Alternative crosswords

I like pizza. Won't make any bones about it. Pizza is one of the major food groups. So when the whole family visited my mom on the Friday before Christmas, we decided to stop at a Pizza Hut for supper.

Now if your Pizza Hut is like our Pizza Hut, the placemats have factual info about Pizza Hut on one side and kids' games on the other. This time, mine was "Zoo-Logical" with the theme about, well, zoos. I mean, what would you expect?

This one had a crossword puzzle, which I sought to complete with the aid and suggestions of everyone else. The crossword is oriented to little kids, but I figure I had to come up with some alternate answers and see where that leads to.

OK, here we go.

1 across: "an animal is kept in this." Four letters. Pretty easy: "BARN." I wrote in the letters.

2 down: "what you see at the zoo." Seven letters: A------, including the A from BARN. We thought and thought and decided to move on.

3 across: "a big cat with stripes." Five letters. We thought, and then I think my wife came up with the answer: "TABBY." The pen went to work. Some of those tabbies, you know, can get pretty big.

4 down: "King Kong was one." Seven letters: B------, with the B from TABBY. Let's see. What describes King Kong in seven letters starting with a B. I got it! "BIGSTAR."

5 across: "he eats bananas." Six letters. We were stumped. We knew it had to be some kind of monkey, but what? David, who knows his video games, solved it: "DONKEY." Remember Donkey Kong from video game fame? Of course!

6 down: "they have trunks." Nine letters: E--------, with the E from DONKEY. I was stumped again, but not my wife. "EMIGRANTS," she said. (She later explained that she was inspired by a book she was reading.) Anyway, it fit, so another clue was solved.

9 across: "a zebra has these." Seven letters: S------, borrowing the S from EMIGRANTS. It was hard to come up with the subtle correct answer for this one. I finally wrote down "SUNBURN." (Forget the "this/these" matter.) Remember the old joke? Q: What's black, white and red all over? A: A sunburned zebra.

We had skipped a few, so we went back:

7 across: "what the animals look at." Six letters: -I--T-. That's the I from EMIGRANTS and the T from BIGSTAR. This also took some thought. At last, I got an acceptable answer: LIGHTS. Don't they always look at the lights? Anyway, it fit. The pizza would be coming in just a few minutes, so I wasn't about to quibble.

8 across: "a lion does this." Five letters: --A--. Hmm, what do lions do in five letters with an A in the middle? I thought back to all those nature documentaries. So did my wife, I guess, for she came up with the answer: STALK. You bet they do!

That left only one clue unsolved:

2 down: "what you see at the zoo." Seven letters. Thanks to BARN and DONKEY, now it reads A--D---. I had to think fast. The waitress was fussing with a pizza nearby. Time is running out. What do I always see when I'm visiting the zoo? Then the lightbulb flashed on, and I triumphantly wrote APEDUNG.

Finished! We did it! We solved the crossword! Not exactly the level of the New York Times crossword, but we were proud of our accomplishment.

And if you don't believe me, here is proof positive:

The story so far

My latest promise was a brief introduction. So here goes:

Name: Peter. I don't have a dog, either. Two cats, tho. I adopted the name from the Firesign Theater. Anyone remember them?

Place: I live in the western Upper Peninsula of Michigan. In fact, though, we are part of Wisconsin in every way except politically. (Unfortunately, I might add.) Small town (about 3,000 peoples) in a rural, mostly wooded with a very low population density. But, yes, I do like to visit cities, too. It just takes time and money, both of which I have in short supply.

Age: Soon to be 56. Three more weeks.

Occupation: I work at a weekly paper. I write sports, news, features, editorials, and I take a lot of pictures. I enjoy the sports and pictures the most. I think I'm pretty good at it, too. Low-paying job, though.

Hobbies: With my job, I don't have a lot of time for my own pursuits. I enjoy computers and the internet. My first real blog was at ModBlog, but their shaky status lately led me to start this blog. For now, I'll keep both.
Let's see. I also enjoy sports (baseball and hockey, especially, and even cricket!), reading (when I get the time, which isn't often) and movies. My favorite directors are Kurosawa and Fritz Lang. Love many kinds of music: Jimi Hendrix leads the list.

Family: I had a brother, but he died in 1985. My dad died in 1994. My mom is 83 and had been in good health until falling this fall, and that has led to a number of medical issues. She is at an advance care center, about 50 miles away, and I'm in charge of her, also. There is nobody else.

I'm on my first marriage, which is, let's see, 34 years old now. My wife is my best friend. I also have two polyamorous relationships. I've known K for about three or four years--she lives 90 miles away but soon will be moving 250 miles away. I met S at a neopagan gathering this summer, and we have become very close. In October, she moved from Wisconsin to Ontario. I'm driving over to visit her for a few days this week. The relationship with K is not sexual. The one with S is both sexual and spiritual.

Two sons. Both out of the home. The older son (nearly 28) lives in the north Detroit suburbs and works at a bank corporation down there. The younger one (23) lives in town, about five blocks away. He's autistic--works at a couple jobs in the area.

Belief system: I've fallen far away from organized religion. Don't believe in guilt as a basis for a belief system. I believe in love and in caring for one another and our planet. God lives in each of us--it depends on whether you want to look for it. Best spiritual experiences from this year were: that neopagan camp, the movie "What the Bleep Do We Know" and reading Robert Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land." Anyway, I feel life is moving in a positive direction for me, despite the problems with my mom for the last few months, and that I'm happier than I have been for a long time.

That's the basics. It sure wasn't brief, was it?

Anyway, this is the last you'll hear from me for a while, what with my long, long drive (to visit S) this week. Take care, all, and we'll see you next weekend.

A quick howdy

ronic, isn't it? That on the day I discover ModBlog has risen from the dead, Frankenstein-like, I go off to find a new blog home.

Yes, still another ModBlog refugee. I'm not bailing on MB. Not yet anyway. I'll be posting to MB, but I'll also be writing here, too. Whatever I write, you know it will be wordy. Full of words. Some good. Some bad. Some interesting. Others not. All by me. That's what I wanted my MB space to be. That's how it was.

But with all the outages lately, I feel like it's time to put many of my blogging eggs--perhaps most of them--into another basket. So that's what this is about.

By the way, I reactivated my Blogger blog during the long outage and felt the same lack of community as I had before. It's different here, I sense. One of my ol' MB buddies, laughingwolf, directed me in this direction, and I appreciate the tip.

This intro is as long as it's going to get. I've got a letter to write and, yes, an MB blog to write, plus many others to read. But before long I'm going to write a short intro here, introducing myself to strangers and bringing my fellow MB refugees up to date with my story. No commercials, either.

Hurry up and wait

Flash! This just in! The new word from the gods of ModBlog:

"Update (11/22/05 @ 12:17AM CT): We are very, very sorry for the extended delay. Unfortunately, the person that is capable of repairing the problem was traveling over the weekend, and was unable to tend to the problem. We are now working as fast as possible to put ModBlog back online, and that should happen very soon. Frequent updates will follow this post until ModBlog is fully back online."

Please note: That's "very, very sorry," not just "very sorry" or just plain garden variety "sorry." So that means that they really, really mean it (not just "really mean it" or just plain garden variety "mean it"). Why do people think that by adding multiple layers of a word ("I'm really, really, really, really pissed.") that it gives more intensity than simply stating ("I'm pissed.").
*****
I've leaving for Detroit on Wednesday morning for the high school football finals--our team plays in the 9 a.m. game. As we all know, it's 520 miles from here to there. And my wife and son have invited themselves along, so they can visit my older son and see his new apartment. That's all right. It's a long drive. Nice to have someone to talk to.

So this morning I asked my wife: "When do you think we'll be able to go tomorrow." "Oh, I don't know. I think we can get ready by 9 o'clock."

Something died inside me. "You know," I said, trying to keep my voice even, " the drive is going to take about 12 hours, whether we leave at 5 a.m. or at 10." "Oh! Well, maybe we can get going earlier."

But that's her nature. She's just ... slow. As in poky. Needs a lot of sleep. Slow to get going in the morning. Slow to get herself organized. Push her, and she gets slower. And I'm acutely aware of it because I'm the opposite. I don't need a lot of sleep and get off to a fast start. I think I'm fairly well organized for the trip already, a day before we hit the road.

Of course, I'm the one who does all the driving, and the weather forecast for our trip isn't the greatest. Snow and wind. Not a lot of snow, fortunately, but hardly ideal driving conditions. I'd like to get to our destination before it gets too late. (Just took a break to reserve a room online, so there will be a room waiting for us, whenever we get there.)

How different this trip is going to be from my next big trip, two weeks from now! The other trip will be even longer (660 miles or so), but I will be by myself, on my own time, and the destination is one of the heart.

Fed up with ModBlog ... again

Well, tell me if this surprises you: I went to my blog on ModBlog today, and I read the following:

"Update (11/17/05 @ 4:30AM CT): ModBlog will return online later today. We greatly apologize for ModBlog's downtime, and we are taking steps to ensure that this cause will not be an issue in the future. Complete details regarding ModBlog's downtime will be posted once it re-opens. We truly appreciate your patience, and we look forward to seeing you back at ModBlog!"

The thing is, it's late on Nov. 20, not the 17th, so the promised return is three days late. ModBlog has been off the tracks (again) since Tuesday, and my patience with its many outages is rapidly running out. As I may have written before, I love the way MB is set up and its many features, but all those features--the feedback from others, the friends whose lives you find yourself caught up in, the running jokes, the links and chat features--don't mean much when the site is down. Lately, it seems down much more often than it's up.

The thing is, at Blogger (and at many others), it seems like you're just talking to yourself. No feedback, no attaboys, no wisecracks or pieces of advice.

So despite the fact that I'm here, I'll probably keep an eye open for more promising surroundings. Maybe Blogger has some features I don't really know about. We'll have to see later.

The un-wired generation

Hi, there. How's things?

As you may know by now, things have been more than a little crazy in my life lately. First, it's the busiest time of the year at my job. Then, of course, my mom's situation.

During one of my many long drives lately, I got to thinking about how wired much of the world is ... and how UNwired the rest of it is. For instance, my mom's friends and relations want to keep up-to-date with the latest news--obviously, they're concerned. And I am the point man, in charge of all this, making the big decisions.

Now how would you do this? Of course: You'd write up an e-mail message and send it out on occasion. Maybe create a mailing list, for one-touch updates. Just write your message, enter address(es), think of a catchy subject line, hit send, and there you are.

Alas, NOBODY I need to update has e-mail. For all I know, none of them may have computers, either. This is the last gasp of the un-wired generation, and this is a situation many of you may eventually have to face, too. What I'm doing is relaying a message or two a night and asking them to pass it along. Sort of like the old "Telephone" game.

I've got a bunch of errands I have to do and things I have to arrange for. They range from arranging for a funeral to such mundane tasks as getting someone to come in and clear away all the leaves on her lawn--and there are a lot of them. I've been forgetting to call the guy who does that. I've got to try to make that call tonight.

Might as well try now. 'Scuse me for a few minutes.

OK. I talked to the guy's daughter, who promises to pass the message along. We'll see. The way she giggled once makes me suspicious.

I had to drive out of town yesterday for a very different reason: It was time for me to get my heart tested. One problem is, the place is 90 miles away, and I had to leave home about 6:45 a.m. for a 9 a.m. appointment. So I was getting somewhat hungry. I got there a little early.

First, they did an echocardiogram on me--for which reason I was forbidden to either eat or drink anything after midnight. Then they put a thingie in my arm that they use when injecting intravenous drugs. (Impressed with my astute knowledge of medical terms, aren't you?) They injected some radioactive substance. Then they gave me a glass of water and a breakfast bar. Well, it was about 10:30 a.m. by then (oh yeah, I also crossed over into a different time zone along the way).

Then they had me lie on my back on a table. A thingie with flat panels passed over me that, I assume, were taking pictures of my heart thanks to the radioactive stuff injected inside me. What happened is that the flat panels slowly made their way around my chest, hovering for about 30 seconds, then rotating a few degrees, then hovering for another 30 seconds, etc. They told me to lie real still for 12 minutes. So I lay real still for 12 minutes.

Then, back to the waiting room and play the waiting game. Maybe 15 or 20 minutes. Then, they got me had me get up on the treadmill. Walk slow. Walk faster. Walk still faster. Walk real fast. I did OK. Heart rate got up there, above their target rate, but my blood pressure did not, and since I'm doing this because of HBP, that was good. No pain, no pressure. A little short of breath, but that ended quickly. I just don't walk really fast very often--if the need arises, I run. A little.

Then back to the waiting room. The yakky loudmouthed woman who was solving everyone else's problems was gone by now (yay!), and I could relax. I relaxed. In fact, I must have dozed off. Yeah, I was really uptight about this.

But I reacted the second time they called my name, and back to the machine with the flat panels, where I lay down and had to lie real still for another 12 minutes. So I lay real still for another 12 minutes.

Then I was freed, and started driving home. Except I drove down to my mom's nursing home. I visited with her for a while, ate dinner with her and then left for good ol' girls basketball. Then, finally, back home, at the end of a long, long day.

Today, I had to get up real, real early again, but this time it was just for a meeting here in town. Tomorrow, I can go back to my normal morning rituals, which culminates with my wife and I sitting on the couch, eating toast (usually rye bread) and watching The Weather Channel. It gives us a little time to sit next to each other and relax before beginning the stuff we have to do. One of our little rituals.

But it's been so crazy lately--I won't say stressful, though it is at times--that it's been hard for us to relax and have fun together. It's been hard on me, and she knows that. It's hard on her, too. So we're just trying to take things easy, letting some things go. I'm really looking forward to the end of this stressful time, when life returns to what we define as normal. We can go back to the routine parts of life that make our friendship strong and keeps us happy.

Complicating things further are the baseball playoffs, now about 2/3rds over. I really love baseball--I'm watching the Cards and Astros now as I type on my laptop--and she cuts me some slack for that. She knows I'm missing many of the games, both because of all my job and driving back and forth to the hospital or nursing home. Tonight, I got to stay home, so that's what I'm doing.

I'm also looking forward to the end of the World Series, where we can stick a disk in the DVD, snuggle up together and watch something inspiring for what we'll be doing a little later. Feed the kitties, go upstairs and shut down the computer. The computer goes to bed early ... as do we. Time for what we refer to as "a good night's sleep." ;)

Crazy hectic times

Just a couple of free minutes while I wait for a coach to call me back. It's the start of what is going to be an extremely hectic weekend.

Having made another three trips to the hospital in the last week, I'm behind schedule on a busy work week. I've got a football game to cover this afternoon (and writing up last night's game), and my older son will be arriving here later in the day (from Detroit, about 520 miles away). On Sunday, we're all going down to visit my mom, who was put in a nursing home on Friday. I've got to find time to write an editorial and maybe a county board story. Am I having fun yet?

My mom is not feeling as much pain as before. They did a procedure (Thursday) on a compressed vertebra in her back, in hopes of relieving pain from a pinched nerve. I have not been able to see her since about two hours after the procedure, but it seems to have helped--maybe a lot. I won't really know until I see her on Sunday. She's now got to eat more and get her strength back.

That's as far as I'll go for now. I'll try to write more on Monday night, after deadline and after my son heads back south.Besides, the phone is about to ring. ((Ring!!!)) "Hi, Bill ... "

Finally! Cheap gas!!!

Tired of expensive gas? Who isn't?

So you should have been with me last week as I was driving home from a girls basketball game...



Seems the local gas station that recently installed one of those fancy electronic signs has been having a wee bit of trouble with it. It read the same from the other side, too, so I went around the block to capture the image for all the world to see.

When I drove past the next day, it was back to reading $3.10. Bargain shoppers--never mind!

After 3 1/2 years ...

Oh, hi there. How've you been? It's been a while, hasn't it?

What?? Three and a half years since we last met??? That was back in, what, 2002?

OK, enough hokum. Hi, it's me, and yes, I'm back. The interface isn't as challenging as it once was, so I'm going to give this another try. That's one reason I'm back. Another reason is that ModBlog, where I put my first blog that lasted for more than a few days, has gone dark since Monday morning--over three days ago. Their website apologized profusely for all the downtime and promises on their honor that they'll get it together and won't have a problem like this again. Or words to that effect.

For their sake, I hope they can. I really enjoyed ModBlog for the "community" feeling it had. You had regular visitors and friends that you got to know from all over the place. I've made friends from different places in the U.S. as well as Australia and England. We joke with each other when times are good and try to solve each other's problems when times aren't.

I started writing on ModBlog in May--over four months ago--and it became a part of my life. But it's out of order, at least for now, and it's frustrating. I'd like to know what my friends are doing, what they're getting into. My mom, who is 83, is in the hospital, and I've been spending a lot of time there recently--my wife and I were there about four hours today, not counting the hour-long drive each way. The story has gone out all over the world, and many of my readers have said things to cheer me up and encourage me. And I'm really grateful.

As I wrote, the Blogger interface is a lot easier than it used to be (way, way back in 2002, almost before the printed word, almost). Last night, I wrote something that was a lot like what I'm writing tonight, on the built-in post hole digger. But when I went to publish it, it asked for my username and password again, and when I backed up to the post writing page, all my beautiful words were gone. Vanished. Poof! Lost in cyberspace.

This is for shit, I said to myself, and shut down for the night.

But tonight things look better. I tried to copy all my writing before posting it, but Blogger doesn't seem to want to do that. Grrr. Anyway, when I posted, it did was it was supposed to, and my wonderful, thrilling writing now appears on the blogpage.

By the way, to judge by the interval between my first blog entry here and my second, the next blog entry will appear around June 2009. But somehow I don't think it will be that long.

I love ModBlog, and I hope they can get their act together. But by writing this entry here, I think you can see that I'm hedging my bets.

A plan on yellow legal paper

My journey downstate begins in about 11 hours, after a night's sleep, and I think I'm about as ready as I could be. The extra day to prepare turned out to be a good thing because it gave me time to think things through and--eek!--plan things out.
Yes, a plan! Honest! Complete with a written list on--get this--yellow legal paper!!!

If you know me, you're ROFLYAO. I'm not always the most organized guy. At least not on paper--I usually go through things in my head. But I can't count the number of times I've arrived at a meeting or a game without a pen. I've gotten so I stick a package of pens both in my camera bag and in my car. So a pen is never that far away.

The lists I wrote up today were labeled "Trunk" for things making the trip in the car's trunk--the tent, sleeping bag, bulky stuff like that. Then there's "Back Seat" for the cooler, blanket, pillow, the water bottles I bought, sandals and a category called "snackies." Hey, driving is hungry business--and without cooking gear making the trip, I'm going to call on the snackies from time to time.

List No. 3 is called "Box." As in a big cardboard box I got from the office, where I'm pitching this and that--the bug stuff, sun stuff, itch stuff (those are the actual names I use!), sweatshirt, plates and utensils, towels, lantern, etc.

List No. 4 is very short. "Front seat" consists entirely of "camera." As in the camera that is going to be out of reach whenever I see a woodland critter. As we all know, the critters only come out when the camera is out of reach.

List No. 1 is complete except for the backpack, which gets finished in the morning. List No. 2 is all checked off. List No. 3 is half-checked off (which means I'm going to double check this in the morning). List No. 4 is unchecked, but with one item to check, it shouldn't take too long.

So that's it. In the morning, I've got to look over some maps. Then, between 9 and 10 a.m., it's time for my bootheels to be wandering.

It'll be fun. I'm looking forward to it. I'm also looking forward to tomorrow night's weather down there--the low is supposed to be about 51F (10C). Glad I'm bringing the sweatshirt.

---

So I'll be gone for a few days. Happy Fourth of July to everyone. Happy Canada Day (Friday) to everyone north of the border, where (relative) political sanity can be found. If there's a holiday in Australia, enjoy it. Hey, it's the weekend, anyway, so enjoy that.

Till later ...

A 24-hour delay

Under my original plan, I was going to hit the road tomorrow morning (Thursday) for my trip. But I have opted to delay departure by 24 hours. One fewer night on the road, plus it greatly reduced the stress on me to get everything finished at the office today. I have one story to finish tomorrow a.m., then work on some pictures and then lay out the page. I should be out of there around noon.

I'll have a few family/personal errands to do the rest of Thursday, including packing and picking up a few final things. I stopped at the local dollar store earlier today and got a few low-cost things for the trip, including a towel, a flashlight and some snacks for along the road. I went to a department store to look for a backpack, but they didn't have any. There is an old one in the attic, anyway.

My wife and I had some fun last night, and we sat together tonight and watched the end of movie we started last night ("My Uncle Silas 2" with Albert Finney), a Buster Keaton movie ("Sherlock Jr.") and some black and white Mickey Mouse cartoons. She's up to bed now, and I'm writing.

The radar says some strong storms will be moving through our area during the night. They've got warnings in the Duluth area and northwest Wisconsin, but we'll see how close they get to us. A few nights ago, some storms came marching in about midnight ... and promptly died out. We may have gotten a sprinkle, but the pavement outside was mostly dry when I got up in the morning.

We did get a nice storm Monday evening, while I was covering the local Little League title game. Suddenly thunder was booming, lightning was flashing and rain was pouring down. So much so that the field was partially inundated for a while, and about 10 people with brooms were needed to "sweep" the puddles away. It made for some interesting photos.

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The game was delayed about 40 minutes, but once they resumed there was no other problems. The infield was even semi-dry.

That was the only serious thunder and lightning our area has had so far this year.

I also got a letter (e-mail) from a friend of mine, who lives about 60 miles away--I visit her from time to time, and we are due for another visit. She was telling me about a conference she attended recently, along with meeting up with a good friend and having a good time with him. She recently had a fence put around her backyard so she and her dogs can have some fun. She said she has been "brave" out there. "Brave" means she was sunbathing topless. "Real brave" means sunbathing nude. One time, about two years ago, long before the fence, she was being "real brave" when the meter reader arrived.

I'm looking forward to seeing her again. We usually got out for a pizza and then watch a Rolling Stones concert on DVD. We're both Stones fans and have been since the '60s.

Oops! Just heard some thunder outside, so I'd better check it out. It's not terribly warm or humid here, so there probably won't be any severe weather. But a thunderstorm would be fun. As I've written before, I enjoy them.

I'm going to check it out ...

Yes, it's lightninginging out there. I'm just checking out the weather radars, which indicate some storms moving due east from the Duluth area--and a strong batch of storms heading out way from Iowa and southwest Wisconsin (where I will be driving in two days). If they make it up here, it wouldn't be until the middle of the night. So will we have a light show in the early morning? Stay tuned.

At any rate, I'm going to stop here. I'll try to write more before leaving town on Friday morning.

Links missing no more

OK, I did a little blogsite management. Not on the graphics (yes, I know that's badly needed) but on where this and that is. I added links, at the suggestion of BlinkFreak23, who is light years ahead of me in terms of artistic stuff and web graphics.

Now if your blog isn't listed in the Links section and I'm a regular customer, it's probably because I forgot. I've got that dreaded disease that regularly affects people my age, known as CRS. We have to start a CRS Foundation. If I can remember.

Also, I added some links to some sites that I find very cool. If you've never visited Ironic Times, check them out. Especially this week, check out the "ad" for "Empire MMV" at the bottom of the first page.

Time is tight. I will try to write more later today. But it's another of those short weeks (just like the one two weeks ago) with meetings, and I've got to hustle to get everything done so I can leave Thursday morning.
Later, dude.

Looking ahead

I am contractually obligated to write an blog entry today, but I'll warn you right now: There really isn't much interesting to report or any eye-opening insights. Hey, it's life--the exciting parts and the dull parts. This is one of the dull ones.

Most unusual event of the weekend was Saturday, when I went to a local ballpark to get a team picture--and ended up being the base umpire for a kids' game when someone else didn't show up. Well, I know my baseball rules pretty well, so that went OK. After that, off to a local "trout pond," sponsored by one the veterans groups in town for the kids to fish for trout with pieces of corn as bait. The trout didn't seem that interested and congregated in the middle of the pool, toward the bottom. They know what's good for them, I guess. I got a little sunburned from the ballgame and at the trout pond, but just around my neck.

From there, I picked up my wife from work and we all drove down to visit my mom. We went out to dinner, and I showed her some pictures from our trip last week.

The shopping was minimal. In fact, I did most of it, for my camping trip late this week. I bought things like a plate and bowl, a compass, some anti-itch stuff, a battery-powered lantern and a few other things. I thought I got a big fabric bag to store stuff like dirty clothes, but I must have left it behind. Well, I'll get another chance to get one on my way south in a few days.

Sunday, I did a little work around the office and then back home. I had a chance to take a nap and then watch some Buster Keaton movies on TV. Those are always fun.
Looking ahead: Monday is supposed to be hot, and I've got to cover a baseball game late in the day. Temperatures about 90F with a wind from the southwest. Should be interesting. It's the Little League local championship game. Hey, it's big stuff in a small town.

Tuesday, I've got a meeting in the afternoon. Wednesday, I'll be finishing up stuff at the office, and on Thursday I hit the road. It's about a six hour drive, down to southwestern Wisconsin.

I've been thinking a lot about what's going to happen down there. The people I met last weekend were very nice. But instead of about five others, this time there will be 30 to 40. And we'll be in our tents over several days. Most, I guess, will be about my age and a little younger--I don't really expect to see more than a couple young adults there. If there are, there will be young kids, too. That's fine.
Other things are on my mind, and I've got a couple days to ponder them. Namely:

---Food. As I wrote before, I'm not taking cooking gear there, so I'll just have to see. Most likely the folks there will be willing to share, especially if I make supply runs for them into town and buy stuff for them. I expect the folks will be generous--but I'm not relying on it. So the real Plan A is to make a trip into town each day for a warm meal and to replenish my supply of water and ice (I'm taking a small cooler along).

---Heat. Right now, it likely will be warm there, but not quite hot. It's up on a hill, so we'll be catching breezes, and the camping area is mostly shaded, so we won't get blasted by sunlight during the day. But you never know. There is no water up there, so we have to pack it in--no place to take a dip, skinny or otherwise, unless we go to a river nearby and find a suitable place.

---Outdoor life. I think I'm prepared, with the stuff I've bought over the last few weeks. It'll just be different. I think I'm better equipped than the last time I went camping. We'll see. Just sleeping in a tent, with the sounds of nature all around. One of my favorite ways to drop off to sleep is to put on a CD with nature sounds in the bedroom and drift off to that. This will be different. Plus, there could be wind and rain. Hmmm. Could be interesting.

---Internet. Much as I hate to admit it, I'm hooked on being online, and I'll want to find some way to keep tabs on civilization. Maybe every other day, I'll try to find a library nearby that is connected with the outside world.

---Home. I've got a cell phone, so I hope I can get a good enough signal so I can call my wife. Otherwise, I'll have to call from town. It's important for both of us to keep tabs on each other and hear each other's voice. The bigger issue is getting along for four days without seeing her. It's a fact that when I'm gone for a few days, I get lonely for home, and I know it will happen again. Yes, the people I'll be with will be friendly and share my feelings about nudity and sexuality--it's just part of life. They will be good with me, I know. But still ... I know I'll be eager to get back home, and I'm wondering whether I'll wind up leaving for home earlier than I plan, simply to get back with them.

All these emotions. We'll see what happens. I know I'll be happy when I get there. But I also know I'll be even happier when I get back home. That's a given. I'm planning to get back home about mid-afternoon on the 4th. Plenty of time to take everyone up to the airport at dusk to watch the Fourth of July fireworks from ground zero.

The drying-out process

Yes, it's late--right around midnight. Yes, I'm still up. I just took a shower to wash all the sweat off me, but now my hair is wet, and I want it to dry off before hitting the hay. If I don't, it will be impossible to deal with in the morning. And I don't want to use the hair dryer, since it's rather warm up here.

One thing I'll probably never have to worry about is baldness. That's to judge by my dad and grandpa. Both had straight, thick, white hair when they were old. My dad and I were both the first child of their parents, so if heredity means anything ...
My hair is straight and thick and light brown. The mustache, though, is mostly white. Coming attractions, I guess. The eyebrows and hair at my temples are making the transition, but most of the rest hasn't started yet. Just like me: procrastination.

No visit to the lake tonight. We ended up staying home, watching a few DVDs--nothing too long or intense. We went outside for a while to enjoy a breeze, then back inside to have a midnight snack (muskmelon, also known as cantaloupe). Then my wife went up to her air-conditioned bedroom (where I'll be heading soon), and I watched the end of the Pistons-Spurs game. Pistons just got outplayed in the fourth quarter.

Some storms were moving through northern Minnesota earlier tonight, but it looks like they're fizzling out. Regardless, with all the humidity in the air now, we're primed for some storms.

But I know we won't see rain overnight. Guaranteed. Why am I so certain? Because I closed the windows of the car late tonight. Nothing else in life, it seems, is more reliable than the relationship between closed car windows and lack of rain. Hardly ever fails. Now I'd like to see a scientific explanation of that!

Ah, to heck with waiting. I'm getting out the hair dryer and then am heading for bed.

"Look at that!"

Last time, I wrote about the strange fact that closing your car windows magically insures that it won't rain overnight.

That, of course, is one of the many corollaries of Murphy's Law. Tonight and earlier in the week I ran into other ones. Well, not literally.

To explain: Tonight I opted to surprise my wife and take her out for a fish fry for dinner, just across the river in Wisconsin. She enjoys the buffet they have, and we had a nice meal of salad, chicken and, of course, fish. Yum!

Back in the car and on our way home, about a mile from the fish fry place and a mile from the bridge, we saw a jaywalker on the road ahead of us. It was fairly small, all black, on all fours and looked slightly confused. Yes, a bear cub was making his way across the road.

All I could say was "Look at that!" and slow down the car. All we could do was watch as the bear cub (the most dangerous animal in the North Woods, if you didn't know [explanation later]) ambled his way off the road and into the weeds on the other side.

Murphy's Law proven again, because my camera was back home, safe and sound, far from me and Nature's critters.

A couple days earlier (Wednesday, I think), I was driving out to get pictures at a golf outing nearby. On my way out there, I saw a doe (white-tailed deer) crossing the road. Yes, it was Bambi's mother! And right behind her was Bambi himself. I don't remember seeing country roads in the movie, but, hey, you got to adapt to your surroundings.

In this case, my camera was in the back seat--but I wasn't expecting the unexpected, and I would have needed 30 seconds--bare minimum--to get the camera out and switched on and pointed in the right direction. Bambi and his mom walked into the brush in less than 10 seconds.

Last year, in early June, I was driving my mom across Wisconsin to visit her sister-in-law, who lives north of the Twin Cities in Minnesota. For many, many years, she lived in a farming area, but urban sprawl has struck that area but good!

Anyway--it was about 10 a.m. on a sunny day, maybe 30 minutes after I picked her up. We were approaching Goodman, Wis., on U.S. 8 when I saw a big dog on the other side of the road, sitting on the road's gravel shoulder. I quickly realized this was no dog, and I slowed the car to a stop. "Look at that!" It was the size and build of a large German shepherd, only its colors were lighter, mostly cream and brown. Very intent, intelligent eyes and sharp-pointed ears.

I don't see how it could have been anything but a wolf! An amazing picture--if I could get it. Even by the time my car came to a stop, I was feeling under my legs for my camera bag, where I had put it. I found it, but it hit my leg and rolled away toward the door. It took a second or two to find it again. Then another second or two to get the Velcro flap and the plastic latch open. Meanwhile, the wolf started trotting towards me, on my side of the car. He had just passed the driver's side door when I finally got the camera free and switched on. By that time, my subject had reached the rear of the car, passed behind it and disappeared into the woods, on the other side. Maybe 15 or 20 seconds had passed.

Oh, I was mad at myself at the golden opportunity lost!

But about a half hour earlier, I was a lot luckier. We were on a county road at that time--we hadn't reached U.S. 8 yet. I was talking with my mom while driving along when I saw a black shape on the road ahead of me. A bear. (Where we live, they're all black bears.) "Look at that!"

My camera was right where I put it--in a paper bag on the back seat of the car. So I scrambled. And as I did that, the bear, which was halfway across the road, turned around and went back the way he came. I swore--under my breath because my mom was there.

But then you could see the lightbulb flash over the bear's head: "Duhhhh. Oh yeah! I wanted to cross the road!" So he turned around again and started crossing the road. And I got him!

[g-269775]

I got another woodland critter this April, when I took my wife for a ride to a quilt show near Marquette. To cut off a lot of miles (and a lot of time), I drove along some back roads, including gravel roads. We had a good time. On the way home, I made a turn and discovered this critter on the roadway. He apparently was so intent with what he was doing that he didn't notice the car that had come to a stop nearby and the camera that was pointing at him. Say cheese!

[g-269811]
While I have no photographic evidence to prove it, I've seen moose crossing the road twice. The first time was when I was driving my wife to Marquette (this time along the state highway) to see the doctor. He was about 300 yards ahead of me. This huge, dark brown shape clumsily crossing the road. "That's a moose!" I said cleverly to my wife, who has seen enough Bullwinkle cartoons to know a moose when she sees one.

The other time was two years ago, when I was driving down to Rhinelander with my younger son as part of my courtship of the used Mazda that would become my trusty steed (back about 40,000 miles ago). Anyway, we were driving home, a little east of Eagle River, when this big gangly critter starts crossing the road ahead of me. "Look at that!" I told my son. (I had, by that time, switched to a more generic exclamation.) He saw.

The lesson, I guess, is to keep that camera close whenever I'm in the car. Because you never know.

Of course, there is still another corollary of Murphy's law: "The closer you keep your camera in hopes of getting pictures of woodland critters, the fewer will dare reveal their presence to you."

---

By the way, why is a bear cub the most dangerous creature in the North Woods? Because Mama Bear is always nearby, and if she hears her kid bawling, she won't be very polite.

Hot spot

Whooee! It just hit 90F outside.

Actually, it's not that bad yet because the dew point is below 65 and there's a bit of a breeze blowing. But the mercury is supposed to rise some more. We have a low of 63 forecast for tonight, which is a lot better than the 70 they were talking about earlier. It's still not going to be a good night for sleeping unless we remember to get the room AC switched on about 9 p.m.

Out in the Dakotas, where one of my FRB (frequently read bloggers) lives, it has been close to 100. I had thought it was more like that "dry heat" you hear about in Arizona (where temperatures have been around 110 the last few days).

That's what I had thought. Then I checked the weather maps.

The map says several places in both Dakotas and northern Minnesota have dew points right now as high as 75. Ouch! That's brutally high, even for Florida. Alligator weather. How does Lady Visine help her llamas keep their cool?

Plans for this evening are up in the air yet.

Year's first scorcher on its way

The heat is moving in.

While summers are usually mild and dry around here, each year we are usually good for a couple scorchers. Hot, humid weather is uncommon around here, so when it comes, it comes hard and people know it.

Tomorrow, it's supposed to come hard. Highs are forecast in the low 90s, with lows in the low to mid 60s. True, not very impressive compared to most of the country. But for us, it's out of character.

My guess is that most of the homes around here don't have air conditioning. Why get something that you're only going to use once or twice a year? A few years ago, after a really scorching summer, we had a room air conditioner put in the bedroom. We used it once or twice that year. Last summer was a lot cooler than normal, and I don't think we used it at all. But now we've put it on notice--your services may be required soon, so be ready.

We decided on the room AC unit because we have a two-story home, and the heat rises to the upper floor in summer and just stays there. When it's hot, there's usually no breeze, so the hot air just sits around and calls in all its friends. It's not unusual to see the upstairs temperature reach the upper 80s. Now imagine trying to sleep in that! The room with my main computer is also upstairs. Oh, it gets hot, all right.

When it's really hot, we use some big fans upstairs and sometimes stay downstairs very late. I know back before AC, people/families used to sleep outside when their homes were so hot. Haven't done that yet, but it's an idea.

So what do we do? We lie very low and wait for it to end. While waiting, we sometimes go for rides with the car windows open. Other times, we head for one of the area lakes, where I usually "play" with the straps of my wife's swimsuit, encouraging the front part of it to drift further and further down in the water. She has been known to sort of bounce a little in the water to help it along. (Just having a little fun while letting her know that I still enjoy looking at her. She's 10 months younger than I am, FYI.)

We have a number of parks with lakes around here. You'd be surprised how cool the lake waters remain, even in a summer heat wave. Spend an hour or so of your evening in the lake, and you'll find your body temperature cooling off quite nicely. Until it's time to get out, go home and go back upstairs to that hot bedroom.

The cats don't care for the heat, either, and they can't take off their fur coats. So they just lie very still and, as incredible as it sounds, sleep even more than normal. They make up for it when the air finally cools off and the heat wave breaks. Then they're running around the house like crazy.

Usually the heat breaks with a bang and a boom--heavy rain, lightning, sometimes a little hail and strong winds. There have been tornadoes reported in this area, but strong gust fronts in front of thunderstorms are much more common and have left behind plenty of downed trees.

So we'll have to see what's in store this time. Maybe we'll go to the lake. Maybe the new root beer stand that just opened in town. Maybe a ride up and down the highway.

Whatever we decide, we'll do our best to keep our cool.

The relationship game

I'm feeling frustrated. About marriage. The topic of marriage, that is.

I really want to write something about marriage, but the thoughts aren't coming together yet. I know what some of the problems are. I know how they can be resolved. But I don't think many are willing to give up control over their "loved one" enough to take the prescription. (Yes, the quotation marks are deliberate.)

I have been reading a series of blogs lately, and they all seem to do with relationships and jealousy and possessiveness. I think jealousy is a poisonous ingredient for any relationship. Yeah, it's a part of life when you're in high school or college, but at some point people are supposed to mature and grow out of it. Too many "adults" act toward their partners like they are still treading the hallways of high school.

It's a topic I want to get into, but the creative thoughts just aren't working tonight. It's pretty vast, anyway, and the Liberated Christians website makes their point a lot better and succinctly than I can.

What does Liberated Christians do? They are about "Promoting Positive Intimacy and Sexuality Including Responsible Nonmonogamy or Polyamory as a legitimate CHOICE for Christians and others / Exposing false traditions of sexual repression that have no biblical basis."

Maybe you should look it over and see what you think.

* * * * * On a related note * * * * *

I have a good blogfriend (married) who recently rekindled an old affair. She had been thinking about him long and hard for a while, confiding it to her blog, of course. Recently, she wrote, an e-mail led to a dinner out of town, and that led to them making love.

So what would you say if she was your friend? Here's what I wrote: "My sweet friend, you didn't do anything wrong. You were being true to yourself. You love more than one man, and that's the way it is. It has made you so happy. It doesn't mean you love **** any less. Love isn't like money--if you give it away, you still have a lot more to give."

So I suppose you want to ask: "What if she was my wife? What would you say then? Huh?"

I'd say something like this: "Look. She's been part of my life for all these years. She's my best friend. I want her to have anything she wants. If sleeping with someone else once in a while makes her happy, how am I hurt? If she's responsible about her feelings and what she does, then let her be happy. When she's happy, I'm happy."

I think my friend is going to be careful to keep her love life with her hubby going strong. And I think her recent encounter will resolve a lot of uncertainty in her life--yes, they still love each other. Now she has two loves. I have a hard time seeing anything wrong with that.

I'll leave it at that until another day.

Just a few lines, more or less

I wanted to write something tonight, but I also wanted to write to a friend. The e-letter just went out--essentially, it was about the vacation, which I copied almost exactly from the blog--so now it's time for some blog-writing for myself.

The only problem is that I'm tired. But I'm determined to get something out tonight. In this corner, it's my oncoming sleepiness. In the other, it's my desire to write pawing the canvas. Fifteen rounds, and may the better force win.
Ding!

One thing I want to do pretty soon is upgrade this website. That's hard for a person with no artistic skills whatsoever to accomplish. I just want to include more interesting content--both in terms of graphics and in my usual verbosity.
I guess, though, I'm going to go with the flow of my mind and write what I've been thinking about. Namely, about a week and a half from now, when I'll be out camping for the first time in a few years.

That will be at the neopagan gathering I mentioned last time. This one will last several days, and I want to be part of it. So a-camping I will go.

Mind you, I had camped years ago back when I was with the Boy Scouts. Hmm, about 40 years ago. Those skills are kinda rusty. Then, a few years back, I went out to a gathering in southern Michigan and needed to camp, So I got a dome tent. Its most distinguishing characteristic is that it stands all of four feet tall at the peak of the dome (I'm about 5-11) and had about as much ventilation as my basement. Was it ever stuffy! I also had an old sleeping bag that had seen better days. I got along there all right. I survived. So I'll survive his one, right?

This time, though, I have found a good tent on sale at a local discount store and bought it. It's a dome that can sleep four (if need be) and is 6 feet tall at the dome. Cool. It has screened windows and all that good stuff.

I also invested in a sleeping bag. This one won't keep me from freezing in cold weather, but I'm not planning to use it in freezing weather. That's why there are motels. I also bought a tarp and an insulated pad for the sleeping bag.

The thing is ... I don't know how to cook. I can cook brats on the grill on the back porch (which is what we did for supper tonight), I can boil water, I can zap microwave popcorn and I have even been known to heat up some soup for myself in the microwave. But the odds of finding microwaves in the campground aren't that good. So what I'll probably end up doing is going into town for a warm meal each day and buy some goodies to take back to the tent. High-energy stuff. Crackers. Water. I've got a cooler that can keep cold stuff cold. That's cool.

Another "major investment" will be getting a small pair of binoculars, the better to enjoy the local bird population at the campsite. They make some nice lightweight ones now, and I hope they won't be too expensive.

I wanted to go further, but you get the picture by now. I'm yawning more and more, and I think it's time to put the laptop away for a while.

What I did on my summer vacation

Hey, there! Long time no see!

We got back from our long, long trip to southern Wisconsin Saturday night, about 9:40 p.m. Tired and a little worn out, but it was a great trip. I'll give you the basics:

--Weather: Absolutely first-class, every day. Not too hot. Not too cool. Not very humid. Not too cloudy. No rain. Just beautiful. This is the weather that we'll look back and say, "If only we had the weather like we did during our 2005 vacation ..."

--Day 1: We left at 9:45 a.m., about an hour after I had hoped, but that's OK. First major stop was in Wausau, where we hit the Barnes & Noble bookstore (bought an early Heinlein novel, a new book by/about R.Crumb and a third book that I can't remember at the moment). Then we searched around for two used bookstores in town. Found one. Didn't get anything (prices were high). Then doubled back to the B&N in search of a book I forgot about earlier. They didn't have it. Back on the road. Crossed the free ferry over the Wisconsin River at Merrimac. We had crossed it going to the other way many, many years ago. Various stops for pictures along the way. I wanted to stop at the nude beach along the river, but it was just getting too late, so we moved on to Spring Green and got a motel room there.

--Day 2: Slept a bit late, then got breakfast and made our way to the main stop of the vacation: the House on the Rock. Fantastic scenery. Camera was busy. Finally got to the House about 10:30. Vast. Bizarre. Very large. Self-guided foot tour that covers about 3 miles--we took about 5 hours, even after rushing through the later parts. (My wife's feet were getting tired. Mine, too, for that matter.) Many fabulous collections. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thought about "Citizen Kane" and all the stuff he collected.

Oh, was I busy with the pictures! I had the luxury of three sets of camera batteries in my bag, and after I got the "weak battery" signal in the viewfinder, I sat down to replace them with a fresh set. Guess what? The fresh set was dead!!! Not even a weak battery signal! I tried the other reserve set. Same thing! For a while I thought my camera was malfunctioning. Then I put the old set back in, and it worked--with the weak battery signal. So after that, I drastically cut down the number of photos I took. Even so, I wound up virtually filling up a 64meg memory card.

As for the House, it just got to be sensory overload after a while. Just so much to take in. So many collections. We opted to get a DVD set in the gift shop to show my mom, who has never been there.

We were bushed. We went back to the motel and lay down for a nap. Then up and got some supper at a nearby Culver's. Unlike our motel, the Culver's had wireless internet, so we went back to the motel and retured about an hour and a half later for "dessert" and a very welcome chance to catch up on things on the internet. My "unread blogs" number was about 23 by then. Then back to the motel. I was very tired, and I thought my wife was, too. But she wanted to play. So we played. I don't do that well when I'm really tired. I did well enough, at least, to make her happy. We slept like dead people.

Day 3: The thing is, I can get to sleep, but I wake up in the middle of the night and doze on and off after that. We got going and went off to a used bookstore my wife saw in a tourist paper. It proved to be closed, but she spotted a fabric shop next door, and as the saying goes, I think, You can never be too young or have too much fabric. She got a piece or two.

From there, off into the hills of southwestern Wisconsin and to a small neopagan gathering taking place that day. Seven people, including us. It was celebrating the summer solstice, the growth all around us and our personal growth as people. It was the first time I had been with this group, so there was a lot of learning. We celebrated the day and ourselves. Then a little feast--we contributed grapes and potato chips.

My wife wasn't ready to take part in the ritual (she would have been welcome), but she joined with everyone as we were munching together afterwards and didn't seem to bat an eye at the nudity. We were all naked during the ritual; the women partly covered up after, but the men (myself included) didn't.

It was nice. Very peaceful. Sunny day. Birds singing. The bugs apparently were busy elsewhere. Conversation about this and that--for my sake, a large part of it was about the history of the group and how they all got together. It didn't strike me at the time, but--with the exception of an 8-year-old girl--all of us were middle-aged/getting up there. The group is having a multi-day event at the end of June, and I'm attending that one by myself.

We were there until about 3:45 and then had to leave for the trip home, which lasted about six hours. My wife got her second meal at Arby's in three days (a rare treat for her, since there aren't any Arby's around where we live). We talked in the car. Listened to the radio. Held hands.

It was a nice way to end three very, very good days.

Blogging into a parallel universe

I really didn't need this. w.bloggar, you bastard! If I weren't so tired, I'd use much more colorful language. But the sad truth about cussing is that it doesn't make you feel any better, and it doesn't help the situation. In my case, it won't make my lost blog come back. It's gone to some parallel universe in ModBlogland, some black hole in the World Wide Web. I reiterate: w.bloggar, you bastard!

I'm too damn tired to write the whole damn thing again. (You can see I'm pissed, right?) So here's the Readers Digest version:

It's been a very busy week for me, because I had to cover several meetings and write them all up before leaving town for a brief (three-day) vacation to southern Wisconsin. The thing is, with my job you have to bust your ass to do all your work for the week before you go because nobody is going to lift a finger to do it for you. The normal vacation rules don't seem to apply to me. So the question is: Is is really a "vacation"?

Anyway, my wife and I leave all that behind for a few days in southern Wisconsin. We'll be back late Saturday night.

The main part of the piece was that I'm taking my laptop along in hopes of staying at a motel with wireless internet access--as you've probably seen, these places are cecoming more common. That led to a discussion (tongue-in-cheek) of motel rooms I have known.

But it's too late to try to write it all again now, and I'm too angry at w.bloggar, you bastard! Why didn't you send my post? I didn't say anything mean about you. Until now, that is. You bastard!

And I still want to read the many friends' blogs that have been posted since this morning. And it's already 11:40 p.m. And we want to hit the road about 9 a.m. (though, frankly, it's a long shot). And I'm tired. And I'm still pissed. w.bloggar, you bastard!

Since I alluded to it earlier, I wanted to briefly mention that my doctor's appointment today went well. BP is down. The blood tests were fine. I'll survive a while longer, I guess.

I'll call it good for now. There's just one final thing I wanted to say: w.bloggar, you bastard!

Time is tight

This is proving to be a difficult week.

Part of the difficulty is keeping up with everyone else's blogs. When I see one I like, I hit the "add blog alert" line. So when the literary bug bites a lot of them, I'm reading a lot and not writing very much.

There just hasn't been a lot of free time lately, either. To wit: Sunday, we left town to visit my mom. A good day. Monday, a busy day at work, then a meeting across the county that should have lasted an hour and wound up at 2 1/2. A local city council, where every minor issue is examined in close detail.

Today, I have another meeting in the early afternoon. At least this one usually doesn't go so long. This evening, unless it gets too rainy (we've had some rain moving through last night and this morning), I'd better get some Little League pictures.

Tomorrow morning, another meeting at 7 a.m. Then, at 9 a.m., I have a doctor's apppointment, where he will ask how I'm doing with my high blood pressure. Insert your own joke here.

Starting Thursday: A "vacation" that is really more like a long weekend. Gone Thursday morning, back home late Saturday night.

---

I also managed to get someone on ModBlog mad at me. She had replied to one of my previous posts, and I typed a reply to her.

But instead of hitting "reply to post", I had hit "edit post." So when I hit the Submit button, all of a sudden my words were there instead of hers, under her name.
Alas, there's no Undo button on ModBlog. So I figured the only civil thing to do would be to (A) delete her reply, which I had just destroyed; and (B) write her a note to apologize and ask her to post her thoughts again.

She responded that she was mad, but since she doesn't go to sleep angry, she will forgive me.

Well, maybe she really means that, and maybe she doesn't. I'm not so sure. Time will tell. At any rate, she hasn't reposted what she wrote about what I wrote, and I'm suspecting our blogging friendship has been forever tarnished by my stupid and careless mistake of clicking the wrong button.

Good friendships have blown apart over far lesser things. Except when they do, were they ever really "friendships" to begin with?

Unanswered questions

This was inspired by a recent post by Gabriel's Trumpet, who wrote about the existence of God and her personal journey from Atheism to Theism.

I read it just after talking to my wife about my sister-in-law--they talked on the phone the other day. My wife is the oldest of eight, and my SIL is the youngest. And she has had a hard life. She got mixed up with drugs in high school, tried suicide, grew up a little but had the misfortune to fall in love with a series of nogoodniks, raising two kids basically by herself. In recent years, she has been having heart troubles and had a pacemaker put in her chest. She had to go on disability because of her heart condition.

And then things changed. A few years ago, she got involved in a local church, got religion for really the first time--and at about the same time met this older guy at the church, whom she fell in love with. He moved in with her, and they were happy. We met him. He seemed like a nice guy. Things were well. They were happy. Until he started having troubles with coughing, and the doctors discovered lung cancer.

He died last summer. They had married right at the very end, and he passed away that night. Can you imagine her heartbreak?

So now the anniversary is coming up, and she wants out of the home they lived in. She had been planning to move to a nearby city (where her son lives) and had been living in the house by herself. But now, with the anniversary coming up, she wants to move out now. My wife said she's depressed.

Anyway, last summer, as we were driving home from the funeral, I talked to my wife about it and told her that I was really having a hard time dealing with this. Look at my SIL. She has really had a hard life. Sort of ostracized from the rest of her family--my wife is the only sister she really can talk to. Yes, she's made plenty mistakes and has paid for them, in many ways. Two rotten marriages. And then she meets this other guy. And he gets her to go to church again for the first time in many years. My SIL feels really loved by a man for the first time in her life.
And what happens? They get a year together before he dies.

So, I told my wife, I don't know how to feel about this. What am I supposed to think? Was this some part of a heavenly "divine plan" for her? Is it "God's will" that she never feel loved? Did God want her to go through all the shit she had to, then find someone whom she could love and cherish--only to have it all taken away again?

That's cruel. And, I asked my wife, why? Why would God do this to her, especially after how she had turned to him again?

I didn't get an answer. I still don't have an answer. I still don't know why. Maybe I never will know. But what I do know is that today I have a lot less confidence in the divine presence that I was taught about in Sunday school. Maybe it's just another thing I learned when I was young that turns out to be something altogether different.

---

Hey, I want to thank everyone for their positive wishes this morning, in my test. It was an entry exam for getting a job with the Postal Service. Yep, the guys who bring you your snail mail, bills, credit card applications and tax forms.
They were testing on various skills, like comparing addresses, filling out forms, address zones and memorization (the part I was most worried about).

I think I did OK. They'll eventually send me my scores.

Do you want to guess how long I've been at the paper where I work? How about nearly 25 years? So why am I looking for a change? Money. The postal service may be deadly dull work by comparison, but even their entry level positions pay a lot better than the weekly newspaper biz, not to mention better insurance and other benefits. I figured it out--out of my gross pay last year, health insurance alone took away over 20% of it.

So we'll see what happens. They'll let me know how I did. If I did well enough, I'll get word of an opening once in a while. I'm not expecting anything to happen in the short term. Way too early to start counting chickens.

Brief--I'm not joking--update

Hooray! I located those two missing DVDs last night. Both were hiding in bags--one was snuggled in with some T-shirts I bought recently.

The camera manual is still AWOL. I mislaid it someplace. Maybe if I ever clean up this desk, I'll get my hands on it.

---

The other bit of news is a little more serious, at least for me. I need some of you nice people to say something good on my behalf. Tomorrow morning--less than nine hours from now--I'm going to take an exam that could lead to me moving on to another job. I think I'll do OK--I sure hope so--but if you can send some magical brain boost my way, I'll be grateful. I'll tell you about it afterward.

Be good. Be gentle. Peace and love. And never thirst!

Weekly update + my book report

Update time: So far this week, here's how I'm doing on my to-do list:

• Written friends: Check!
• Found digital camera manual: No. Haven't started looking. But I downloaded a PDF version, so I have the info I need. Still want to find the manual, tho.
• Found missing DVDs: No. Barely looked.
• Planning trip: Check!
• Mowed grass: Check!

I hurried to get the grass cut last night to beat the monsoon's arrival. According to the weather forecasts, our area was supposed to be rocked with rain and storms all week. But so far (as of Wednesday morning), we've seen one half-hearted rumble of thunder (while I was resting after finishing the mowing) and a brief sprinkle.

There's supposed to be a mass of rain coming in today from Minnesota. That's what the radar shows. Of course, that's what it showed yesterday, but it apparently got lost somewhere in northern Wisconsin. Took a wrong turn on U.S. 8, perhaps.

The other amazing piece of news is that my official ModBlog stats show that 8 people have visited my site today, and I have 142 page views. Uhh-huh!

According to the "latest visitors" column, exactly one person has stopped by since midnight.

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I've been tagged to pass along info on my reading habits. That can, at times, be highly embarrassing. Not because of what I read but because of what I don't. Just out of college, I was pretty up on the best-sellers, but I got away from that.

Today, I like to watch sports and movies on TV and news, but that's about all. Regular TV prime-time fare: I barely give it a glance. What's this "Survivor" thing people seem so hepped up about? Don't people have anything better to do?

Instead, I search here and there on the internet, read blogs, occasionally write them, swap e-mails and try to learn new stuff.

The biggest challenge of this, frankly, is finding new people to "tag," since I think everyone in Modblogland has already been a tagee. Darn, and I wanted to tag someone so much! (I tagged my wife pretty good last night, by the way, so I'm feeling pleased with myself today.)

OK, back to business.

How many books to I have? Tons! There is no way to give even a remotely accurate figure. It's the old "books are friends" thing, and I don't like to let them go. I know I have to do a serious triage and get rid of a lot of them--maybe 2/3rds of them. It'll hurt--I know that. It won't be happy work.

Book I am currently reading: It's "The Last Juror" by John Grisham. About a little Mississippi town, a small newspaper, a murder and the search for vengeance. Just started reading it yesterday--so I can have a "book I am currently reading" reply for this questionnaire. Hey, I'm not dumb--am I?

Actually, it's been a fast read so far. A friend lent it to me, and I put off reading it until, in her last e-mail, she reminded me of it. So I'd better polish this one off. Lately, I've been staying up a little late, reading blogs and getting to bed late--that's when I usually read, to give my brain a workout before I go to sleep.

Last book I bought: Oh, that's the second question. Hmm. Let me think for a moment. The quilting/inspiration book I bought my wife yesterday probably doesn't count. I'll have to get back to you on that.

Last book I read again: That's easy. "Stranger in a Strange Land" by Robert Heinlein. I got the 1961 version, and now I'm going through the 1991 uncut version. (Wait: Are you reading two books at the same time? Actually, three or four. But the Grisham book is going to be at the front of the line for a while.)

More about "Strangers" later.

Five books I would take along to a desert island:

(This assumes I won't have to spent 95% of my waking hours seaching for food and water, fighting off wild animals (or mosquitoes) who know a tasty tidbit when they see one or straining to build a shelter to protect me from the world. Sort of like Tom Hanks in "Castaway.")

1. "Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain. This is a book about a boy named Huckleberry Finn. America was younger but it really wasn't an age of innocence. The fuse was burning when Huck and Jim went down the Mississippi on that raft. He saw nobility, he saw cowardice, he saw manipulation, he saw courage, and most of all he saw the humanity of his raftmate, whom he had thought of as only a slave. And when the chips were down and Huck had to decide whether to do the right thing (as he had been taught by 1840s society) or whether to condemn himself to hell, he said, "All right then, I'll go to hell!" He protected the runaway Jim, whom he thought of as the property of a man he didn't know, a man who had never done Huck any harm.

2. "Tom Jones" by Henry Fielding. What a wonderful book! What adventures Tom had! His lust for living and ladies got him into trouble time and again, but his basically honest nature saw him through the hard times. Fielding's book is wordy and very long--but very funny, with many keen insights into human nature that ring as true in the 21st century as they were in the 18th century, when it was written. I think this will be my next re-read.

3. "Death in the Afternoon" by Ernest Hemingway. I could name any of Papa's novels, but I choose this straightforward documentary on bullfighting in Spain from just after World War I. Warning: The punctuation is atrocious, as commas are used for semicolons, and vice versa. But I worked through it, mumbling under my breath at times, and I found it an engrossing book, a look into a world that few Americans know much about and practically none cares for. But how's this for a savage comment on man? Among the pictures is one of a dead bullfighter in a hospital room, surrounded by about a dozen men--one of them is looking down at the dead man, the rest at the camera. Hemingway's caption: "Only one man is concerned for Joselito. The rest are concerned with how they look in the picture." Who are the beasts, anyway?

4. "Stranger in a Strange Land" by Robert Heinlein. I had this book years ago, read about half of it, it got lost (or I got busy on something else), and I only got it again recently. And it absolutely blew me away! The book hit a very resonant chord with my beliefs about love and monogamy and caring for one another. "Thou art God!" How's that for a concept? What would the world be like if we chose to see the divine in one another instead of our failings? What would the world be like without jealousy and pettiness and spite and manipulation? What if we made a priority of giving each other pleasure and happiness? To me, it's very close to my notion of what Heaven is like. And if Heaven isn't like that, I don't think I want to go.

5. I wanted to put in a book by a woman. I had to think for a while, since my favorite authors are male. And then the lightbulb lit. Of course! "My Secret Garden" by Nancy Friday. Technically, she didn't write it. She collected the erotic fantasies of many women, and they shared dreams and wishes that are light years beyond those of mortal men. Erotic thoughts and dreams and wishes. I deeply respect those fantasies and the imagination they show. The book is not classic literature--but if I'm on an island by myself, with no female companionship at hand ... hey, I'm not dead yet, you know!

Next five to tag: Hey, any of you Modbloggers haven't been tagged yet? What about my dear young friend BlinkFreak? How about an English perspective, operaredhead? Have you done this yet, Disturbed Angel? And I'm dying to know what's in Purely Pink's bookcase. How many llama books does Lady Visine have? And Mystic Song shows her current read at her site. What else is there?

Wait a minute! That's six! Oh, well. Four of the six have probably done this already, but my pea-sized brain forgets. It's that dreaded disease among people my age, known as CRS.

As for myself, I'm going to try to track down "The Alchemist," because from what Squilla wrote, it looks like my kind of book. (And yes, I absolutely adore Gary Larson's cartoons, too.)

---

What a surprise! The latest cloudburst from the Gopher State has fallen apart. Looks like I won't have to build that ark after all.

In recovery mode

I think these last few days are catching up with me.

Sunday was spent writing, writing and more writing. Not much of a day off. Today, it was very intense work, writing some more, working up photos and getting the pages together.

I supposedly had a baseball game tonight, but when I got to the park, nobody was there. Evidently the schedule was changed, and they wanted to keep it a secret. So I went back home with the evening suddenly open. But I think I'm feeling the effects of the last few days. I caught up with a few friends' blogs, then I wanted to watch at least some of a Hitchcock movie ("Blackmail," his first talkie). But I just couldn't keep from dozing off on the couch, so that will have to wait.

Now I've got the NBA playoffs on, but I may be switching to something else. CBC has a docudrama about the huge explosion in Halifax in 1917, and I liked the first part last night (while I was trying to work on my stories), so I could watch that, checking in on the game during commercials. If I don't doze off again.

Really, it's probably just my body trying to catch up with itself. I have had such an intense few days, now it's time to recover a little.

Much less intense this week, fortunately. Among the things I have on the to-do list:
1. Where is that manual for my digital camera?
2. What in heck happened to my "Saved" and "House of Flying Daggers" DVDs? And just when I wanted to relax with one of them, too!
3. Write some friends. Basically, it's a condensed version of these blogs. That's how I think it's going to wind up. Just the interesting parts. In other words, not this part.
4. Plan a little trip out of town next week. Wife and I are going on a mini vacation, to southern Wisconsin. Three days. We can afford three-day vacations, as long as we pick low-cost motels.

Otherwise, I'm pissed about the Supreme Court's verdict on medical marijuana, issued earlier today. Please understand: I don't smoke it and I have tried it only once or twice in my life. (I have never been a smoker.) I don't have any friends or family who have problems with pot or who are battling major diseases. Drugs have never been a part of my life.

So this is my reaction to the Supreme Court decision: How asinine! To deny seriously ill people something that can help them feel a little better--how repulsively short-sighted!

I'll tell you, folks: I love my country, but I'm getting damn tired of being embarrassed to say I'm an American. That is getting real old.

An exhausting day

I haven't vanished off the face of the earth. But it's been hectically crazy these last few days with all the high school spring sports finals I've been trying to cover. The final one was today, the U.P. Finals track meet. I started there about 9 a.m. and it finally ended about 5 p.m. I won't even estimate how many miles I walked, except to note that the distance from A to B was never a straight line.

Often, the shortest path from one event to another was shaped like a "W," and each leg of the W was about 100 yards long. Back and forth all day, trying to keep up with events here and there. My legs are tired.

It was mostly cloudy and muggy, but the sun popped out at times--long enough for me to get my first sunburn of the year.

Tomorrow (Sunday) I've got to write everything up and go through all the photos I took so we can put the paper together on Monday.

But that's the last really crazy week now until the fall sports start in late August. We'll have things like the rodeo and county fair and other events during the summer, but that coverage won't have to be as intense. But we had a good track team this spring, and they wound up in second place as a team--probably their best finish ever.

When I got home, I took everyone out for a pizza, and now I'm trying to catch up with what's happened during the day.

What's happening now is that there's some storms moving north through Wisconsin and up toward us. We've got a tornado watch until late tonight, and it's supposed to be stormy tomorrow.

Nonetheless, I enjoy thunderstorms. They're fun--especially when they move through during the night. The light flashing. The thunder rumbling. Mind you, I'm not talking about the scary storms, but rather the garden variety storms, which don't come around here that often. If we do get storms, they will be our first for this year--and it's already early June.

From courtroom to blogroom

I am sort of in between articles this week, and the pile of stuff left to do is pretty small. Which is a good place to be on Thursday afternoon. It's really nice out today, too. And here I am, looking out the window.

On Friday, I'm out of town in the afternoon (high school golf finals) and then Saturday I'm busy all day (track finals). They're both about 50 to 60 miles away. More driving, more gas.

So I was looking over the news, and two major celebrity court cases caught my eye. "The Runaway Bride" and Michael Jackson.

The Runaway Bride. Sigh. It's too bad that this isn't the '30s and she doesn't look like Claudette Colbert and didn't meet up with Clark Gable along the way, with "the walls of Jericho" and everything. (Assuming you've seen "It Happened One Night"--and if you haven't, you should.) It's an old familiar story--cold feet just before the wedding. Infamously by men, but women get cold feet, too. Thinking about the life she'll be leaving behind, the terra incognita she will be entering. It can be damn scary.

In Claudette's case, it was her heart instructing her brain to flee from a worthless, pointless life with someone rich and dull. In the current case, the reasons are far from clear, and I guess she's getting the help she needs to sort her life out.

I guess you can get into a debate about marriage from there. Since I've been wed for so long, this may sound strange, but I really don't endorse it. I see plenty of problems with the "institution" as it exists today that aren't easily fixed. Like jealousy. Like monogamy. Like taking the other partner for granted. Like boredom.
And (let me add) while I am very hetero, I believe that gays/lesbians really do fall in love, too. So why aren't their relationships given the same legal seal of approval? Politicians and religious zealots, of course.

The Christian Taliban in Michigan pushed through a ballot proposal last fall, joining in the nationwide fad during the presidential election. Just think. If only the Massachusetts Supreme Court had just kept its big yap shut and not "legalized" gay marriage, it wouldn't have been a hot button issue in 2004 and George Bush would be a former president in 2005. [Sigh!]

Our other big legal case is, of course, Michael Jackson and what he supposedly did with a certain young boy. It's going before a jury in the next few hours.

Well, I'm definitely no Michael Jackson fan, but I have to wonder whether he's being prosecuted/persecuted just for being terminally weird. I'm old enough to remember the little lead singer with the Jackson 5, and I just can't understand how or why that happy little guy morphed into what we see today. What screwed up his mind so to make him want to change his appearance so much? My theory is that something must have really gone wrong when he was growing up. And I feel sorry for him. I really do.

I haven't followed the case closely enough to decide whether he really did something wrong with the kid or if this is just another round of celebrity leeches trying to rob someone in a courtroom.

But occasionally I say thanks to God for being poor and unknown. This is one of those times.

I have nothing to say

This is one of those days when I really can't come up with a topic that's new or interesting. (Yeah, I can hear you saying: "Do you ever?")

It's late afternoon, it's lovely outside (about 75F/23C) and the sun is out, and I can think of about 1.2 jillion places I'd rather be than here right now. Even saw some girls outside, sunning themselves, while I was out running errands this morning.

Tonight, I have to cover a dinner. Well, it's a meal. At least David mowed the lawn this week. Don't know if he banged his head, loosing some controversial new insights into the world.

One more thing from over the holiday weekend I can report. We did visit my mom and went for another drive to see if the bison were any closer than last time. As it turned out, they were, and I got some nice pictures, which I'm sure I will be sharing with you before long. They looked like they were posing for the nickle.

I love those old, craggy beasts. I've never been out west, and the only buffalo I've seen have been on farms like these. I can only imagine about 150 years ago when the Great Plains were full of millions of them. That must have been a sight!

The sad truth is that I've never been able to travel much in my life. Never been out of the Great Lakes area. Never seen an ocean or a mountain or a city where English is not the main language. I've wanted to, but it's a matter of getting the time and the money at the same time, and that's the tricky part.

I'm not feeling bad for myself about it, but at the same time, I know that I have missed a lot in life--some good, some bad. But that's what life is, the good and the bad. And I feel you can't appreciate one without the other. I've always thought of it as the old yin-yang thing--you need the bad to appreciate the good, the cold to appreciate warmth, rejection to appreciate acceptance, etc. etc. etc.

I've always been searching for love, for people to accept my love. Can't get it unless you give it away. After all, we all know that the world could use lots more of it.

I'll probably pick up this topic some other day. Oops, here's some stuff I have to do before finishing work. Bye for now.

Crosses in the sand

We all know that our "national holiday" in the U.S. is Independence Day, better known as the Fourth of July. I'm wondering whether that should be changed to the last Monday in May, Memorial Day.

I started thinking that after attending a pair of Memorial Day ceremonies at cemeteries around the area yesterday morning. They were small events--this is not a big area, after all--but they were very sincere tributes to the men (and women) who died while serving their country during wartime.

At our paper, we've had a special section for the last few years where we interview vets and learn about their war experience. That's one of the special issues I enjoy the most, because the people I talk to are just ordinary people who found themselves thrown into extraordinary circumstances and did their very best to carry out their duty. They did so in many ways--from running the ship engines that transported supplies across the Pacific, to running the tanks that crossed the Rhein at Remagen, to getting trapped during the Battle of the Bulge. We've been concentrating on the World War II vets, because they're dying off rapidly--the war ended 60 years ago.

These men are proud of what they did, and most are involved in military organizations now, such as the Legion and VFW--but they also know about all the misery and heartbreak caused by war.

One of the speakers yesterday talked movingly about the monuments to the soldiers around the country and in Washington, D.C., Arlington National Cemetery and the Vietnam Memorial. He had to pause several times to keep his voice from cracking.

Then, last night, I was watching The National (the nightly newscast on CBC, which we get on our cable system), when they reported on a group of veterans in Santa Monica, Calif., who are placing small white crosses on the Santa Monica beach every Sunday, one for each U.S. soldier killed in Iraq, with their names. The 1600+ crosses are arranged with great precision, and one of the spokesmen explained they do this "to call attention to the horrible price that we pay for the invasion of Iraq."

I was pretty touched, all the more so since the consequences of the U.S. doing what it did were obvious to many of us as our president single-mindedly pushed us and pushed us to war. True, a tyrant was deposed. But think about the enormous price our country, our people and our economy are paying! How do you spell Iraq in seven letters?

I don't know what to write next. I'm just terribly sad about all those crosses they showed in the sand. Not that they're there ... but why they're there.

It's all very logical

The holiday weekend is about half over. It's Sunday night, and I'm doing a little writing while drying off after a shower, yellow towel wrapped around me and my hair pointing every which way (which seems to be the fashion nowadays). The Pistons are trying to catch up with Miami--it's early in the fourth quarter.

Monday is Memorial Day, and I'll be going to two different cemeteries for pictures of the ceremonies in the morning. The weather is supposed to be fine. Then we'll most likely be going out to visit my mom--better remember to phone her later, so she can hide the silverware.

On Saturday, with the paper all done with, we went to Eagle River, Wis., to see the new Star Wars movie. We'd usually go to Iron Mountain for that, but my son wanted to see the theater in Eagle River--they're about the same distance from us, just under an hour away. Enjoyed the movie a lot more than the two previous episodes.

At this point, I was planning to embed a (very obvious) spoiler in this blog--you'd have to click a link to see it--but I don't know how to do that yet.

(I also don't know how to embed pictures in blogs, either. I want them so that the type runs along the side, but I couldn't figure out how (or even if it's possible). I don't like blank space. Been working on newspapers too long, maybe.)

I also invested in a puzzle book. One of those cheapie "Logic Puzzles" books you see at the newsstands. The stars were lined up for it--I think I'm pretty good at logical thinking, so I figured it would be a good mental exercise. They have five levels of puzzles--I thought I'd start with the 3-star puzzles to get warmed up and then go for something challenging.

I bet you can guess the rest of the story. I'm finding that the 1-star puzzles are plenty challenging enough, thank you! I also learned very quickly that a nice dark pen with bold ink doesn't cut it for something like that--some No. 2 pencils are what's called for, not to mention a good eraser.

Oh, I still think I'm fairly good at figuring out puzzles. Well, a little good. Well, better than the average bear. Well, better than an 8-year-old. Well ...

Fast women and the media

While I usually follow the sports news pretty closely, I don't follow auto racing that much. But I can't understand all the buzz about Danica Patrick, who is one of the rookie racers in the Indianapolis 500 today (green flag less than two hours away, as a matter of fact).

Patrick is a woman. Well, there have been (three) women racers in the 500 before. What makes Patrick the subject of this media hype, though, is that she is 23 years old, and she's driving a really fast car--she's got the fourth position in the starting grid, which is really good.

Here's how the CBS Sportsline.com blurb describes it:

"A rookie. The field's lone woman. The sport's possible savior. Danica Patrick bears a heavy burden in today's 89th Indy 500. (1 ET). But Robby Gordon says she has a sizeable edge."

In case you're wondering: The "sizable edge," as it turns out, is that she weighs about 100 pounds--about 100 pounds less than the average Indy driver. So her car weighs less with driver on board, which helps with gas mileage.

So in the runup (a cricket term) to the 500, I'd guess 75% of the media coverage has centered squarely on her. People are saying that if Patrick wins, she could be give open-wheel racing (where the wheels are exposed, unlike the NASCAR hot rods) a major boost in the public eye. You know--a curiosity for the general public.

Patrick, for her part, speaks with great conviction and determination, that she plans to win. By all accounts, she has a very powerful car--she was the fastest driver on Friday, the only day the drivers could give their cars a workout in the final week before the 500.

So I expect to see feature upon feature about Patrick, this race's media darling, and very close attention to everything she does, for however long she does it.

It's way too much media hype for any rookie driver, male or female, but that's just how it is with televised sports nowadays. It seems the coverage is tailored to the very casual fan or to the merely curious, while the hardcore fans are basically taken for granted. I don't like being taken for granted.

That's the way ESPN has evolved in the last five years or so. Fact: The "E" in ESPN stands for Entertainment. While the E has always been before the S (Sports) in the network's name, for the last few years they have given giving the entertainment aspect of a sports event more importance than the event itself. ESPN SportsCenter nowadays seems more like a sports-oriented version of "Entertainment Tonight."

And that's too bad. I remember when ESPN SportsCenter was really, really good for sports fans. It wasn't that long ago, either. Those were the days!

See? I'm getting nostalgic again.

As for Danica, you go, girl. Hope you're able to ignore all the hype, focus on your driving, not get too aggressive (the pitfall of many rookie drivers), stay out of the wrecks and that your car's engine holds together. Have fun!

Deer me!

Good news! The early deadline is ancient history!

* * * * *

While we were finishing up the paper on Friday, my mom called. It was her 83rd birthday, and she said she got a wonderful birthday gift. She lives out in a rural area, about a mile from town, and she said that about an hour ago she saw a little fawn, just sitting in the grass in front of her wood shed. It had been there for about an hour, and she was getting anxious about it--where was its mom?

We talked about it, and I suggested she call the local DNR office. She called back a while later. The DNR people were interested, but they couldn't come out. The fawn was still there, sitting in the grass, nibbling at it occasionally.

Of course, this is the kind of picture I would die for! A baby fawn sitting in the grass, at close range! There were only two problems: (1) My mom lives about an hour away; and (2) it was production day on a short week with a short staff--I couldn't get away, no how, no way.

But I said that if the fawn was still there when we were done, I'd drive down, camera in hand. I figured we would be done in another 90 minutes.

In fact, it turned out to be more like 60 minutes, and I called my mom again to get an update. Was Bambi still there? She looked out her window. Then she said she would go outside. I waited. Finally she came back. Apparently, she said, mom must have finally returned. The fawn was gawn. (sorry, couldn't help that)

Ironically, that same day, as I was sneaking out the side entrance to visit the drive-thru lane of the local Taco Bell at noon, I looked to my right as I started to cross the street--and saw Bambi's mother standing there, watching. "Hello," I said, very friendly-like. She just stood there. I slowly turned around, walked the other way and went back inside the office to get my camera. About a minute later, I was back, camera in hand. Apparently sensing the imminent arrival of the local paparazzi, the deer was not here.

Remember, we're in a small town (about 3,000 people) along a two-lane highway in the North Woods, so deer sightings are pretty common events. Bambi and friends sure could use some pointers on jaywalking, though. Car-deer accidents are common. And because of the distances from small town to small town and the fact that many of the highways are just two lanes wide, people don't like to drive at the speed limit. Like my trip to the conference track meet a few days ago--it took a little over two hours, each way. No interstate highways up here.

So at dawn and especially at dusk, the deer lie in wait until cars are passing by before bursting out and doing a dance on the highway. Usually I can stop in time.
The last deer I hit was about six weeks after I got my current car--about two years ago. I was driving to a baseball game, just slightly over 55 mph, and the deer dashed in front of me with no warning. I may have had a quarter second to put on the brakes, but the deer had signed its death warrant. So I hit him, and my brand new used Mazda (it already had 43,000 miles on it; now it has 85K) had become the U.P.'s newest deermobile.

I've learned over the years that deer usually travel in twos, single file, especially when crossing highways. So if you see one deer crossing the road far enough ahead that it would be on the other side by the time you get there, you better slow down anyway--because another one may be just about to step onto the pavement.

The other thing I've learned--and you people who love animals aren't going to like this--is that the most important thing to do when a deer jumps in your path is to hit the brakes but DON'T TURN THE WHEEL! Because if you swerve, you run a good chance of turning into the path of another car or of going into a ditch and hitting a tree. The deer may get away scot-free, but you could be badly injured or killed. That's not good.

Insurance people tell me that. Don't turn the wheel! If you swerve and cause an accident, it will be your fault. But if you hit the deer, it's regarded as an "act of God" and won't affect your insurance rates.

So what scenario do they show in several TV auto insurance commercials? It's night, and a family is driving home when a deer pops up in the headlights. The people (from the point of view of the deer, I guess) look alarmed, and there is movement to the side.

The next scene shows the people standing outside the car, which has crashed into a tree. Everybody looks OK, and there is a tow truck there and a cop holding a clipboard, taking a report.

I have to laugh. If you hit a tree, you're not going to be feeling too well, even with airbags. Lesson in physics, people: Trees don't bend! They're very solid!
So the lesson is: Hit the damn deer! It's OK. God will make more.

Hasta la vista ... for a while

Sorry, but I must put this bit of self-expression on the shelf for a little while.

It's just becoming an absolutely hellish week at work. A short week (early deadlines) plus short-handed (1/3rd of our 3-person staff gone). So guess on whose shoulders everything winds up?

And I've got to do a bunch of things that didn't get done yesterday due to being out of town. And I'm achy from the long drive and from walking around for three hours--usually at a pretty fast pace, too. Lots of stuff for the camera.

That's the normal stuff. But now I've got the other stuff, too. So ... hope to see you in a few days, once life gets a little less crazy. Right now, I'm feeling uptight, and I don't enjoy that. That's what holiday deadlines are like for us.