Shuffling the Deck I believe this story will complete my deck analogy repertoire. I have “hit the deck” and “decked the haul”, so now I am shuffling the deck. To begin, a status report on the work. As of today (Tuesday, March 2nd) I have a perfectly smooth, perfectly sloped deck of hardened mud or mortar that will allow water to flow away from the house and over the front edge. It looks and feels…
The Trusted Advisor I saw in the Washington Post today that Vernon E. Jordan, Jr. died at the age of 85. You may or may not remember the name Vernon Jordan, but I have the pleasure of having known him in very direct and somewhat intimate ways that I think deserve a reprise. I feel inclined to reflect on people at their demise if I have known them personally or they have had a generally…
Catatonic For some reason, I don’t like cats. When I am around them and when they want to be social, they seem fine, but I am slightly put off by all the things that others generally like about cats. Independence seems to be a big cat theme. They amuse themselves and seem to be less gregarious creatures than not and seem inclined to live more solitary lives, jumping from here to there and then casually…
Sleeping With The Enemy No, I do not think of Kim as the enemy and yes, we sleep together every night. But there is someone else in the bed with me every night as it has been for twenty-seven years. That would be Mr. CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure), the machine that assists my nighttime breathing so that I do not snore nor have episodes of sleep apnea, which are shallow or paused breathing episodes…
A Return to the Big Screen A few days ago I found myself getting caught up with two newly released movies and how to go about seeing them. In the past year, most of us have not been to the movies outside of our living rooms. That has probably not been a big deal to some who only went to movies infrequently anyway, but to someone like me who considers going to the movies to…
Raptors I Have Known The other day, Kim and I were coming home from an afternoon errand and, after stopping to pick up the mail, we were driving through our entry pillars when Kim shouted at me to look. I was somewhat taken aback and didn’t know what she was pointing to at to my left. Then I saw it. On the left stucco pillar there was a small red-tailed hawk. It was just sitting…
The Totems of My Life I am not certain why or how it has happened, but I am surrounded by totems. They mean everything and yet they mean nothing at all. Just this week, Kim gave me a birthday/anniversary/Valentines gift she had had made for me by her favorite gift store in New York, named Domus on West 44th Street in the heart of Hell’s Kitchen. In Ancient Rome, a domus was a distinguished house…
War Games Soliloquy I can’t seem to help myself from getting into unintended projects. You’ve heard how this happens to me at my hilltop home, now let’s discuss my writing. I publish one story a day on this blog (occasionally supplemented with an extra and usually timely story here and there). That is about 1,300 words per day on average. People brag about Jack London writing 1,000 words a day every day. So, I think…
Lunch With Ralph A few months ago I wrote about finding out I had a new half-sister. From that encounter (we have been in touch several times via text), one of my other half-sisters found a long lost half-brother in the online world. His name is Ralph and he is two years younger than me. It seems our father spread his seed far and wide across California, Mexico and perhaps even in Venezuela, where he…
The COVID Two-Step When the curtain comes down on the COVID story (assuming it ever does come down) the fundamental tales will include stories about Trump’s bungling of the science for presumed political gain (ironic given that it was probably his ultimate undoing), the testing challenge (including Trump’s moronic argument that less testing would lead to a better story through under-reporting), the development of therapeutics (overshadowed by the Sarah Cooper tweets mimicking Trump’s bleach-up-the-butt program)…