may be a hairline crack starting in the tank. Dammit, it's always something isn't it? So far, still hot water today, but if the drip hits the pilot again, PFFFFFT! That's my guess anyway. Unless it's just condensation, but that'd be too easy. Life's gotta twist my arm all the way around the back, and give it a wrench up!
Off I go to 'June Allyson' myself into a neat little pageboy, and dig some appropriate clothes out of the heap, and pick up mum. At least the car is air-conditioned, and the Patti Smith CD will be playing. I can just hear my mother humming along to 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'. (She hums anything, as long as it's playing on the radio.) I can't wait....
June 3, 2007~ 8:00pm
She did indeed hum. LOL!!! You're heard nothing in this world like the sound of my 86 year old mother humming along to a Patti Smith rendition of 'Gimme Shelter'.....it's simply....indescribable. The picnic was lovely. Rain held off to the very end, after the slide show of the original 1950's wedding while Nat King Cole was crooning "I Love You For Sentimental Reasons". The chopping off of the hair was a godsend. It's so damn ugly, didn't matter if it rained or not!--- it stayed put. I look like a middle-aged 'little dutch boy'. (And for you younger folk, that's June, not moi...I don't do 'scarves'.)...
The kids were in hog heaven. Bill drank too many soda pops (a wicked luxury he's usually denied at four years of age, and a privilege he abused with glee.) At some point, he dragged a large chunk of fluorescent plastic from one of the yard games and stuck it at base of the pole of the outdoor tent next to ours-- (there were three of them, as well as the open air shelter itself not counting the food shelter beside it. BIG PICNIC.) "That's for handicapped," he announced. "Nobody gets in that tent except if they were born that way." God, that kid.....I don't know where he comes up with these things but he was adamant. (The occupants of that tent looked and acted no different than anyone else, but to Bill....well, he knew sumpthin'....) Kay followed him around like a puppy dog when she wasn't dribbling something gooey onto my slacks or putting her sticky hands up to be held and rocked. She's a cuddler, and I rock her, gooey hands or not, forever if she wants. Bill caused a loud wave of laughter twice--- for the following reason.
Anniversary Picnic
Day of old songs
and sweet folks, children
running around
like locomotives
chugging on sun
and pep, and too
many pops, Bill stops
to urinate
right outside the cement floor
of the picnic grove, and cannot understand
the laughter of older relatives
and friends
who do
know there a days and times too busy
when you're that age
to make your way to the house
and find a bathroom, days when perhaps
it's still an Eden
and nobody
cares
if a bit of skin shows, shake it
into the dust
and keep on running; nothing
to break the smile,
the miles of weeds ahead
sprung up like a pirate isle, this stick's
a sword, this June
is Bill's time.
Yep....twice.
LOL!!- till his daddy started making him take the long walk to the indoor facilities. And alas........our entertainment was gone, along with our own little 'Brussels Boy'.
June 5, 2007~ 6:30pm
Now you tell me.....why is this man smiling? And who is it?
It's a painting of Archimedes, completed in in 1630, and now hangs in the Prado museum. Let me excise a quote here from the classical art page from which I pinched this segment of the painting. "...the great physicist, mathematician and natural scientist is shown here as a toothless old Spaniard. Archimedes looks at us with a broad grin, and seems as close to the everyday life of Ribera's contemporaries as the artist's paintings of the saints. We find no monumental dignity here, only the dignity of a strong personality."
Any hints yet??? HE'S TOOTHLESS....That's WHY the fella is so damned happy!
Since Sunday at the picnic, I have been deviled by a "temporary cap"- (or what is really- a slapped-together, remade tooth of stickum and frog spit- that was supposed to last a 'week or two'. That was 2 years ago.) Since that time, I have watched it chip, shift, lift- the metal post poke through the top- and you name it, that thing has done it. The day I was supposed to have impressions made for the crown, I had an appointment with a Nazi periodontist, who inflicted more PAIN on me than 2 childbirths if they had been undergone simultaneously; the impression was forgotten about because there wasn't enough time. (Plenty of time to torture, however.)
Needless to say, I never went back. I started out phobic about dentists, and that "treatment" finished me off. I am simply waiting now for the next need for a root canal for me to say, "PULL 'EM! Every goddamned one of em."
Dentists don't like to hear that, and I am tired of sinking thousands of dollars into a mouth that was sinking itself, from the time it slipped out of the birth canal. (Old mom just didn't have it in her to produce a third child with strong teeth. I got the leftover stuff-- the 'stickum and frog spit' teeth). The rear ones have already been pulled and not replaced, one of the front ones has broken off (it's root-canaled since I was 16, so it didn't hurt--and I superglued it in place every other day since just before Christmas- but the glue just before Easter has held. lol...) Of the ones I have left, two are crowns, one is a temporary (the lastest culprit in this 'vale of tears')- and 4 are root canals. I'd say their days are numbered.....
Anyway, what happened this time (and it's happened before) is some minute something gets under there, and stuck, and shifts the tooth. The gum swells up and is tender, the bite is off, so every bite down is 'unpleasant'- not painful, but wobbly and decidedly 'unpleasant'. It gets worse and worse until I finally, in sheer frustration, take a dental pick and start to dig around in there. LOL!!! self-dentistry. After much bleeding- and swearing I've made the thing worse, it begins to calm down.
I spent 2 1/2 'unpleasant days' that even cut into my sleep last night, and miraculously, this afternoon, it began to abate and the discomfort is now gone. So WHY IS THAT MAN SMILING?????
...TOOTHLESS. What we know of Archimedes genius is documented all over the place, but what we do not know is that there existed a picture showing one last theory of his...
There is, 'On the Equilibrium of Planes', 'On Spirals', 'The Measurement of the Circle', 'On the Sphere and the Cylinder', 'The Method of Mechanical Theorems and Stomachion'-- and of course, 'On Floating Bodies'. You know, the famous: "Eureka!" ("I have found it!")- that a body immersed in a fluid experiences a buoyant force equal to the weight of the displaced fluid.......or......"a person immersed in pain experiences a buoyant force equal to the weight of the displaced pain." (In the case of teeth- (his and mine)- I believe this picture speaks for itself.)
And I'll just bet, the happiness of a life can be counted by the number of teeth missing. Think back to your childhood. When where you absolutely the HAPPIEST? When those damn teeth began to loosen and fall out. When does most late teen-aged angst and depression occur? When you're getting still more 'wisdom teeth'-- as though you didn't already have enough roots and nerves to go haywire and drive you insane....
I promise you this: when they finally go, I will place a full picture of my gummy mouth- right here. Smiling, of course.
June 7, 2007~ 6:30pm
Today was Light Bulb Changing Day- but I must be getting more mellow, because although they were all the hard to reach ones that usually put me in a foul temper, I got home from work and quietly went about the house, doing what needed to be done. Even humming.
And yes, the same damn bulb that had me concussing the cat with my heel as I climbed down from the chair in the kitchen a few weeks ago, was again as 'out as the one in George's head'. It flickers. When it does, I say, "Hi Dad," hoping it's my departed daddy flashing his stuff, but no-- probably faulty wiring. I remember paying an electrician 100 bucks to fix that kitchen wiring 15 years ago after I reached up to pull the metal chain and turn off the light over the sink, and my wet hands sent a shock up to the elbow. LOL!!
All he did was cap the outlet off and put a new one in the middle of the ceiling. That bulb changed- (no 'cats' this time...they do learn!)- I proceeded to the bathroom, which has an impossibly LOOOOOOOOONG light fixture over the vanity mirror: 8 bulbs inside a 4 ft long glass enclosure that I'm always certain I'll teeter and break trying to set it down gingerly across the basin sink cabinet once I get the damn thing unscrewed.
Only two lights were still working, so I replaced the 60 watt with the 40 watt blue 'natural light' bulbs I had on hand. (Very energy-conscious, doncha know. Yah, right. I just forgot to buy the 60's on Saturday)- so now the bathroom is moody. I think I'll hang a picture of Guy Lombardo in there......
The last mother-f*cker is the worst-- the one tucked inside its housing above the tub. It has only 2 out of 3 Phillips head screws left -(they're always falling and bouncing away somewhere when I unscrew them)- and Tom Thumb would have a hard time with their teeny size. In that space- standing in the tub, neck flexed back at a really uncomfortable angle and feeling dizzy (don't ask me why)- I'm always sure the little glass globe is gonna come down on what is left of my front teeth as I strain and curse, trying to turn those microscopic Phillips heads. Today though-- not so bad. Today I chose two different holes, allowing me to rest my head against the tile wall, and thereby circumvent the vertigo. (Easier on the neck muscles too.) That one now has a 40 watt as well.
Oh yes! This is the 'house that Jack built'- about a hundred years ago and probably DRUNK, but oh Lordy-- now my shitter has atmosphere! Imagine how romantic I will feel the next time I use the pail I have to keep beside the sink to flush! My God! I'll be Loretta Young, all violins and smiles- face, a dusty-rose with a muted flush- just like the commode. So I'm all lit up here- and ain't it fine?
***
(Return To Weekly Archives)
Almost back to 100% with the voice (and health in general) but lemme tell ya, the heat and humidity in Pittsburgh is enough to make me still feel sick! I think it's gonna be a doosey of a summer.
Nothing to be done about it, but simply slog through it. Ah, and I came across this cute puppy picture: it seems the verdict is in on 'Wired Karisma'...........
I'm going to a 50th Wedding Anniversary picnic this afternoon for the my daughter's in-laws, a truly charming couple. I bought a braided bamboo plant for them. As you know, I kill all growing things- but Joan was born with a green thumb, and she'll have that thing thriving and lush. So much so, pandas will begin to stalk her, wanting a small treat from her wonderful bamboo grove. It should be a lovely time with picnic, food, music- and dancing. I'm taking my mother. We will not be dancing, however. We will be eating and watching the little ones run around, happy in the sun, with the two of us aching and moaning about our knees, as we are wont to do when we get together.
At least we are not the Royal Family, so the sycophantic behavior will be at a minimum, thank God. And nobody has to wear unattractive hats. No curseying. (Not even shallowly) -and no protocol to follow. Burps and guffaws permitted. Hell......even encouraged. Here's to the common man in our roughshod, ramshackle best. Here's to non-stiff behavior and smiles that don't threaten to crack the face in half. Here's to the colonies, the hooligans and scoundrels, loud-voiced and rowdy- not kings and queens, but jacks and jokers. (Throw in some half-pints and some marshmallows, you have my day in a plain paper sack.) Hope it goes well....
June 3, 2007~ 12:00pm
Up and sipping coffee, preparing to hack about 2 inches off my hair and shampoo, bathe, and get ready for the picnic. I hope I don't end up looking lop-sided as all get out. It seems I have the desire to cut my hair whenever old humidity and heat rolls into town, and today is the day. (No matter what I do, the hair will end up limp and frizzed, that's a given. lol)
The water tank pilot light went out yesterday. I re-lit it, but there's moisture in the bottom, and I fear there may be a hairline crack starting in the tank. Dammit, it's always something isn't it? So far, still hot water today, but if the drip hits the pilot again, PFFFFFT! That's my guess anyway. Unless it's just condensation, but that'd be too easy. Life's gotta twist my arm all the way around the back, and give it a wrench up!
Off I go to 'June Allyson' myself into a neat little pageboy, and dig some appropriate clothes out of the heap, and pick up mum. At least the car is air-conditioned, and the Patti Smith CD will be playing. I can just hear my mother humming along to 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'. (She hums anything, as long as it's playing on the radio.) I can't wait....
June 3, 2007~ 8:00pm
She did indeed hum. LOL!!! You're heard nothing in this world like the sound of my 86 year old mother humming along to a Patti Smith rendition of 'Gimme Shelter'.....it's simply....indescribable. The picnic was lovely. Rain held off to the very end, after the slide show of the original 1950's wedding while Nat King Cole was crooning "I Love You For Sentimental Reasons". The chopping off of the hair was a godsend. It's so damn ugly, didn't matter if it rained or not!--- it stayed put. I look like a middle-aged 'little dutch boy'. (And for you younger folk, that's June, not moi...I don't do 'scarves'.)...
The kids were in hog heaven. Bill drank too many soda pops (a wicked luxury he's usually denied at four years of age, and a privilege he abused with glee.) At some point, he dragged a large chunk of fluorescent plastic from one of the yard games and stuck it at base of the pole of the outdoor tent next to ours-- (there were three of them, as well as the open air shelter itself not counting the food shelter beside it. BIG PICNIC.) "That's for handicapped," he announced. "Nobody gets in that tent except if they were born that way." God, that kid.....I don't know where he comes up with these things but he was adamant. (The occupants of that tent looked and acted no different than anyone else, but to Bill....well, he knew sumpthin'....) Kay followed him around like a puppy dog when she wasn't dribbling something gooey onto my slacks or putting her sticky hands up to be held and rocked. She's a cuddler, and I rock her, gooey hands or not, forever if she wants. Bill caused a loud wave of laughter twice--- for the following reason.
Anniversary Picnic
Day of old songs
and sweet folks, children
running around
like locomotives
chugging on sun
and pep, and too
many pops, Bill stops
to urinate
right outside the cement floor
of the picnic grove, and cannot understand
the laughter of older relatives
and friends
who do
know there a days and times too busy
when you're that age
to make your way to the house
and find a bathroom, days when perhaps
it's still an Eden
and nobody
cares
if a bit of skin shows, shake it
into the dust
and keep on running; nothing
to break the smile,
the miles of weeds ahead
sprung up like a pirate isle, this stick's
a sword, this June
is Bill's time.
Yep....twice.
LOL!!- till his daddy started making him take the long walk to the indoor facilities. And alas........our entertainment was gone, along with our own little 'Brussels Boy'.
June 5, 2007~ 6:30pm
Now you tell me.....why is this man smiling? And who is it?
It's a painting of Archimedes, completed in in 1630, and now hangs in the Prado museum. Let me excise a quote here from the classical art page from which I pinched this segment of the painting. "...the great physicist, mathematician and natural scientist is shown here as a toothless old Spaniard. Archimedes looks at us with a broad grin, and seems as close to the everyday life of Ribera's contemporaries as the artist's paintings of the saints. We find no monumental dignity here, only the dignity of a strong personality."
Any hints yet??? HE'S TOOTHLESS....That's WHY the fella is so damned happy!
Since Sunday at the picnic, I have been deviled by a "temporary cap"- (or what is really- a slapped-together, remade tooth of stickum and frog spit- that was supposed to last a 'week or two'. That was 2 years ago.) Since that time, I have watched it chip, shift, lift- the metal post poke through the top- and you name it, that thing has done it. The day I was supposed to have impressions made for the crown, I had an appointment with a Nazi periodontist, who inflicted more PAIN on me than 2 childbirths if they had been undergone simultaneously; the impression was forgotten about because there wasn't enough time. (Plenty of time to torture, however.)
Needless to say, I never went back. I started out phobic about dentists, and that "treatment" finished me off. I am simply waiting now for the next need for a root canal for me to say, "PULL 'EM! Every goddamned one of em."
Dentists don't like to hear that, and I am tired of sinking thousands of dollars into a mouth that was sinking itself, from the time it slipped out of the birth canal. (Old mom just didn't have it in her to produce a third child with strong teeth. I got the leftover stuff-- the 'stickum and frog spit' teeth). The rear ones have already been pulled and not replaced, one of the front ones has broken off (it's root-canaled since I was 16, so it didn't hurt--and I superglued it in place every other day since just before Christmas- but the glue just before Easter has held. lol...) Of the ones I have left, two are crowns, one is a temporary (the lastest culprit in this 'vale of tears')- and 4 are root canals. I'd say their days are numbered.....
Anyway, what happened this time (and it's happened before) is some minute something gets under there, and stuck, and shifts the tooth. The gum swells up and is tender, the bite is off, so every bite down is 'unpleasant'- not painful, but wobbly and decidedly 'unpleasant'. It gets worse and worse until I finally, in sheer frustration, take a dental pick and start to dig around in there. LOL!!! self-dentistry. After much bleeding- and swearing I've made the thing worse, it begins to calm down.
I spent 2 1/2 'unpleasant days' that even cut into my sleep last night, and miraculously, this afternoon, it began to abate and the discomfort is now gone. So WHY IS THAT MAN SMILING?????
...TOOTHLESS. What we know of Archimedes genius is documented all over the place, but what we do not know is that there existed a picture showing one last theory of his...
There is, 'On the Equilibrium of Planes', 'On Spirals', 'The Measurement of the Circle', 'On the Sphere and the Cylinder', 'The Method of Mechanical Theorems and Stomachion'-- and of course, 'On Floating Bodies'. You know, the famous: "Eureka!" ("I have found it!")- that a body immersed in a fluid experiences a buoyant force equal to the weight of the displaced fluid.......or......"a person immersed in pain experiences a buoyant force equal to the weight of the displaced pain." (In the case of teeth- (his and mine)- I believe this picture speaks for itself.)
And I'll just bet, the happiness of a life can be counted by the number of teeth missing. Think back to your childhood. When where you absolutely the HAPPIEST? When those damn teeth began to loosen and fall out. When does most late teen-aged angst and depression occur? When you're getting still more 'wisdom teeth'-- as though you didn't already have enough roots and nerves to go haywire and drive you insane....
I promise you this: when they finally go, I will place a full picture of my gummy mouth- right here. Smiling, of course.
June 7, 2007~ 6:30pm
Today was Light Bulb Changing Day- but I must be getting more mellow, because although they were all the hard to reach ones that usually put me in a foul temper, I got home from work and quietly went about the house, doing what needed to be done. Even humming.
And yes, the same damn bulb that had me concussing the cat with my heel as I climbed down from the chair in the kitchen a few weeks ago, was again as 'out as the one in George's head'. It flickers. When it does, I say, "Hi Dad," hoping it's my departed daddy flashing his stuff, but no-- probably faulty wiring. I remember paying an electrician 100 bucks to fix that kitchen wiring 15 years ago after I reached up to pull the metal chain and turn off the light over the sink, and my wet hands sent a shock up to the elbow. LOL!!
All he did was cap the outlet off and put a new one in the middle of the ceiling. That bulb changed- (no 'cats' this time...they do learn!)- I proceeded to the bathroom, which has an impossibly LOOOOOOOOONG light fixture over the vanity mirror: 8 bulbs inside a 4 ft long glass enclosure that I'm always certain I'll teeter and break trying to set it down gingerly across the basin sink cabinet once I get the damn thing unscrewed.
Only two lights were still working, so I replaced the 60 watt with the 40 watt blue 'natural light' bulbs I had on hand. (Very energy-conscious, doncha know. Yah, right. I just forgot to buy the 60's on Saturday)- so now the bathroom is moody. I think I'll hang a picture of Guy Lombardo in there......
The last mother-f*cker is the worst-- the one tucked inside its housing above the tub. It has only 2 out of 3 Phillips head screws left -(they're always falling and bouncing away somewhere when I unscrew them)- and Tom Thumb would have a hard time with their teeny size. In that space- standing in the tub, neck flexed back at a really uncomfortable angle and feeling dizzy (don't ask me why)- I'm always sure the little glass globe is gonna come down on what is left of my front teeth as I strain and curse, trying to turn those microscopic Phillips heads. Today though-- not so bad. Today I chose two different holes, allowing me to rest my head against the tile wall, and thereby circumvent the vertigo. (Easier on the neck muscles too.) That one now has a 40 watt as well.
Oh yes! This is the 'house that Jack built'- about a hundred years ago and probably DRUNK, but oh Lordy-- now my shitter has atmosphere! Imagine how romantic I will feel the next time I use the pail I have to keep beside the sink to flush! My God! I'll be Loretta Young, all violins and smiles- face, a dusty-rose with a muted flush- just like the commode. So I'm all lit up here- and ain't it fine?
(Return To Weekly Archives)
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