Frosty

 "Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in."

Those are the words of Robert Frost, of which there are many. These just happen to be the ones that struck me on this particular morning. 

Probably because the night before I had spent a good long while talking with a very good friend who is in the midst of having to pack up and sell the house in which she and her family have lived for the past thirty years. 

That's a long time. A lifetime if you happen to be either of our sons who happened to be born almost as part of the exercise of their parents becoming grown-ups, real and true. The homes each of us built were on opposite ends of California. We have spent the last three decades making a nest for our brood, a place to settle down. 

An even longer time ago, we were teenagers fumbling through high school together. We had grown up in the same town. Our parents had gone to that same high school together. So many things brought us together that when, after we had both graduated, she decided to move away to the Golden State, it was a challenge to us both to imagine how life could ever be the same. 

And yet, once I settled into the idea of her visits and our connections over the phone lines, it seemed natural. Once had my own love affair that drew me west, we were able to renew our connection. It was at her home that I had my first California Thanksgiving. After dinner, we took a ride in her convertible to the movies. 

In November.

With the top down. 

Once she packed up again to head to the southern end of California, we had another in a series of fond farewells. We made promises to stay in touch. And we did. Our sons became fast friends. Our dogs never fully reconciled their relationship, but it was always nice to have a Canine American to visit on one end of our journey or the other. 

We listened and consoled one another as our parents aged and eventually passed on. We avoided imagining what the next chapter might be. 

Now that chapter has come, and while I sort out my own landing spot in retirement, she and her husband have become victims of an unforgiving economy and the realities of being "of a certain age." 

We are that. Now they are in the midst of downsizing and preparing to move to the other side of the country. Which makes me terribly sad. But I am heartened to know that we will always have a place where we have to let the other in. 

Gone

 Somewhere out there, baseball is being played. 

The major league playoffs are in, if you'll pardon the expression, full swing. 

I could care less.

A large and somewhat immovable chunk of this apathy can be traced from the hometown Oakland Athletics moving to (checks notes) a pasture somewhere near Sacramento. Another big piece of this mildly held disdain stems from the lack of having a team which I would root for when I was growing up. Colorado was without a major league franchise until 1993, the year after I moved to California. At that point, I was dropped into a decided wealth of baseball. I was just a BART ride away from the Oakland A's or a slightly longer BART ride and a couple transfers to various other public transit options to watch the San Francisco Giants play.

Seeing as how I had a slot open in my vicarious sports thrill menu, I latched onto the scrappy Athletics, winner of four World Series and tenants of one of the least attractive concrete bunkers in which any major sport was played. We made our way out to the ballpark on a number of occasions over the course of any given summer, with a keen eye toward which home games provided the best giveaways. This is how I collected a number of bobbleheads that now exist in basement boxes, waiting to be unearthed in those future days when we need to see what grandpa was up to all those years ago.

As a fan, I got to take the ride on the Moneyball express, those halcyon days that eventually starred Brad Pitt, and Oakland went on a twenty game tear back in 2002 winning twenty games straight. A modern day record that stood for fifteen years until it was bested by, of all teams, the Cleveland Guardians. For a couple of decades, I had a team. 

Then they moved away. Ostensibly to Las Vegas, but first a stop in that pasture outside of Sacramento. They never did win a World Series while we were together in Oakland. 

Now I hear that the playoffs are taking place again. Without Oakland. Without the Athletics. 

Without me. 

Crisis

 Just after seven o'clock on Monday evening, I asked Google for the time.

"Hey Google, what time is it?"

I was preparing to set our cuckoo clock, which tends to drop five to ten minutes over the course of the day. It is a nighttime ritual at my house for me to try to catch up.

Our Google assistant never answered. 

I asked again, "Hey Google, what time is it?"

Nada. 

So I went to another room where we have a colorful puck of all-knowing and asked it the same question. This was by no means a challenge for this machine in most cases. Not compared to some of the inane requests my wife and I have made of it over the years. Opening the pod bay doors, Hal being one of the most frequent. 

I leapt into problem solving mode and power-cycled two of the previously all-knowing pucks in hopes of getting them back to their all-knowing selves. No such luck. 

That's when panic set in. How were we supposed to turn off lights? How was I going to wake up the next morning? Would our robot vacuum know when to start its rounds? And most importantly, how was I going to know what time it was in order to reset our cuckoo clock? 

I turned to our IT specialist. Our son. Sitting at his desk in his home an hour away, he took my call while playing a video game. To his credit, he took my request and made an immediate test. He hollered across his bedroom to his all-knowing puck: "Hey Google, what time is it?" 

No response. 

We were in big trouble now. Breaking away from his game for a moment, he did a cursory search of Al Gore's Internet with his gaming computer to ask the rest of the planet if Google Assistant was having issues. Moments later, he found a Reddit post that suggested that pucks across the globe were losing their minds. How was anyone going to be able to reset their very-not-digital cuckoo clocks?

Sensing my panic, my son soothed me with the notion that the folks at Google made a boo-boo and were working feverishly to correct the problem, since that is their business, after all. I went to bed with my cellular device tucked in beside me, hoping it would have a reliable alarm for the next morning.

I slept fitfully, but somewhere in the middle of the night, I called out: "Hey Google, what time is it?"

"The time is two forty-eight." 

I breathed out for what felt like the first time in hours. 

I made a mental note to set the cuckoo clock once the sun came up.

All was right with the world again.

Generational Upgrade

 The guy at the bike shop reminded me of the Ship of Theseus.  It is a paradox that poses the question: is a ship that has had all of its wooden planks replaced piece by piece over time remains the exact same ship? He brought it up to me in reference to "Archimedes' Ship," which is a bit confusing, since Archimedes did a lot of work on buoyancy, but wasn't much of a philosopher. Then again, there are those who would insist that Matt Damon has nothing to do with Ulysses. 

That's not me, mind you, but I digress. 

The discussion was based on the top to bottom, over and under, side to side reclamation of my bicycle. After parking my bike in the basement after the last day of school before summer break, I didn't pedal a block on it for two months, moving it from left to right as we hauled things out to give or throw away in an effort to reduce the surplus of stuff and junk down there. It was not until the week before my return to school that it occurred to me that I might want to check out the condition my bike's condition was in. 

A quick ride down the street let me know that I had forgotten just how bad things had gotten in spoke and sprocket land. 

Really bad. 

So I loaded my Dawes Eclipse City  flat bar hybrid two-wheeler on the bike rack and drove it to the bike shop. A brief assessment from an expert let me confirmed what I had already imagined: the patient was critical, and the outlook was better than terminal, but not by much. Chain, derailer, crank, tires, brakes, shifters and overall deportment were all part of a laundry list of maladies that needed treatment. 

I left it there with the understanding that the deposit I had left was going to be a fraction of what it would take to get me back on the road. Sails replaced. Planks replaced. Rigging replaced. When I once again tossed a leg over the frame, would it still be my bike?

In thirty years of teaching elementary school, I have had four bicycles. I bought the first one from one of the accountants at my old job at a book warehouse for fifty bucks. The next one came to me as a gift from my wife who announced that, "We may never own a new car, but you can have a new bike." The third was a replacement for the second which was "donated" to the community after I left it in the front hallway at school while the door was propped open. That was a Wal-Mart special that only lasted a few months. It was not up to a daily commute. 

The Dawes Eclipse City was. It served me well for a good long time, and endured all the DIY fixes I could throw at it until one day it didn't. All the inner tubes and brake pads and WD-40 that I had used up on my trusty steed just wasn't enough. In the end, I paid enough to buy several old accountant's bikes to get mine back on the road. 

The second week of school, I was back in action. On my nearly new bike. 

BOTD

 Born on this day:

My wife

The mother of my child

Writer in residence at Joaquin Miller Park

Daughter of Jan and Louise

Sister of Felix and Damian

Cousin to seemingly countless more

Speaking of countless, the number of personas and pen-names inhabiting this one soul defies easy accounting. 

But mostly, she's America's Friend, Polly Polka Dot. 

If you're planning a brief stroll or a visit to the local mall, you can expect to stop and chat with a great many human beings. Some she knows. Some she has met before. And then a great many who happen to fall within that great ray of interest that emanates from her. She wants to know what you're up to. She wants to be, as her title suggests, your friend. 

Now, this can make progress toward a goal difficult at times. Don't expect that getting from point A to point B to be a quick change. If you're along for the ride, you will be introduced because this is the way we grow a community. She will, on occasion, approach a person who she believes is already on her list just to make sure that the contact remains intact. "Do I know you?" 

If she doesn't, she will after she's done. 

Once upon a time, I gave an interview about this blog and suggested it existed to connect with strangers who were friends I haven't met yet. I said this was a quote from Fred Rogers. As it turns out, I was actually referencing a quote from Will Rogers. Such a tangled web of Rogers out there. Now that I have set that record straight, I would like to wish America's Friend, Polly Polka Dot, a happy birthday and appreciate her for all those strangers she has turned into friends. Sometimes it slows us down, but it's all worth it. 

Beautiful Noise

 I spent last weekend by the sea. 

Which is a little ridiculous since I live in a city by the bay, which is just a hop skip and a San Francisco from the sea. 

I just do not make my way over there very often. 

This past weekend, my wife and I slept with the patio door to our hotel room open pretty much day and night to hear the sound of waves crashing against the shore. All day. All night. In the morning, I awoke to the sight of pelicans gliding over the rocks, looking for their breakfast. In the evening, we watched the sun drop into the ocean, and waited for the lines of orange, yellow and purple to fade into the darkness. 

I suppose I can explain this fascination by explaining that I grew up in the extraordinarily landlocked land of the Continental Divide. Before my clan settled in Colorado, they were ensconced for generations in Kansas. A sea view was nothing if not a curiosity. The closest I came to cavorting an natural bodies of water outside of the local swimming pool was the beaver dams in the creek near our family's cabin before the beavers packed up and left because of all those kids spoiling their nice work. 

The Pacific Ocean is a different thing entirely. It gave me a sense of the infinite. Staring off into the distance, I had to imagine that there were people and places over the edge somewhere, but for my purposes, this was forever. This did not stop the waves from attempting to make their presence known at the other edge of their reach. Tides came in. Tides went out. I stared at them in awe and appreciation. As we made our way down the shore, my wife and I saw the signs reminding us of riptides and currents that would sweep us away if we were foolish enough to go wading or, heaven forbid,  attempt to a swim in all that churning. 

So we walked until we found a beach where the waves raced up to our feet, and we felt the chill of water that nobody bothered to heat. We were mindful of all the ways that this mass of salty water could make our lives difficult or sad.

But mostly we listened to the sound. 

Not the traffic on the highway four blocks from our home back in Oakland. Not the jets overheard. Just the endless churning, the slow attempt at changing the coast line. Someday, the hotel in which we took all this in would drop off the cliff and into the sea. But not last weekend. We listened to the sound and it lulled us to sleep. 

I dreamed of the sea. 

Not Yet

 The time has come, the walrus said, to speak of other things. Of shoes and splits and ten K times, of cabbages and kings. For the purposes of this discussion, the Walrus will not be Paul. The walrus will be me. 

Or I will be the walrus. Which is I find a little odd, since this was the way a grade school classmate described me when she was accusing me of ruining our class picture. Connected to this mild derision was the feeling I have endured for most of my life: being the round kid. The one who got picked last. The one at the back of the pack. 

Struggling. 

When my father invited me to join him running the Bolder Boulder race with him back in 1982, it seemed like a lark, of sorts. That's when I took up the sport, and I have been running ever since. 

Except now it's not really "running." To "run," one must have an aerial phase, or a moment when both feet are off the ground. There was a time when this was something I accomplished with relative ease. It provided me a means to the end of not being quite so round, and though I had already passed the phase of life in which teams were being picked on a regular basis, I flattered myself that I would no longer be the last one waiting to be selected. 

These days, I still head out every day with the intent of covering two to five miles, depending on how much locomotion I have experienced or will experience throughout the day. In my mind, I am still churning out the miles. Every so often a neighbor or friend will encounter me along my selected route, and lately they ask the same question: "Out for a walk?"

And I know they aren't far wrong. There was a time when I was committed to a mile in under ten minutes. Now I creep along somewhere in the fifteen minute area. Chugging along. I don't stop, unless someone needs to ask me directions. Then it's back to plodding. 

Ultimately it's about the cardiovascular, which I have been assured by medical professionals is just fine thank you. This does not keep me from noticing when someone else breezes by me as I am making my way toward my destination. In my head, I tend to do a quick assessment: how old do you suppose that guy is? how many miles has she run already? how did that seventy year old guy just pass me by walking when we were both going downhill? 

I take comfort in knowing that it's not a race. As long as I lace up my sneakers each day and head out to perambulate in some fashion or another, there is no finish line. Not yet. Not for me. 

Puzzled

 What are words for? This is the musical question that was asked by Missing Persons in a previous century. 

This is a question I find myself returning to frequently as I wander through this tired existence, but I would like to reflect briefly on my own experience: I feel that words are pieces of a puzzle. 

And now, as I am prone to do so very often, I digress. One of my daily rituals is to sit in front of my computer and push myself through the five daily challenges presented by Microsoft's Casual Games version of solitaire. Each of these challenges comes from a different variety of the game. Klondike, Spider, Free Cell, Pyramid and Tri Peaks. Depending on the day, one of these variations is labeled "hard" or "expert." These are the ones that capture my attention first, but I will plod through all five games each day in the effort to gain a month's rating of perfect. This requires that all five challenges be completed each day for the entire month. This is yet another example of my obsessive compulsive nature, and it is also a series of tests of my brain function. These are mildly difficult puzzles that all have a solution, I just need to place the virtual cards in their proper order and I am free to go about the rest of my day. 

A little over a month ago, I happened upon a Free Cell game that announced itself as "Expert." I have been hammering away at this arrangement of fifty-two cards in order to solve the problem they present to my sense of order. To no avail. So each morning I have returned to the game, finish off the day's challenges and then return to that one game that has me stuck. 

I could just let it go. That would be rational. No one would know. Except you now. 

And this is what keeps bringing me back to these words. Arranging them in a particular order in hopes of solving the puzzle that is communication. Each morning I sit down with the intent of sharing thoughts and ideas in the hopes of creating more understanding. Each morning I push away from the keyboard secure in the feeling that I have expressed myself and brought more meaning into this confused world. 

Except when I don't. A missing word or misspelling can cause all that effort to tumble into jumbled code that cannot be deciphered. Sometimes I even make the mistake of sharing ideas that only I find compelling. All those words stacked up just to confuse and confound my readers. 

Sorry for that. But I suppose that is what tomorrow is for: One more puzzle. 

Yard Sold

 Someone once said that "parting is such sweet sorrow," but I'm guessing he wasn't talking about having a Yard Sale. 

My family had put off having this suburban ritual for quite a while and when it came time to drag everything that we had carefully selected to be done with, we filled several tables and spread what would be our former belongings out for all to see. 

After more than fifty years of hanging on to Spider Man comics, I chose to make these available to anyone who found their way through our front gate. Initial perusals of this collection by early arrivals found one gentlemen select twenty-five of what he considered the best and the brightest. For him. This made only the tiniest dent. This is when my son, who was there to watch his childhood treasures find new homes and to assist his parents in that task, hopped up and began taking a few quick photos of what was left of the comic display. I had just begun to dread the piecemeal dissemination of my youth to those who might continue this pick and sneer process. That is when my son asked if I would take one hundred fifty dollars for the lot of them. It seems that he has sent along those digital photos he was taking to a friend of his who he knew collected such things, and without pawing through individual issues, he was going to pay us for whatever was left. 

I let them go. We put them in my son's car as a wave of relief swept over me. A couple hours later, a gentlemen strolled into the yard, He asked if we had any comics left for sale. My son, still fresh off his nominal sales triumph told him no, they were already gone. This brought on a series of offers that eventually stopped at three hundred seventy-five dollars. To my considerable relief, my son did not waver. He had made his deal and he wasn't going back. When the gentlemen finally shrugged and went on his way, we both breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn't about the money as much as it was about finding a home for the treasures I had hauled around with me for half a century. 

Contrasting mightily to this exchange was the fellow who initially wandered past our front gate, but was lured in by the curious display of what was once our lives. We kept a banter up as he wandered through the tables, finally stopping at a set of plastic drawers. "There's a clown suit in there," I suggested. our j

"Really?" he asked as he pulled out one of the drawers, revealing the purple polka dot clown suit I knew was there. He held it up to admire its gaudy glory. "My son's going to clown camp next week."

"Really?" I returned. "How about a dollar for the clown suit?"

He faltered for a moment. "I don't have any money on me. I just stopped by to look," and he trailed off.

"I'll tell you what," I offered, "How about you just take the clown suit?"

His face lit up. "Really?"

"Really." 

He left with effusive thanks and we once again felt the joy of releasing our past into the wild again. It wasn't about the money. It was about spreading the joy. 

Mad Dogs And Englishmen

 If you're anything like me, and if you're not why the heck aren't you, then you probably spent a chunk of the past weekend trying to determine how you were going to spend your hard-earned fun coupons celebrating our nation's birthday. I was intrigued as ever by the nightly flurries of aerial shells with showers of sparks and loud reports in our neighborhood. The ones that began in mid-June and will continue to disrupt our quiet nights for the next couple of weeks are a mystery to me. 

It was a few years back when my wife and I traveled north to Oregon to celebrate the anticipation of our anniversary right around the Fourth of July. Crossing the border into a state where fireworks of all sorts were legal and available for sale, we pulled over to one of the many tents pitched by the side of the road and began inspecting all the possible ways that gunpowder and sulfur could be ignited and dispersed into the sky. Eventually we settled on one particular product with the intriguing sobriquet, Mad Dog. We also purchased a few odds and ends like sparklers and smoke bombs and glow worms with the notion that we might find someplace safe and sane that we could share those less than explosive ordnance. When our friendly fireworks salesperson tallied up our purchases, they came to just under fifty dollars, with the Mad Dog being by far the big ticket item. 

We tucked these items in with our luggage and continued on up to Portland. 

We never did find a time or place to make a lot of noise and smoke on our visit north. We retuned to Oakland with our contraband without having fired a single shot in anger or fun. It simply never seemed like the right time or place. 

New Years Eve came and went, and though we were sorely tempted to carry out our barrage, neither my wife nor I could get up the gumption to set fire to the sky. Not when we had so much help from all those houses up and down the streets surrounding us. 

Somewhere in there we decided to give up our Mad Dog. We handed it over to our son, who we figured would find a clever or subversive use for pyrotechnics. 

I remembered all those trips I used to make with my brother when we were young, across the border to Wyoming where they sold beer on Sundays and fireworks were the best reason to make that drive. On one of those excursions, I purchased enough pop bottle rockets that I was able to parse them out over the next several years, bringing some of them along with me when I moved to California. 

They're gone now, much to the chagrin of my son to whom I taught the simple rule: Light and run away. These days there isn't much good running will do. We are surrounded each summer for three to four weeks by things that go boom in the night. 

How can they afford it? 

Everything Must Go

 Emboldened by my recent dive into the junk drawer in our kitchen, I set out to create something we have only attempted once before since moving into this house: A yard sale. 

We have allowed us all a healthy run-up time of three weeks to prepare for the inevitable shock of "nobody wants this? I can't understand..." 

There coincidence that is the release of Toy Story 5 in theaters as we began this undertaking was felt in my bones as I dragged former treasures out from the shadows into the light. So many toys. So many beloved playthings. And I'm not just talking about my son's past. My own youth was on display even as I dug deeper into the recesses of what my wife has on occasion referred to as "our magic basement."

Items from a previous century marked the Denver Broncos' first Super Bowl win. Most notable in the souvenirs collected in this haze was the poseable action figure of John Elway. I have it on good authority that this is not a "doll" but rather a "collectible," and now that I have lived to see two more Super Bowls won by different players, I can probably let this one go.

Of course I do this with full knowledge that I will be doing this in the heart of Oakland, the one-time home of those silver and black maniacs and their fans, who still cling to their former team with a passion that rivals my own. Once John leaves my yard, I have no control over his future. I have to make peace with this. 

Which is just a tiny example of all the treasures that have gone too long without being noticed. It was important enough for me to buy a Walter White doll, excuse me, action figure back when Breaking Bad was front and center in my life. I will carry the memory of that experience even as I make whatever deal I make with some stranger who wants to sell it on eBay for an amount that would make my head spin. 

But it will be out of my house. It will be one less item that will need to be cataloged and discussed when it comes time for that roll calls me up yonder. Why did we hang on to not one but two video cameras so long after Martin Scorsese started shooting all his movies on his phone? I don't know. I also don't know if we can get anyone to pay us a couple dollars for holding onto said technology for more than a decade. 

Still plenty of time to sneak some of that stuff back into hiding for all eternity. 

Or not. 

Annual

 I don't want a cage match on my front lawn. 

Nor do I desire a parade. 

I used to tell anyone who would ask what I wanted or my birthday the same thing: Plastic toys. Mind you I began giving this answer after I had reached the age of eighteen. The flaw in this plan was that once I became a father, the stream of plastic toys was necessarily split between myself and my son. 

Lately, I have been the very happy recipient of Lego sets from none other than the lad with whom I used to have to share action figures. I feel very seen. 

Starting nearly a year ago, my lovely wife set out to discover just how dear it would be to rent a cottage on the Isle of Wight. This being a somewhat limited time offer since I will only be turning sixty-four this one time. Many thanks to John and Paul for putting the idea out there.

So, what do I want for my birthday? 

The comfort of my family. The closeness of friends. A place to put my head at night. Memories of all the plastic toys that my wife will dutifully point out are still someplace slowly decomposing and will surely outlast me and those memories. 

But I suppose the most realistic answer is actually the simplest one. What I want for my birthday is another one. 

Feeding Frenzy

 I spent the long holiday weekend as I have on many occasions: feeding the cat. 

There was some concern raised recently about the relative health of the feline member of our family. To be clear, we got him from the scratch and dent sale in our neighborhood. All those other kind souls had gathered funds to pay for this infamous area stray to have all his teeth removed. Seeing an opportunity, my wife leapt at the chance to be the place where Fluffy would convalesce. 

Most of you know the story from there: How this wandering tom came to live in our home and hearts as our "forever cat." Or at least our "for the foreseeable future cat." 

Having arrived on our doorstep with a few thousand miles already on his kitty odometer, we have puzzled from time to time coming up with any sort of verifiable age for Mister Fluff. My suggestion of cutting him in half and counting his rings was dismissed as "horrible" and "insensitive." A point of clarification here: these remarks were made one morning after a particularly busy night of our cat stomping around our bed, demanding late-night attention, which makes sense since his kind are naturally nocturnal. Much in the same way that I am naturally cruel and sarcastic. 

There was not much on my Memorial Day agenda, save for the regularly scheduled runs and sitting down in front of a computer to compose another in a series of hysterical and insightful blogposts. With the school year winding down, there wasn't much in the way of lesson planning or classroom prep. This meant I had no solid excuse for ignoring the needs of my not-so-feral friend. 

Approximately every three hours, he would rise from whatever piece of furniture upon which he was ensconced, and wander about the house, yowling to let me know that it had been just about enough time since his last feeding and that if his bowl sat empty for another few minutes there would be 

Trouble. 

So that's how I spent my holiday weekend: being at the beck and call of a creature who by design turns up his nose at every third bowl of whatever I put in front of him and by circumstance has no teeth to do much about it. 

Boy, am I looking forward to summer vacation!

Welcome Home

 There's a lot of awful news out there.

Do I need to tell you about the $1.776 billion dollar fund that the convicted felon has set aside for other convicted felons? Mister Spray Tan believes that the January 6 rioters were unfairly prosecuted by the Biden administration, and these poor insurrectionists deserve to be paid for their "suffering."

Closer to home, a teenage driver plowed into a crowd on a sidewalk here in Oakland, killing three and injuring several more. The teenaged driver was traveling at more than fifty miles an hour. The bright spot? Bystanders apprehended the driver after he attempted to flee the scene. 

And just down the coast in San Diego, three people were shot and killed in that area's largest mosque. Then the gunmen turned their weapons on themselves, in an apparent act of civic pride that was poorly timed, since they could have shot themselves before harming innocent victims. 

I do not need to tell you these things, and yet, here I am, reiterating just a fraction of all the ugliness that surrounds us all every day. 

So I will tie this all up by telling you this story: On Monday, the Bay Area was experiencing a period of gusty winds. One of these breezes blew our front door open. My wife, who was preparing to leave herself, initially closed the door and prepared herself to head out on the rest of her day. When she left, it did not occur to her that our cat might have found his way out that previously open door. 

Consequently, our cat spent the day outside. This used to be his natural state, having grown up as the neighborhood stray before we acquired his newly toothless, recovering beast after a bout of painful dental surgery funded by our local cat lovers. I was busy at work, and my wife was rambling around doing errands around town as she often does, not keeping an eye on the feline. 

When I came home later that afternoon, imagine my surprise when our wayward kitty was sitting on the back porch, looking quite contrite when I went out the door to dispose of some recycling. I welcomed him back in, and he trotted past me without looking up. This interaction stood in stark contrast to what had been a ritual for the first few years of his stay with us when we would spend hours tracking him down, searching in his old haunts and alerting the neighbors to his escape. 

Not this time. He seemed relieved to be back inside. Home. 

I understand. 

Bits

 Recently I found myself in a post-modern moment when I asked my wife if everyone else in the world takes time and energy out of each day to work on "bits."

If you happen to be on the deficit end of the concept of "bits," I will excuse your lack of insider knowledge and presume that this is not because you and those close to you don't operate in this sphere, but rather you and those close to you do not refer to these things as "bits." 

"Bits" are funny things that get passed around from person to person, not unlike unwanted viruses or opinions, but hopefully these are things that help make the day just a little more surreal. A great portion of what you read here on a regular basis is me taking what life has brought me to turn into lemonade. It is generally helpful to start this process with lemons, but most citrus will do in a pinch. As will dairy, but we try not to mix them. Nor do I advise attempting this just after you have brushed your teeth. 

For as long as I can remember, my brain has been wired to make fun of all the low-hanging fruit that comes my way, and to extend this metaphor still further, I will say that some of these end up being rotten. You know when this happens because you will not be greeted with gales of laughter but rather with a stern look of disapproval. 

Actually, now that I think about it, those disapproving looks might not have anything to do with the relative freshness of your jape. It may instead be the outward response for a "bit" that has hit its mark squarely. Certainly it can also be the problem of a "bit" being too fresh, which might cause those who encounter your jest to flinch. 

Honestly, any sort of reaction is preferable to the staid and boring discourse that presents itself to us each and every day. This attitude of mine is precisely the kind of thing that got me kicked out of Elementary Functions back in high school, as illustrated by the dozen or so blog entries in which I have previously referred to this ignominious exit.  

What did I learn from that experience? Oh, I suppose I leaned that it's probably best to know your audience, to "read the room" as they say. Of course, if you're always playing it safe, you might miss out on that one great "bit." 

You'll never know unless you try. 

A Break

 What I wanted was a break. 

What I got was food poisoning. 

For those of you who have been reading this blog from the beginning, the phrase "last piece of lasagna" might bring with it a faint air of nostalgia, or perhaps a little sympathetic nausea. It was not, to paraphrase Carl Denham, the lasagna that got me. 'Twas burrito that killed the beast. 

Carne asada will now be added to the list of phrases that will give me pause when considering my meal choices. 

Some four days after the Burrito Express came rushing out of me with all the urgency one might imagine a digestive system stuck on reverse could manage, solid food was something that my vacation was sadly missing. There was one day when I felt as if I had proceded to the normal lane, but my guts did not approve. They let me know that dry toast and Gatorade would be on the menu until everything was all settled down there, thank you very much. 

This meant that even day trips to some nearby bed and breakfast were off the table. So was my daily exercise regimen. As I spent those days sitting around my house waiting for the next gastric eruption, waiting for the scourge to fully depart, I felt the enforced low-key staycation weighing on my soul. Sure, I had made it out into the yard before the cursed burrito experience to trim up the trees, making way for Spring's renewal, but the reality of my situation was embedded in my diminished physicality. 

I watched a lot of TV. I tried not to bother my wife or my cat with my needs. I was only moderately successful with this, as my usual tireless approach to maintaining order took a miss and I spent a lot of time wondering just exactly how long it would take until I was "all better." 

There is no reset button. It takes time. Thankfully Spring Break allowed me this luxury. For this I have decided to be thankful. And as far as breaks go, I will be taking a break from Burrito Express. 

Risk Management

 From Al Gore's Internet: Threatening children, such as using empty threats or fear-based ultimatums, in an ineffective parenting style that damages trust, breeds resistance and causes anxiety.

For the sake of those of you who may feel that you have stumbled on some of my wife's work regarding family dynamics, I will say that I am working in a more metaphorical vein. In this particular model, the "parent" will be played by the convicted felon and nominal "president" of the United States. We will be the children.

Have you felt anxious over the past ten months? Ten years? Do you experienced trust issues with the current regime? How about the breeding of resistance? 

If you answered "yes" to any of these then you may be an American citizen. 

Unfortunately in this version of family discord, the "co-equal" branches of our parenting scheme seems to be broken. "Wait 'til your father gets home," is a pretty solid non-starter here since the problem is that even when daddy is on the golf course or sitting on the toilet late at night, the threats keep coming. More promises of punishments alternating with assurances of some sort of intangible reward that benefits only those in positions of power. Meanwhile, our economy continues to circle the drain while daddy's friends get rich on speculation that the threat of nuclear was is just a threat. 

Nothing more. 

While we sit alone in our metaphorical bedrooms, wishing that daddy would die, imagining a savior will ride in and save us all from the terror in which we currently live. Someone who will stand up to daddy and make him stop being so awful. "Don't you worry about it honey," with a reassuring pat on the head, "That bad man won't be able to hurt us anymore." Right after they write a strongly worded social media post with the caveat that unless daddy's friends move out first that there's not much to be done, but if we could just send a little more money to the committee to keep mommy safe we'll see what we can do. 

Not a very healthy dynamic. 

Another two weeks? 

Letting Go

 I have mentioned in previous episodes what an easy touch I am for a free T-shirt. I have made a habit, over the years, or collecting all manner of "souvenirs" from experiences that will provide me with yet another shirt that I have to stuff into a drawer along with all those other mementos of experiences that are marked not by a photo or a plaque, but a cotton-blend extra large wad of cloth for me to turn inside out each time I wash them and fold neatly when its time to return them to their resting place. 

This describes only part of the problem. I also feel compelled to purchase a "souvenir" from each concert, performance or sporting event I attend. couple these with the previously mentioned "free" shirts and suddenly you find yourself with a storage problem. Last spring I made it a project to sort through my full and overflowing four drawer dresser, of which three were jam packed with all that ephemera. Each one I held up brought a rush of nostalgia. I remember holding on to that as I made my way back to my seat at Oracle Arena. When it was Oracle Arena. Or the ones that are tied to nights that became more memorable as time passed. Like the hemp shirt I purchased on a trip to my hometown, making me a walking advertisement for Magnolia Road Cannabis in Boulder, Colorado. 

I held on to that one. I figured if I ever give up my drug-free lifestyle, I can smoke the shirt. 

Two garbage bags stuffed full were not so lucky. Those are the ones that did not make the cut. There were some jewels in that mix, such as four Bruce Springsteen tour shirts. I kept the ones that had better graphics, and tried to cull out the extremely high volume of black tees in hopes of leaving a wider rainbow for those around me to appreciate. 

When I took them out of the drawer. 

Those bags were carried up the street to our neighborhood clothes and shoes recycling bin. I paused as I closed the lid behind the second one. The hoarder in me winced, but the guy who likes a clean slate sighed in relief. There's only one of me. I can only wear one shirt at a time. I reminded myself of a time a couple years back when I spent an entire month wearing only Springsteen tour shirts. 

No repeats. 

I let them go. 

Not all of them. 

Just enough to be able to open the drawer again. 

Here You Are Again

 Most, if not all of the things I am telling you are not news. I am no reporter. I am a filter. 

I believe that everyone who reads more than six words of Entropical Paradise gathers this in. The most obvious reckoning of this is the way it takes three days for "current events" to show up here for your reckoning. This digestive cycle allows me not only the chance to stay ahead of the daily demands of writing a daily demanding blog, but also gives us all a chance to reflect for ourselves on what is laid out here for readers to consume. Once it creeps inside your brainpan it's entirely up to you, dear reader, to choose what those freshly fired synapses do. 

You might nod in quiet agreement. 

You may wonder where I get the impressions that I serve up. 

You may skip to the end just to see if I ever stop talking about my marginally misspent youth. 

I do not expect to change any minds here. The evidence I present is primarily of the "have you heard" variety. I understand that this is the choir to whom I am preaching, and I don't expect any actual blowback when I say that the pedophile-in-chief ought never to have been elected in the first place and the effort it will take to remove him from office is wholly out of scale with the seemingly effortless way he slid down that escalator into our political lives more than ten years ago. This event alone should have shown the convicted felon up for what he is: A grown man afraid of stairs. Why walk when you can ride? 

Perhaps you drop by this corner of Al Gore's Internet to see if my opinions on things have shifted in some dramatic fashion. This might be disappointing for you. If instead you stop in to see if you want to hold the ax while I grind, then we've got a pretty good thing going. 

And maybe, just maybe, you're tired of reading about how much I detest the dark places this world is sliding. Which is understandable. I just write this stuff. 

I don't have to read it. 

Socks

 I got stuck in a loop a few mornings back. The quad-pacertm on my electric toothbrush beeped to remind me to change the corner of my mouth in which I was scrubbing and I noticed that it had taken more than thirty seconds to pull one of my socks on. As is my wont, I began to fret that I was losing valuable seconds in my race to be ready to bike to work on time. 

To be fair, I was attempting this feat in the dark with only my left hand as my right was busy holding the toothbrush that was filling my mouth with minty-fresh foam and beeping every thirty seconds to remind me to switch quadrants of my mouth for brushing. 

And reminding me of just how long it takes me to put on my socks with one hand. In the dark. As my mind might or should have been focused on other things. 

But because every day is a race against time, I was hyper-aware of the need to clear my throat when I walked out to the kitchen to ask our Google Home Assistant to please put toilet paper on the shopping list. I wondered how much time I was saving compared to the seconds it would have taken me to scratch the letters "TP" on a piece of paper stuck to the refrigerator. 

Still, I couldn't shake that thirty second threshold for putting on a sock. How was I going to scrape together any free moments in the course of my day if it took me a full  minute to pull on both my socks? 

As I moved through the rest of my routine that took me out into the world where my bicycle was waiting to carry me to work, I noted that this too was an act totally dependent on the efficiency of my mechanism. Opening the door, rolling the bike out into the dawn to the front gate, opening said gate and then taking a moment once I was astride to set the timer on my watch to count the minutes it would take me to pedal to school. 

Could I possibly make up any time after the sock debacle? 

In the galactic scheme of things, this is not a true crisis. The orbits of the celestial bodies I could observe with my naked eye were not affected by my malingering. The custodian and my principal didn't comment when I arrived before the sun was fully over the horizon. "What took you so long? Trouble getting your socks on?"

That didn't happen. Instead, I found myself with just enough time to sit down and craft this little essay for you, dear reader. 

Imagine how much better it could have been if I'd had more time.