who do you see?

walking past reflecting window panes, i don’t recognize the man in the sheep herder’s hat walking beside me. he’s graying and has a beard and could have stepped out of an 1800’s photo. he certainly does not look like he belongs here.

i turn the corner into the downtown parking lot- one of too few for this town of 12,000- and lose the gaunter figure.

fall feels like winter and a pall of pelting weather fogs my glasses. the car has equally special problems, though she is, thankfully, not premenstrual- but, she fogs her windshield when i push her button.

while i am waiting for her to de-thaw, my mind wanders back to the conversation i had not twenty minutes before with an older couple from my own town who just happened to be in the same restaurant. he was telling me about her health issues, she was telling me about his home hospital rounds. between them, they co-survived her heart conditions and he learned enough to cook from the back of a box.

“i thought i recognized you,” he said, squinting.

funny, i did not recognize myself. not in the mirror this morning.

my spirit man does not feel the age, but my mind does. i have little interest in the more attractive females walking by. but the souvlaki makes my mouth water as i spread a healthy dose of feta over the spicy lamb.

they have a conversation, but not really with me. somewhere in it, i have a bit part, like a supporting actor with an aside now and then.

the feta is calling…but they aren’t leaving…

back out in the cold, i glance at the store windows. someone is soon following me. i race back to the car and start the engine. in the rearview mirror, the cars move away and i see an opening in the weather. winter is not here yet.

One more time round the ice rink

it’s fun to watch the neighborhood outside my window this morning. not because i am having fun, but because none of us is having fun. at least yesterday i was able to clear the driveway. today, i cannot stand up in the driveway.

the world looks like an ice planet, everything below eight feet from the ground covered in a glazing of ice. forget about trying to get anywhere, nobody is going anywhere….except for the snow plow. after several attempts, the street looks like what a two-year old trying to ice his birthday cake- icing everywhere, and nothing makes any sense.

our power is on, in this backward part of the American states, so at least we are not dependent on wind generators that were destined to freeze up in such a storm. At least I can watch reruns of the Red Green Show and learn a few handyman tricks to keep the ice from invading my house. But, my thoughts and prayers are with those who have to suffer because of someone’s short-sightedness.

my own common sense took a hit earlier when i tried to navigate the path to the shed and found myself skating….on the forecheck…against the unseen enemy. Like a Newfie at a time zone conference, I felt something was drastically off. Looking down, the ice that was there yesterday was underneath a sheathing of today’s ice. the ice from three days ago melted and now formed a new ice border, like a rink, on either side of my driveway. Sure, we could suit up and play a game of ice hockey, if we had any skates, but none of us olde guys around here could keep our sticks on the ice…

so, if you are stuck inside too, and you are bored, you might ask the Lord for a reprieve from this endless winter Hallmark movie, so we can get outside and get something done. And, if you’re up in the Land of Perpetual Snow and Ice and you want some more of this stuff….so your rink is really nice, you can ask the Lord to send it up there. I’m sure we won’t miss it. So, go on. Already. Please. Pretty please.

the end of 2020

can i get a choir of non-angelic creatures to sing a chorus celebrating the coming demise of 2020? one more year of this kind of senseless torture…that i cannot imagine. can we just round up the bad actors and send them all to the Romulan Neutral Zone now…

next year, we should just skip January. I mean, who would notice? nobody makes any money in January anyway, unless they are running a ski resort…so why not start with February?

we could start the whole year on Valentine’s Day. Does anybody even remember the first part of February? Most of the time in my neck of the woods, our necks are frozen solid from January 1st to February 13th. We simply cannot move them. When my truck skids on a hockey-rink-thick slick of ice, i simply cannot, will not, turn my neck to see my progress. if I am in a snow bank, that’s grand too because i can always build an igloo…without turning my head. who cares what happens on ice? we have better things to do….like wait for Valentine’s Day.

Then, we could have a Chocolate Friday the weekend after Valentine’s Day. The following Monday could be Reese’s Monday, because…nothing goes better with old melted-down chocolate than peanut butter. With such a kickstart of love, we should be ready to rocket into the “New Year.”

There is precedence for this. Somewhere in the middle of the deep dark Middle Ages, the pope changed the calendar, and gave everyone a jumpstart into the year. Skipping January and part of February would likewise give us an excuse to forget about the plague of insanity birthed in 2020, so we could go back to living Our Best Medieval Life….I mean Our Best Life Now.

But….in order for this to work…we must be in this together. No one can get out of bed in January and early February…except to gorge themselves on ramen noodles to prepare for more hibernation, after “releasing the kraken” to the white porcelain goddess. Since a huge swath of the first world (and the darkest 3rd world) will have endured endless days wearing face masks, no one will be able to smell us until we are released from our quarantine cocoons as dawn arises on Valentine’s Day.

This will also ensure that faithful men everywhere will shower or bathe prior to enjoying the company of their women, as the great New New Year’s Day begins with celebrations of roses, chocolates, and other sweet aromas.

I cannot think of a more appropriate way to say goodbye and good riddance to one of the worst years in the history of the world…

post-natural…yuck!

way back in the day, there was a short-lived craze where men…and boys…and even some females…purchased and wore military surplus coats, hats, scarves…and yes, even military grade wool. wool socks. wool hats. wool thick enough to hold off a Siberian windstorm at 20 below zero. but at many surplus stores, the latter usually came in the form of these super-itchy blankets the color of a conglomerate of SOS pads.

so perhaps I was feeling a bit nostalgic when I purposed to purchase a nice pair of thermal wool underwear to place on the peak of my waffle-knit-wear mountain in the corner of my bedroom…something to throw on for a special occasion, like during a Level 4 doomsday warning.

after searching and searching for ages… I parked the car, closed the laptop lid, and hunkered down in a fit of reality- – for there was no wool in the end, and certainly not for my back end. No wool socks for under $40 a pair. No wool hat in the old familiar places. Not even a discarded mark-down on the shelves at TJ Max. And certainly, no 100% wool long underwear.

like a weary man settling for a day-old bag of waffle fries, I resigned myself to synthetic.

on a cold and lonely night, I will still be shivering, watching the cars go by as the snow falls outside, as I tape the last .5 millimeter thick material on the windows. and as the lamps alight, and the Christmas lights blink, I will sit down to drink a cup of hot chocolate and daydream…back to the days when the army surplus store sold those itchy grey blankets…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

global cooling…a love story

this is the year of March. the month when, with all my hopes…piled like a snowdrift against the roof of the house, the world of white flying spectacular finally ends…and the corresponding frigidness of a multitude thaws….or at least heads for hibernation.

nothing says “global cooling” like stacks of record breaking cold temperatures daily…and nightly…figures so low, even the thinnest paper-thin anemic model, the width of a wafer chip, would register a number lower on a weigh scale than the average low temperature for February.

it was not a good sign when a multitude of local Valentine’s Day Dinner Specials were cancelled, due to romantic ice dams, sluggish speech, and frostbite. So many couples chose to hibernate individually in their own rectangular igloos through the first thirteen days of the month. And, as Robert Service, the bard of grisly Yukon Gold Lore, might say, “the men that don’t fit in” froze to death romantically, so cold, you could not bury their icy stares, nor their icy ways…

it is high time it thawed outside…and inside…so that the world can once again…go round…and round….as it does when the world has “love, sweet love.”  in the meantime, keep your ice scraper and de-icer handy, you never known when you’ll have to thaw out a miserable soul…

a tornado comes to Garrett Hill

gray outstretched arms

waving without and within,

a song sent over the ridge

ridge-crest-covering crescendo,

ripping siding from wall-sides

snapping the breath from my dried lips…

face to the ground, face to the ground…….

a glob of bright red acrylic paint

and a whispering, a whispering above my ears

the breath of God came and took her

though the body on the tailgate…

these tears painting are painting her face

at home in the library at the end of the Earth

children used to understand and visualize a bookend with metal, bronze, or some other sort of hard material- unlike the boring metal book ends of the 20th century…and it was within those bookends in a snug little room with the hard bound covers that one found solace, romance, or adventure of the cerebral kind.

but not today…not many today…

and so many minds reflect a shadow of the intelligence that graced this Earth when children read pages, not devices, in languages, not snatches of one-dimensional verbage.

in light of this, i have devoted some of our snow-filled nights to the reconstruction of an old style library…

sans devices

sans magazines

sans flexible metal hardware.

to snuggle up in a comfy chair as it snows the whole world over outside…with a cup of warm tea and a gripping story in your hands…is an underrated, and increasingly forgotten, winter pleasure.

To all you who will snuggle up by the fire with a good book…

May your journey find you warmth, peace, and a full imagination…

watching your seasons change

if i was to sit on this bench and watch your seasons change…would i see you bloom in spring, thrive in summer, celebrate autumn, and weather winter? or, would i see you wither with the falling leaves, to be trampled underfoot too early in the four seasons of your life?

there are too many faces in the newspaper proclaiming life is senseless and not worth living longer than it takes to burn out from the summer sun. when a frost comes, these faces shrink back in fear, loosening their grips on the tree-limb giving them life.

but…i will walk through the seasons around me, seeking a log, a boulder, a rock, or stone bench, to sit for awhile…pondering the richness of the soil, the stiff vigor of the wind, and the eagerness of the resolutions within me. 

the sun rises another day, no matter how sharp the cold seeps into deep wood, and i will keep walking, walking…i keep walking…through fallen leaves…

 

 

what’s in the pot: chicken soup

every time i go to Ohio, i look for “German” egg noodles. this time i found them at a small local grocery, sitting in stacks of noodle heaven. here, end to end, i found Mrs. Miller’s Amish noodles, Inn Maid Noodles, and the ever-banal No Yolks Noodles (certainly not funny as they have no taste). these are not ramen or yakisoba, these are central-eastern european noodles, the kind that thicken a stroganoff, goulash, or fine chicken soup. it was the latter recipe that drove me to gather up the shavings of gold from the shelves of a store so local that a tall teenage beauty ran over to the cash register to check me out….i mean, check out my items.

and when i got home, i placed the packet of noodles deep within a container for future use…only to pull them out to make a lovely warming chicken soup for lunch….

   

...on a cold wintry snow and ice filled day…

i am sharing this recipe, in hopes you will find it a comforting meal…as comforting as looking in your bowl at the lovely soup and…

finding your sinuses unclogging like a suddenly free toilet jam…uh, i mean, like a suddenly clearing sky…

but i am sure, you must understand…and so i give you, the recipe  to end all recipes. no, i give you, Sinus Drainage Clearing Soup:

You will need:

1. One decent package of German or kluski style egg noodles (medium sized noodles)

2. One container free-range chicken broth, 32 oz/900 grams (just get a big container or at least three cans) 

3. Two cooked chicken thighs or one cooked chicken breast (could be yesterday’s dinner “leftovers”)

4. Two stalks of organic celery, chopped/diced

5. One large organic carrot

6. One complete garlic bulb

7. One handful of curled parsley

8. Fresh thyme, sage, rosemary (to taste)

9. Pepper (ground from peppercorns)

10. Butter (of course)

Pour the contexts of the free range chicken broth into a nice, clean pot. Bring to a boil. Add a handful of noodles per person to the boiling broth. If you have several to feed, just add more broth from another container (this recipe is for two people, or one in my case…since I was mighty hungry!)

Next, cook your noodles for about 10 minutes- with a lid on the pot. After ten minutes, add butter, the chicken meat, celery, and carrot. Peel all of the garlic cloves and add them all (no, this soup is not for eaters of bland food), making sure to cut each in half. Then add your parsley, herbs, and pepper (to taste). Cook on low to medium until the smell drives you to check the pot…that’s when you will know something is done…or, if it feels like your sinuses are doing summersaults inside your head, then you are certainly done.

By the way…this is where I was before I found my noodles…at a scenic spot along the Ohio River. Does it look cold or is it just my sinuses speaking to me again?

slan go foill…

Water Softener Pellets Replace Salt

It is about -20 Celsius right now outside (-7 farenheight) …the kind of weather no one should be walking around in…unless you’re wearing enough padding that you resemble a Panda bear. but it wasn’t like that about six hours ago, when the temperature got all the way up to about -12 Celsius- a heat wave.

I took advantage of the situation to go out and join the husky dogs…I mean, the other people dressed like walking Zambonis…and gather some “necessities” out there in RetailLand.

One store sold little plastic jugs of salt children might play with…other than that, everybody seemed to be out of salt, ice-melt, or any of those other categories associated with melting ice and snow from your driveway, parking lot, road, or pathway. So, I drove to the ever-ubiquitous WalMart and asked if they had any salt…and they pointed me to their “water softener pellets.”

It rode in the back seat all the way home…followed me as I strained, dragging it into the house.

It is useless right now, but may prove useful in the event of a snow or ice storm where the weather is warm enough to use it. In a Polar Vortex, ice melt or snow melt is as useless as a coon dog in the Kalahari Desert.

It is not February yet, but everyone seems to be sick of the cold. It is the kind of cold that saps the energy right from you. I know; I came back from the store and fell asleep for two hours. This winter has been the coldest in 30 years…spring is starting to sound really good to me.