historical interest

things back in the day

Putting the “SH” in IT, Central Ohio Winter, (Behold the White Death,) and Nasty ’70’s Cars

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Why is it that technical people (and being a techie type I have to include myself in this critique also) can be so dour?  Computer professionals, especially, seem to have especially shitty attitudes.  I can’t blame them based on the capricious nature of IT in general, but a joke?  A smile, maybe?   Perhaps it has to do with being emotionally stunted or having an undue emphasis on the life of the mind versus the life of the heart.  It’s just not a balanced way to live, and sometimes the emotional demons break through at the most inopportune and irrational times.   I trust my mind most of the time- it keeps me on the steadfast and staid (though often boring) path of reliability and predictability.  When I “follow my heart” it almost always leads me to trouble- although the path to trouble often includes some intrigue and adventure.  Though it defies my sense of rationality and order, a little unpredictability and intrigue is essential for mental health.  So from time to time even I have to go off the deep end, even as much as I despise maudlin displays of emotion. 

I think it’s interesting that it’s occasionally necessary to simply take a mental vacation (especially when a physical vacation isn’t feasible) and just do something goofy for the hell of it.  Perhaps this is the logic behind the human need for humor.  All work and no play makes me even more boring than I am already.  Lately I find myself so boring I put myself to sleep- so I have had to find a few irrational pursuits.

Target had some novelty fart putty cups for $1 apiece in their discount section.  Of course I couldn’t pass up something this crude and sophomoric at such a discount price. Fart noises are always funny, so I have periodically been annoying my coworkers with fake flatulence.  Everyone needs a hobby.

Vacation is one of my favorite movies.  The car is a modified (tackily, but that’s the point) Ford LTD Country Squire station wagon.  Mom actually had one of these (without the modifications.)  I think that was the last V8 Dad let Mom have.  It was a typical old Ford in that the steering was horrid (the wheel had about 2 inches at least of play in it) and the suspension was spongy- but it would go like a bat out of hell in a straight line.  I think Mom got the 95-in-a-25 violation in the ’77 LTD sedan, but both the ’75 station wagon and the ’77 sedan had the 351 Windsor engine that Dad liked.  Both cars were horribly fugly, a handling nightmare, and did good to get 12MPG- if you kept your foot out of it.  I think Dad disengaged the secondary advance on the ’77 after Mom got busted in it, which is sort of like closing the barn door once the horse has run away.

70’s domestic cars were most abysmal.  FYI: The “wood grain” was actually adhesive stickers.

Mom actually had a 70’s car worse than the LTDs.  At least the LTDs would start and run.  The Dodge Aspen wagon generally wouldn’t even do that if the temperature dropped below 60 degrees F, which is quite often in beautiful Central Ohio.  If it got hotter than about 70 degrees, the thermostat would stick shut and it would overheat and/or the fuel pump would vapor lock.  I can’t remember how many times Dad had this POS towed, or how many fuel pumps, carburetors and thermostats he put on it, but when all was said and done I think he wanted to fire bomb it.  It was simply a piece of really shitty engineering.  The plus side of the Aspen, at least as far as Mom’s driving record went, when it did run, is it was a very underpowered 4 cylinder.  If you were lucky enough to get it up to 60MPH it would shake and shimmy like nobody’s business, then it would sputter and die.

Fugly, and not terribly functional.  The 1977 Dodge Aspen Wagon.  Now you know why I drive Toyotas.

These things, by comparison at least, made a beat up old VW Rabbit look like (and perform like) a freaking sports car.

Today we are supposed to get some snow and freezing rain.  I’ll believe it when I see it, but I am sure that the local redneck population will be clearing the stores out of Velveeta cheese and Marlboros before the end of the day.  Some things never change.

At least the cop got HIS smokes.

I sincerely thank God I don’t smoke anymore.  And I already have Velveeta cheese.

 

Lachrymal Musings, Intersecting Spheres, Defying Entropy (and a Rear-End Thermometer Too!)

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I thoroughly enjoy historical places- especially ones that have been tastefully restored.  Usually one of two things happen to historical places and either option breaks my heart.  Either they are completely razed to the ground or are left to rot with maybe a haphazard or architecturally and/or aesthetically poor attempt at restoration.  The Harding Hotel pictured above by and large is a tasteful restoration of a building that had been left to rot for over 25 years.  The lower floors have the original restored woodworking (very lovely and I should have taken pics the last time I was there…) and are used as reception halls and conference rooms, while the upper floors have been converted into senior citizen apartments.

Ironically the hotel hadn’t even been finished before President Harding died, so it was never really used for its intended purpose, which was to be a high-faluting hotel for dignitaries and others to frequent when President Harding came back to town.   What ended up happening is that the hotel builders built that day’s equivalent to a Hilton in the middle of nowhere.  Once President Harding died, nobody was looking too much to Marion, OH as a high-faluting tourist destination.  Granted, today the Popcorn Festival brings some local crowds, but these aren’t the kind of people who go for four or five star digs.  These are rednecks in Dale Earnhardt wife-beater t-shirts, whose behemoth women sport too-small tank tops and tacky tramp stamps, whose kids don’t wear shoes until they have to go to school, and for whom silverware at meal times is a formality.  If one lives far enough away (or drinks too much beer to drive home) the Super 8 has cable, an indoor pool, and it’s really close to both the Steak-n-Shake and the exit ramp to US23.

Perhaps I shouldn’t diss redneck culture the way I do, but there is a small part of me that bemoans the lack of civility and grace in society that seemed far more evident in the past.  If one looks at photography from the 1950’s and earlier one does not see tramp stamps, tank tops, large women wearing no bras, wife-beater t-shirts or just general slovenliness.  All those drugs in the 1960’s must have warped people’s brains.  Granted, they gave us Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, but I could have done without the whole hippie no-bathing-let-it-all-hang-out trend which really hasn’t completely gone away.  Some things resist entropy until the very end, or perhaps slovenliness and unkempt appearances are the butt-end of entropy, and therefore it remains the same because it has achieved its chaotic goal.  I would have liked to think that an age of enlightenment would have involved clean clothes and soap, but my priorities are never the same as the rest of the world’s.

The 80’s weren’t bad from a general clothing perspective, (especially buff dudes in Spandex) but if I  had to pick a fashion decade it would have to be the 1940’s.  Fashion designers were probably still queer, but they weren’t designing everything so it only fits and looks good on emaciated 12 year old boys.  I think by 1965 or so somebody forgot that women are supposed to have boobs, and some women with ample chests like to wear clothing that said boobs don’t fall out of.  At least it is still possible, with a little work, to find bathing suits that do not expose midriff or have such huge leg holes that the whole world gets to see most of your butt cheeks as well as most of your surgical scars and/or stretch marks.  I need a bathing suit to do a couple of important things- restrain the puppies so that they don’t fly up out of the top of the bathing suit when I go off the diving board, and cover everything from my boobs to as far south as mid-thigh.  That’s what I need to both prevent “wardrobe malfunctions,” and to keep from revealing things better left unseen, such as surgical scars and stretch marks.  I don’t want to share the pool with projectile vomiters.

 

Above  is an example of  acceptable swim attire for me.  It’s the only exception I ever make to the “shirts must have sleeves” rule.

Below is an example of swimwear that will never be acceptable to me, even if I were as anorexic-thin as Calista Flockhart (which I am definitely not.)

Nobody on God’s green earth would ever want to see me in one of these things.  Speaking of swimwear, I simply had to notice that Target was right on it with the swimwear display.  On January 5th.  This is Ohio, people.  Unless you are lucky enough to belong to an indoor pool, or to vacation in the Bahamas, I don’t see the point in buying swimwear now that won’t get worn until at least Memorial Day.  I find it rather impossible to think about buying bathing attire when there’s three feet of snow outside and it’s 10 degrees.

Fashion has taken some rather abysmal turns in recent years, especially with the lack of coverage.  I would be a lot happier if it suddenly became trendy for guys to refrain from displaying hairy butt cleavage and boxer short waist bands.  It would thrill me if teenage girls would refrain from dressing like scantily clad prostitutes, and that it would again become trendy for dresses and women’s shirts to have sleeves.  I could do the Stevie Nicks 1985 or thereabouts look just fine, including the platform shoes. I also wish it were more socially acceptable for women to wear hats, for instance.  I enjoy wearing hats.  Perhaps I should have been born in England, where it is perfectly acceptable for white women to wear outlandish hats.

I’m trying really hard to stay out of my inevitable winter funk, but it’s not easy.  I don’t mind the cold- and it hasn’t been terribly cold so far as Central Ohio winters go- but I do mind the dark.  Dark when I wake up.  Dark when I go to work.  Dark when I go home.  Acck.  I only see daylight on the weekends, if I can stay awake long enough.   Maybe that’s why the world looks like such a hopeless and pathetic place by the end of February.  Snowbooger grey.

In Victorian times there were all sorts of maudlin displays surrounding death and mourning.  Particularly intriguing was the lachrymatory or tear bottle.  The idea was that when a loved one died you saved your tears in the bottle and on the one year anniversary of the death you sprinkled the tears on the grave.  I can’t help but think that the Victorians got this idea from a Biblical reference:

“Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?” Psalm 56:8 (KJV)

I’m not much of a crier.  The only problem I have with my tearful outbursts is that they come out at the most inopportune and bizarre times.  I can’t do the tears on demand thing, and tears elude me at the point of pain.  I almost always go to funerals as a stoic, silent observer, detached from the surroundings, no matter how close I was to the deceased or how grieved I am over the death, but my tears come later, sometimes 20 years later, unbidden, like a sudden storm on a summer day. 

Sometimes I want to cry and I can’t, no matter how much better it would make me feel, especially when the weight of sorrow and longing and regret is almost more than I can carry.  I almost wish I could be a woman who wears her emotions on her sleeve- it’s probably healthier- but I usually have to deal with my heart in private and in the dark.  It’s more dignified that way.

The Year of the Apocalypse? Wasn’t That 1984,or 1986, or 1999, or 2001?

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I have to say that I am somewhat amused by the plethora of 2012 doomsday predictions that are scattered all over the Internet, TV and pretty much everywhere else.  The whole bit about the Mayan calendar ending, as if people who were into human sacrifice (by yanking out the victim’s still-beating heart) were some kind of infallible authorities on scientific and/or eschatological issues, seems more than a bit nebulous to me.  I understand that the Mayans had a lot going for them in matters of astrology and astronomy, but even the modern understanding of either of these studies is incomplete and likely not as accurate as we would like to believe. 

Of course, this year we are offered the sublime public imperative to get Obama the freak out of the White House before he does even more damage. 

I am no fan of Mitt Romney either, but for comparison’s sake I would rather see Sheena elected president if only because she would do a lot less damage than Obama.

I can see it now: Sheena for President: At least I’m housebroken,and the only ass I lick is my own!  But I don’t think dogs are eligible to run.  Pity.  But they don’t go rambling on about global warming myths, and they don’t make pacts with terrorists either.

As recently as 1975 the scientific community was seriously concerned about another impending ice age- and that was back when the air was dirty and sex was clean.  If pollution was going to cause global warming, then why wasn’t Ohio a tropical paradise back in the 1970’s?   Today’s wisdom is to go from a couple decades’ (if that) worth of weather reports as sufficient evidence to claim “global warming” and blame “apocalyptic climate change” on the use of internal combustion, frequent bathing, and the Western world’s use of toilet paper to wipe our behinds.  OK.  If the use of internal combustion, frequent showers, scrupulous wiping and the inevitable pollution those luxuries supposedly generate is causing global warming, then I would like to know how the same creature comforts that supposedly are making the earth a stygian hell were paving the way for us to die on a frozen planet less than forty years ago.  It seems a bit fishy to me.

What do the tree huggers have to gain?  A world of people who smell like ass and can’t drive?  I can show you a whole room full of them down at the BMV waiting to take their driver’s tests, and it’s not a pleasant experience. 

Just because something is synthetic doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad.  Plastic, spandex (*on hot, buff dudes, I must clarify), computer chips, acrylic nails and McDonald’s cheeseburgers all come to mind as man-made items that are pretty damn handy.  On the other hand “all-natural” doesn’t necessarily mean “good.”  Arsenic is an all natural poison.  Ebola virus is an all natural disease-causing agent too.  So let’s all go snacking on arsenic-and-Ebola and see how those all natural goodies treat us?

I have to look at the end of the world with a pretty pragmatic eye.  No human being is more than a minute electrical charge away from the Dirt Nap.  Death is inevitable, whether it’s all at once with the rest of the world, or all by myself  at some random time when that little electrical switch in my heart decides to stop working. 

Like the Serenity Prayer says: Accept the things you can’t change.

Life is a lot easier that way.

Gross, Macabre and Just Plain Creepy

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For a turd, Mr. Hankey is almost cute, but the concept of making turds into cartoon characters is sort of gross.  Leave it to the creators of South Park to take gross things and make them almost cute.  Then again, things scatological almost always engender at least a morbid curiosity, if not downright explosive laughter.  Farts, for instance are universally funny, especially if they come from a dog (When Clara farts she has to spin around and look for the source of the noise- a sort of the “smeller’s the feller” type give away- which makes a dog fart even more hilarious) or when they sound or smell explosive. 

Clara is beautiful, but her SBD’s (and the audible ones too) are truly deadly.  I don’t know if there is something particularly volatile in dog food (though with our girls at least, it could be that nasty old mutton) but dog farts are second only to old man diaper farts in the acridity of the noxious gas emitted.

Perhaps it is proof either that I am being honest with myself or that I’m just plain sophomoric and puerile at times, but most of the time for me gross=funny.  I’m old enough to remember the beginning of the gross toys- Slime and the Garbage Pail Kids.

Slime was always good for making fart noises with.  Mom, of course couldn’t stand it.  The GPK cards caused a wellspring of parental disgust, and could carry dire consequences should teachers catch you with them.  I thought it hilarious when one could actually buy school folders with the card designs on them.  Some teachers could care less and decided there were more worthy battles to fight, but others were so wigged out by anything GPK that you had to cover them up or get rid of them. 

Personally I think they should have been more worried with the teen pregnancy and drug abuse that were epidemic when I was in middle school and high school than to obsess with fart sounds or crude trading cards, but to each his or her own.  Sometimes you can only bear to fight the battles that you might have a chance of winning. 

Today there are a plethora of gross toys and macabre games out there.  I was mildly shocked when Steve-o decided I should watch him and his buddies play Call of Duty on that behemoth TV he bought under the pretense of “I need a bigger computer monitor.”  I know full well he’s not blind, and you would have to be legally blind to require a 42″ flat screen as a computer monitor (my fossil ass does just fine with a 15″ laptop, so he’s not shitting anyone) but at least he paid for the flat screen so I really can’t comment.  Anyway, Call of Duty is probably the most realistic video game I’ve ever seen.  It puts some of the 80’s slasher flicks to shame as far as the special effects. 

I think Steve-o’s favorite part of the game is that he can pretend to be a a Luftwaffe fighter pilot.  I know he knows the actual history, but I still can’t help but to rub it in.  The Germans lost.  Face it.  Superior technology doesn’t matter much when you lack the raw material, the logistics and the strategy to put the technology to good use.  Hitler is not a role model. 

I’ve said it many times.  I am not a physically demonstrative person.  There are people for whom it is perfectly natural to touch, hug, get right up in people’s faces, eat off each other’s plates, etc. and they think nothing of it.  Then there are those, like me, who put a premium on maintaining personal space.  I like to enjoy my own private entree with my own private silverware all to myself, as well as I prefer to enjoy my own private beverage in my own private glass, bottle or mug, without sharing bodily fluids or wayward bacteria with others.

I don’t hug on strangers.  To me “stranger” is defined as a non-blood relative who I am not married to and who is not a very close friend.  I am not even terribly cool with hugging on blood relatives except when hugging is required in a social setting.  I don’t enjoy it, but I will hug when politeness dictates that I should.

There are people like my mother who hug anyone, anywhere, for pretty much any reason, which to me is just plain creepy. It’s as bad as letting other people drink off your cup.  I can’t even let my own kid do that.  Or the dogs for that matter.

I do think that over all the world has more huggers than non-huggers if this article’s feedback- “Are You a Hugger- is any indication.  I still think random hugging is creepy, even though my take on hugging may be a minority stance.

Just do the world a favor and know what you’re protesting before you decide to “occupy” anything more lofty than a portajohn.

For All the Saints, Fanning the Flames, and a Limited Time Offer

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I know that here lately I have been rather drawn to the macabre.  It seems that around Halloween (when the seemingly endless Central Ohio winter effectively begins) and also toward the end of February (when the even more depressing season of Snowbooger Grey sets in) I get obsessed with the issue of mortality- mine, and that of others. 

It doesn’t help that Saturday I had to attend the wake (and yes, it was an actual Irish Catholic wake, complete with noise, a plethora of friends, relatives and assorted others, enough food for an army and then some, and plenty of whiskey and beer) of a dear older lady who I was both surprised and delighted to call a friend.  Then Sunday (which had almost completely slipped my mind) was All Saints’, which is one of the hardest days of the year for me to go to church.  I need to do that- especially on the difficult days- but it’s very hard for me to make a conscious effort when I know I will be streaming tears uncontrollably the whole time.  I don’t handle public displays of emotion well at all.  The whole idea behind All Saints’ is to remember those who have gone before us, which has been especially difficult for me since Grandma died. 

Sadly, I don’t spend enough time with people I care about.  I would have liked to have talked with her one more time, but I missed the opportunity.  I am reminded yet again how temporary life is, and how the people I want to see and talk with a little while longer might not be there the next time I think of them.

It might seem strange, for someone like me who isn’t terribly social and isn’t really into superficialities, that I am so neglectful of the very few close relationships I have.  It’s actually rather pathetic that I avoid human contact to such an extreme.  I have enough excuses- overwork and babysitting Jerry are probably the two biggest drains on my time and energy- but excuses are exactly that.  I don’t make the time.  Even though I do cherish people I deem to be friends, being around people wears me out.  I know it sounds superficial and selfish, but I really have to be intentional regarding who I socialize with, and with how much time I spend being in the company of others.  Otherwise I get stretched too thin and get emotionally and physically exhausted. 

Over the years I’ve discovered I need solitude not only to get my head straight and to make some sense of my fractured and often puzzling emotional life, but I also have a genuine physical need to take that ivory tower time.  Leave me alone and let me regenerate.  Often.  The bad thing is that I don’t get nearly enough opportunity for such regeneration, so I take it where I can get it.   Otherwise I will get physically ill, and end up being forced to stop and get away.

As much as I found it necessary to go to our friend’s wake, I paid for it in terms of just plain coming home depleted.  I don’t know if my exhaustion had to do with trying to keep Jerry out of too much trouble (he almost killed an entire 30 pack of Natties) or just from needing to get away from people for awhile.  Perhaps a combination of both?

Maybe I really am one of those people who would be better off out in the middle of nowhere with sparse company other than books, music and dogs.  It’s been way too long since I was able to be left alone long enough to read a novel (and I do have what promises to be a good novel on the way- 11-22-63 by Stephen King.)  It doesn’t take me long to read a novel – even Stephen King’s novels, which tend to be lengthy- but it seems I am constantly being interrupted with Jerry being unable to get his own pills, being unable to shut up late at night, and constantly whining about his shirts or this or that or the other thing. 

Maybe it’s not fair of me to expect Jerry to take care of himself like a normal adult.  Sadly I have been party to his Helplessman routine for many years, so how can I expect him to take his own pills, iron his own shirts, and keep himself from drowning in the toilet when he’s shitfaced?

I know I am no paragon of virtue by a long shot, but I admit I get tired of the babysitting.  It’s hard to put my foot down because Jerry is incredibly emotionally fragile.  He gets on my nerves, yes, but he’s a lot worse when he gets either shitfaced and/or in temper tantrum mode.  Sadly, he has learned (just like a toddler) that the tirades are a form of blackmail.  “Appease me or I’ll go off again” is the mentality.  While I know that it’s a fruitless endeavor to keep on feeding alligators, way too much of the time I simply cave in and let him have what he wants so he will shut up.  Especially if I’m tired and/or he’s drunk.  The irony here is that in the end I’m just rewarding him for whining.  Unlike a toddler, when Jerry starts in with the whining and tirades, I can’t take him to the ladies’ room and warm his behind.

I know all too well that life is a limited time offer.  I shouldn’t be so harsh with Jerry, even though I lose my patience with the helpless act and with the gambling and drinking.  I know I should cherish whatever time we have even though he does try my patience and dealing with his behavior can be quite draining.

I’ll have time to sleep when I’m dead.  Hopefully somewhere along the way I’ll find time for the Stephen King novel.

Victorian Death and Post-Mortem Photography, and Reworking the Wiring

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I don’t know why, but I find post-mortem photography intriguing.  I know such a curiosity can be considered somewhat macabre- taking pictures of dead people is rather morbid and viewing them is even more so, but there is so much written in those pictures that is unsaid. 

Babies and children seem to be so over-represented in post-mortem pics, but the sad fact is that young children and infants routinely died of diseases that we either vaccinate against or that can be treated with antibiotics.  I’ve seen so many pics of bewildered looking mothers holding their dead babies for that final portrait.  It’s haunting even when one considers the high infant mortality rate of the time.  I’m sure the fact that it was a major accomplishment to get a child to live until his or her fifth birthday in those times did not make it any easier when infants died.

Today it is not as common to take pictures of dead people.  I took pics at Grandma’s funeral pretty much at Mom’s insistence (I will not post them) and more or less to remind myself why I do not want either the bad pink nightie treatment or an open casket funeral. Cremate my happy ass and put up a picture taken when I was still alive.  If anyone shows up, let them speculate on how nasty I looked at the hour of death or whether or not I looked better dead than alive.  Grandma, in spite of the funeral director’s art, did not “look good.”  Very few people do look good when they are laid out in a coffin getting ready to be sent off for the Big Sleep.  She died of either pancreatic cancer, liver failure, or congestive heart failure, or more likely, a combination of the effects of all three (she was 93, after all) and it was all the mortician could do to tone down the sick bright yellow glow of her skin.  They did a better job with Grandma than the funeral home who dolled up poor Aunt Ellen (I will never forget the Day-Glo orange lipstick,) but the restorative arts can only do so much.

I had to wonder about post-mortems where the dead dude (or chick) is standing.  The Victorians had a way around that too:

Sort of like a guitar stand for the dead.  This explains Keith Richards.  Screw the guitar, how about a stand to keep the guitarist vertical? Especially since he must be about 90 years old, and has probably been dead since 1980.

Now I know I am overworked and sleep deprived, but I like it like that.  I know better in a way, but today is the first day in a very long time that I actually came to work and wasn’t completely buried in more stuff than I can possibly get done.  Tomorrow will be different.  I should have asked to go home this PM since I really don’t have much to do, but the minute I do that, a.) I set a bad precedent for others, and b.) some sort of crisis will materialize that will turn into a full-blown cluster f— tomorrow.  Murphy’s Law is alive and well.

In all seriousness, I really do need to get a bit more balanced.  I have a really bad tendency to get focused on one thing and then I don’t really bother with anything else.  I’ve done that with overwork before and it wasn’t very good for my health.  Lately I’ve been living on Monsters and Subway and heavy metal which couldn’t be terribly good for a young kid, let alone a distressed old fossil such as me.  On the bright side, I am enjoying Metallica and Billy Squier and Queensryche and Led Zeppelin, so it can’t be all bad.

I’d like to get that EVO phone that Steve-o has been raving about that not only is Android-based, but has a camera in the front so you can have phone conversations and actually see who you’re talking to.  For the life of me I don’t know why anyone in their right mind would want to look at me on a phone screen, but to each his own.  I do want to be able to see my grandchild, which I think is the reason behind this logic.

The creepiest post-mortems are those where either the eyes are still open or the photographer paints them on later.  It’s pretty clear she’s dead, so what’s up with the open eyes and blank stare?

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, but this year I really haven’t had time to do anything fun.  I haven’t really had time to do anything fun all summer either, and now that winter is pretty much here I have to wonder where the time has gone.  I did get some time in the cougar pool and a couple of good road trips, so I should be satisfied with that.  However, I don’t see myself getting all hyped up for Christmas and all that as much as I would like to enjoy the season this year. 

I need to slow down, take a moment to simply be, and to repair the wiring, but I don’t see it happening any time soon.

Too bad I had to take down the cougar pool.

The Lost Art of Redneck Cookery, Historical Excursions, and Inevitability

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It is fortunate that my grandmothers taught me how to cook. Since it is legend in my family that my Mom’s atrocious culinary offerings caused Suzie the Dachshund’s premature death, I’m glad my grandmothers were around.  In all fairness, Suzie wasn’t a particularly picky eater, even for a dog.  She was known to eat underwear, socks, rocks, her own poo, Barbie heads and assorted limbs, and pretty much anything else that would fit in her gaping maw.  So Mom’s cooking- I can still see the mashed potatoes with the big black burnt flakes and the accompanying “gravy” that was the texture, flavor, and consistency of partially hardened concrete- might have been a contributing factor or even the final tipping point, considering Suzie’s complete lack of discernment in her eating habits.   

I won’t say that I am the best cook there is by a long shot, but I can hold my own with most old-time redneck cuisine.  I can roll my own noodles, (no I do not “roll my own” anything else, except maybe pie crust) fry chicken, grill steaks, bake breads, pies, cakes and cookies, make soups and casseroles and roasts, etc.  Unfortunately these are skills that most young people see as being quaint and obsolete.  I could not be any more weird to the kids if I went out and shot deer, tanned the hides and made my own shoes .  My son and his friends consider microwaved ramen noodles, pizza delivery, and Taco Bell to be the apex of fine dining. 

The relevance of learning cooking skills  just doesn’t register with the POMC.  He worked at Taco Bell for two years and figured that was enough cooking for him.   He thought I was completely nuts to be boiling a chicken and rolling out noodle dough when you can get chicken-n-noodles all ready to be microwaved in less than five minutes, courtesy of Marie Callender. 

In my humble opinion- while some microwave meals aren’t half bad and I am not above eating them on occasion- when you do have the time and motivation to do the authentic slow food thing it tastes better.  My old time redneck cuisine isn’t all loaded down with salt and preservatives and heaven only knows what else either. 

Admittedly, most women of my generation (and most likely those younger than I) are about as clueless about home cooking as I am about football or other assorted man-sports.  My grandmothers’ generation was probably the last generation to consider cooking an essential skill. 

So here I am with my archaic skill sets- yes I can cook and bake, and do needlework for what it’s worth.  I enjoy down-home slow cooking when I have the time.  So there.  But it does disturb me that it’s a dying art.  It’s getting harder and harder to find things like shortening, cornstarch and various spices. Even worse, it’s getting harder and harder for me to find the time.

I am looking forward to Dad’s Birthday Cruise on Saturday.  It’s sort of disquieting for me to go since I’ve not had a classic air-cooled VW for years, but his buddies in the car club are cool and it’s always a good time.  I wouldn’t miss it barring extreme illness or Act of God, since it is also Dad’s birthday party, and an opportunity for me to get him an embarrassing gag gift.

We always go to one or two historical sites in Marion County.  This year we are going to the tiny village of LaRue to see a collection of Jim Thorpe memorabilia and then to check out another guy’s extensive collection of license plates.  Dad is always good at picking out interesting places to go.  I was sort of disappointed that we weren’t doing anything architecturally related this time, (I so enjoyed touring the Harding Home and Etowah a couple of years ago,) but it’s good to mix it up.  I might be surprised at what I get to see.

In a way it is almost painful to go home and revisit the past.  So much that I see in the history of those places points to a future that should have been better and brighter than today.  Unfortunately I was born into a place and time that was just on the cusp of catastrophic decline, and in a sickening sort of paradox, as I grew up, I watched it all fall and disintegrate and decay.

I know the reasons behind the fall, but hindsight is 20/20.  When one is confronted with the lingering shadow of what could have been, that which has become a spoiled, dusty, failed memory, and today’s more sordid reality, it can be disheartening. Sometimes when I drive past the decaying monoliths of a long-dead industry I see my own heart, my own spirit- something that belonged to the past and sort of exists, at least in form, but isn’t really there anymore.

I look at the idle, rusting frameworks and I see my own metaphor drawn out, speaking the unsaid, wrought in cold, dead steel.

Everywhere and nowhere, all points converge here.

I can find divers examples of proof for the devolution of humanity, believe that.  Just go to WalMart.

I don’t know what is more frightening- WalMart in the summer, or the stunning vision (or was that a sight) of fat, bald dudes in Speedos that we were treated to at Put-In-Bay.

The Birthday Cruise always ends at the Marion Cemetery, which I have not even come close to fully perusing despite emptying out my memory card and spending a Sunday afternoon last March taking pictures of almost everything that caught my interest. A 2GB card is not enough, especially if you want high res pics.

I’ve always thought this to be the saddest monument in the Marion Cemetery, poor six year old Wallie.  For being almost 150 years old, his monument has held up remarkably well.  Perhaps a grieving mother put this up years after Wallie’s unfortunate and premature passing, but it is consistent with the often maudlin Victorian traditions of memorializing the dead.  In those days death wasn’t just an Old Person Thing confined to hospitals and nursing homes, shrouded in wiring and tubes and technology and sanitized by distance and closed doors.  In 1864, when Wallie succumbed, death was a Living Room Thing, something that visited old and young alike, that was intimate and piercing and all consuming. 

Perhaps in society’s sanitization of death we have also depersonalized it and in the process have stripped ourselves of some of  our humanity.  We live with the false assumption that we have forever. 

Granted, medical science has come a long way in postponing death.  I would have likely been worm food thirty-odd years ago if not for antibiotics (yes people did die from rheumatic fever) and was almost worm food for sure twenty years ago- even with an eleventh hour c-section.   Delaying the inevitable is exactly that, though.  We all have to die, but we aren’t very good at facing it.

Dylan Thomas exhorted us to, “Rage, rage at the dying of the light.”  I think there is a sort of futility in that gesture.  On one hand there is the tragic death of one who seems to forfeit so much potential- someone young, someone with a great deal of talent, but then there is also the tragic life of one who is suffering and weary of life who longs for the sleep and peace of death and can’t find it.  God can make sense of such paradox, but I can’t.

There have been times in my life when I have wondered why I have been left to suck up valuable oxygen while those who I feel to be more worthy of life die.  That’s a question that I can only leave to faith- and to trust in the wisdom of God.  I figure no matter how long I am here, it’s only for a limited time.

Ask not for whom the bell tolls…

A Heartless Woman’s .38, aka, the 2nd Amendment for the Clueless Cougar

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If you understand the “heartless woman’s .38” reference you are either a.) at least as old as I am, b.) a pretty intense Journey fan, or c.) both.  It comes from the song “Dead or Alive” from the Escape album.  I think only Steve Perry could make a song about a contract killer sound sexy.

I’ve never been what anyone would call a gun enthusiast.  Dad and Grandpa did their share of hunting, and Grandpa was an expert marksman when he was in the Army, but I never really got into the whole firearms thing.  I don’t know much about guns and rifles, which I freely admit.  I was never really compelled to learn either.  Now I’ve been talked into taking a concealed-carry class (Dad’s idea, which Jerry chimed right along in on) so I figured if I’m going to do that I might as well do it right.

I actually bought a handgun, something I never thought I would ever have any possible reason for doing.

I had planned on buying a .38 special derringer, but ended up with a 5 shot .357 magnum revolver.  It’s a Taurus 605, not the most expensive small frame revolver one can buy, but not cheap either.  It has a built-in safety lock- and the trigger is relatively easy.   The upside of the .357 magnum is you can use the .38 special ammo (cheaper and easier to find) at least for practice.  Apparently you can use .38 special ammo with the .357 magnum but not the other way around.  I’ve learned many new and interesting things about firearms and self-defense, not just in the gun class but also about my own mentality and sense of detachment.

Shooting my new gun is an experience, and for a beginner, I don’t aim too bad.  It’s sort of like horseshoes and hand grenades- even using the .38s, close counts.  If I have to use it I can, and I don’t see me hesitating should the situation arise.  I do need much more practice on the firing range and with using the speed loader.  With the speed loader I get five more rounds.

I still have to go get my concealed-carry permit, and I need to get an appropriate holster before I can actually carry a loaded gun.

I’m glad to have bought a decent gun and to have taken the class.  I don’t want to shoot anyone but I also don’t want to be a victim.

I’ve been so busy that I don’t get to do much besides work which is a shame.

I don’t have a semi-automatic (at least not yet) but I agree with the above sentiment.

 

 

Denial is Not a River in Egypt, (Though I May Be Its Queen,) and Interesting Words

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I would never describe myself as “optimistic,” “naive,” or “trusting.”  On a good day I am pragmatic, jaded, and wary.  On a bad day I am pessimistic, burned out, and paranoid.    Today’s prevailing emotional state lands me somewhere between a good day and a bad day, a perfect neutral on the scale. 

Admittedly, in my ongoing effort to maintain some semblance of mental health, I overlook quite a few realities.  I am pleased that Steve-o is gainfully employed and I hope and pray he stays that way.  Even so, I am worried about the upcoming birth of his offspring.  The whole grandmother thing doesn’t bother me too much- I am old- and far younger women than I have been first time grandmothers.  What does tug at me is the fact that the two of them aren’t married, and that fathers of children have precious few rights in such a situation.  Fathers don’t have much say in their children’s lives even if they are married to the children’s mothers.  If they decide not to get along, Steve-o will have to a.) pay support out the wazoo, and b.) fight for what little rights the state does accord fathers. 

Maybe some of my worry is actually my bad habit of guilt tripping just a wee bit.  Then again, the male contributor of Steve-o’s DNA wasn’t particularly interested in him, (or any other child, unless- like his current wife’s children, it came with a monthly government check) and I think it was the happiest day of my ex’s life when he learned he could sign off his parental rights and never pay child support again.  Perhaps I am just cynical- or my ex was not normal, or a combination of both- but I had always been under the impression that most guys deep down really don’t care that much about their kids. 

I have to admit that one of my fears is that I will be cut out of my grandchild’s life in much the same way that I rescued Steve-o from enduring weekends and holidays from hell with my evil ex mother-in-law.   Granted, I know better than to give a 20 month old an entire box of graham crackers .  I have more sense than to collect highly breakable crystal figurines and display them within the reach of a toddler (I have large dogs…my house is Sheena-proof-duh),  and I’m just not cruel enough to make a three year old sleep alone in the basement, but, should the baby’s mother decide to give Steve-o the heave-ho, I might never get to see my grandchild. 

The difference might just be that I don’t think Steve-o will give up on his offspring without a fight.

I am astonished by how much he really seems to care.  He’s been to the Dr. appointments and the ultrasound.  He makes sure she pays attention to her diet and health and he doesn’t smoke around her.  He even bought a four door car and is trolling about for super safe car seats.  Again, I am not prone to mushy sentimentality, but for a guy who didn’t plan to become a father any time soon he is getting with the program and on top of that, I honestly think he is looking forward to the impending birth.  I don’t think she is going to allow him to record any video, but I know he’s going to be right in there watching every gory detail.

Believe it or not, I’ve actually observed “natural” childbirth.  As far as my own personal experience, there is absolutely nothing natural about childbirth, but some women are able to give birth without surgical intervention.  When my sister had her first two kids, both times my poor brother-in-law couldn’t handle the sight of blood, and he passed out pretty early on in the proceedings.  I went in with her for lack of another warm body, and partially out of my own morbid curiosity.  Thankfully, she always had her kids quickly and with very little trouble, most unlike me.  It’s not that terrible to observe the birth process, but then I have had automotive technicians call me “iron guts.”  Once I had to retrieve a finger that one of the guys got chopped off in a fan blade, ice it down, and then drive his sorry ass to the ER, while the rest of the guys stood around freaking out because there was blood.  Pussies.  At least they were able to reattach the poor guy’s finger, although his hand looked pretty nasty for a long time. 

I don’t know if Steve-o has gotten the “iron guts” tendencies from me or not, but I get to find out soon enough.  I get to do one of my favorite things, which is to be a fly on the wall and observe from a distance.  In the matter of giving birth I far prefer being an observer versus being a participant any day. 

The medical profession has its share of tantalizing, technical words that baffle outsiders.  I know quite a few medical terms (especially the more gross ones) so I can catch a few snippets here and there that most people won’t get.  I’ve probably spent more time in doctor’s offices and hospitals than the average person too, although camping out in medical facilities is one of my least favorite activities. 

Here are a few of my favorite medical terms:

eviscerate: to rip the guts out of

co-morbid: along with, as relating to diseases that like to travel together

gynecomastia: man-boobs (really, you can look it up!)

exsanguination: bleeding to death

pruritus ani: butt itch

 

It’s not necessarily a medical term, but, piles: old time word for hemorrhoids.

I’m a veritable fountain of scatological information today!

A Rare Quiet Moment, Secret Speculations and Twists of Memory

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It’s not terribly often that I have a sort of quiet day.  Usually I have more than enough to do, but today- not so much.  I sort of regret getting so much done on Saturday but then again, it’s always better to take the opportunity to get caught up than to take a chance on staying behind and having to scramble and rush to get things done.  It leaves me a bit bored today, but better to be bored once in awhile than constantly buried.

I have to come to terms with the reality that the seasons have changed- Fall Monsoon is in full swing with the cooler temperatures and torrential rain that occurs this time of year.  I can only hope that in the next few weeks there will be at least some opportunity for foliage-gazing and a road trip or two.  I should try to use some of my vacation time and just plain get out for awhile even if only for a day trip here and there.

If I had to choose a favorite time of  “fashion in history,”  it would have to be the 1940’s.  Having broad shoulders and a large chest weren’t liabilities back then, and women’s clothes were actually designed to fit women.

Everyone wore hats.  Way cool.  I love hats- and red lipstick, and dresses with sleeves.  Compare the above pic with modern “fashion” and you have a good case for the devolution of humanity.

I rest my case.  And these are supposed to be fashionable people, not the brain-dead zombies of Wal-Mart.

It’s no crime to be large.  I’m no Calista Flockhart either, but coverage is key.  Nobody wants to see your backfat, meaty arms, thunder thighs or love handles.  Just because people burned bras back in the 1960’s doesn’t mean going braless- or mistaking a flimsy little tank top for a bra- is a good idea.

I think that the unisex movement of the 60’s and 70’s led to much of the fashion confusion out there today.  Most heterosexual men don’t have a problem dressing like men simply because it doesn’t take a whole lot of thought.  T-shirts, flannel shirts, jeans, whitey-tighties, tube socks and velcro tennis shoes are all you need to complete a Straight Man wardrobe.  Straight men’s attire is boring, but it’s good for functionality and coverage.   It’s fat women and gay men who have the most potential for polluting the landscape with their wretched fashion choices.  Oh, and shug, eyeliner is for girls. Or is it that you want everyone to know that you’re the queen in this couple? Maybe you femmes are just happy to live out the fairy fantasy.  Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

Large women have the potential to dress most tragically-

Maybe I’m just sort of old and cranky and especially misanthropic today.  I didn’t even have to deal with too many of the unwashed masses, so I should be a bit more patient today, but I’m not.

Perhaps I remember a time when people had a little more pride in appearances, or I’d like to think so.  I did live through the 70’s, which was a decade that was to fashion as a trainwreck is to transportation.  I don’t think I could bear to wear those horrid thick waxy polyester pants ever again.  Especially if they are green, yellow, orange or brown.