Everyday Magic

We’d just touched down in New Orleans a few hours ago, so excited to be out of the cold that Kathy was taking pictures of palm trees in the cab ride from the airport. Now we were at a Pisces Party at the Blue Nile, a club on Frenchmen Street. The party was a zodiac-wide birthday party/concert, with a catered buffet we were too stuffed from our earlier dinner to take advantage of. The musicians -- including our pal Loren, who’d invited us -- were all born in Pisces, calling themselves Los Pescadores. Alvin Youngblood Hart was the headliner. The event was raising money for charity, to help fill in some of the cracks of mental health care than the Jindal administration had cut in its red-state zeal. Later, a pinata would be lowered -- a color printout of the governor’s face taped onto a mermaid’s body. Everyone took some whacks at it, spilling candy across the floor.

I was several beers in, and feeling euphoric. From the travel, from the drink, from the music and getting together with a distant friend. So when I pulled open the door to the men’s room and someone was pushing on the other side of it, I stepped back and said, “Whoa...it’s like magic.” (Like I said, euphoric. Easily amazed is another way to put it.)

He just smiled, in something of the same space. “Glory be to us, brother” he said, holding out a fist.

I bumped it. “Glory be to us.”

Can’t get more welcome than that.

Rob

Bear Witness

Behold! The Granite Terror of Saranac Lake!

Cast your eye upon his whelp, using tools to contain his prey!

Look upon him, and tremble!

BEHOLD!

Rob
(Had a great vacation, everybody. Wish I were still there, with all my pals.)

Strange Phenomenon

Sunday night around 9 p.m., Kathy and I were flying over Washington, D.C., landing in Dulles to make a connecting flight to Newark. We were sitting on opposite sides of the airplane, and both noticed the same strange phenomenon. We didn't talk about it at the time, but I mentioned it to Kathy a few hours later, and she said, "You saw that, too?"

Here's what we saw: Lights in specific areas of the city were blurry -- but strangely, there were areas night nearby where the lights were sharp and distinct. The blurry lights--whether they were street lights, building lights, or the head or tail lights of cars -- looked somehow rounder than they should have, as if blurred by a computer effect. It made me think of how satellite photos of sensitive areas are blurred out by Google Maps... but, of course, these weren't photos. This was real life.

I've no idea what caused this. Atmospheric conditions seem the most likely cause, but there were also places we could see lights clearly. Other notions that crossed my mind were that the government had set up subtle cloaking technology over D.C., to help prevent attacks. Or, that were were actually staring down into Google Maps, and were experiencing The Matrix as we flew over (and landed in it, and are living in it, still). Maybe Agents will be after me just for writing this.

Anyway, I would have forgotten about it, if Kathy hadn't noticed it too, and independently of me. But now I wonder: Trick of the light and air, cloaking technology, or a privileged glimpse to see how far down the rabbit hole goes?

Rob

Kayakin' with Mom

So down in Stone Harbor last week, Kathy & I scheduled a kayak trip around the wetlands. The house we were staying in was situated right on the bay -- we'd even set up some crab traps one morning -- and thought it would be great to have a little sunset tour.

That Thursday, riding our bikes back from the beach, Kathy took a spill on her bike. (Message to all those who've forgotten this since you were 12 -- don't ride a bike in flip-flops!) She scraped up her elbow pretty badly, and cut her knee, ankle and toe, as well. And took most of the force of the fall in her shoulder.

Since Kathy knew that she would not take it easy in the two-person kayak, we decided to cancel. Problem was, it was too late to cancel and get our money back, so we'd be out 80 bucks. So I asked my mom if she wanted to come out and join me. To my surprise, she said yes.

With Mom in front and me in the aft, we had a great time paddling the kayak all through the tour. (The tour was put on by the Wetlands Institute and Harbor Outfitters, by the way.) We paddled right past the dock behind our house, where the family was all waiting to see us. (Some of them were waiting fro us to come back, but we never passed the house again, instead making a big circle.)

The tour was a great time, and I highly recommend it. Somewhere around the halfway point, we pulld up the kayaks onto an embankment and took a short swim. The guides (Andrew and Erin, and I think maybe another Andrew?) told us all about the area, including how jetskis deplete the minnow population, and pointed out the various birds we saw -- a lot of laughing gulls, but some ospreys and egrets, too. They also showed us an edible plant ("full of potassium," they said) called glasswort that grows along the bay. was alike a thin finger made of grass, and it was crunchy and very salty -- not a surprise, considering it grows in bay water.

We traveled about six miles, all told, and ended the trip paddling into a beautiful sunset over the wetlands. And as much as I would have liked taking the trip with Kathy, I was really happy to spend those hours paddling around with my mom. I don't get to spend a lot of time, just me and her, and when we do spend time together, it's never doing anything -- it's generally just sitting and talking. So working together to propel a little plastic boat six miles? That was really something special.

Rob

Back From Vacation

And a good time was had by all.

Seventeen of us in one house, and we managed to have fun and live together amicably, like the ginormous family we are. We're a good, friendly bunch, and every now and then we get together and prove it.

There was only one member of the household with whom I must admit I have irreconcilable differences. And that is a cable television network called Nick Jr.

Now, Nick Jr. certainly does the trick of keeping the kids occupied and, for a while, quiet. And I realize that there were probably moments where it saved the day, temper-wise. But man... when it was on the TV, what I'd give to hear a baritone voice. And how can they call the show Go, Diego, Go! when he's always around? Worse yet, he never eats any of the animals he finds. (Though there was a wonderful moment when Go, Diego Go! became a drinking game, with us all tipping our beers whenever he spoke a word or phrase in Spanish. Gracias, Diego.)

Anyway, upon our arrival home, Kathy & I realized that there could be only one antidote to a week of intermittent kid's TV: the last two episodes of Deadwood. Swearing, murder, drinking, swearing, betrayal, complex sentence structures, swearing, prostitution, gambling, drugs, and did I mention the fucking swearing? Oh, home. You know just what I need sometimes.

I've got some good stories of vacation, and I intend to tell them here. But tonight's for homecoming. 

Anyway, here's a little video demonstrating why it's best that we didn't bring any Deadwood DVDs to the shore with us.

Rob

Welcome to Puerto Plata! (Special TMI Edition)

Lots of stories to catch up with, so here's one from our first day in Puerto Plata.

After our flight from Newark, Kathy and took the shuttle from the Puerto Plata airport to our resort. Our room wasn't quite ready for us, so we sat at the bar and the bartender (a vivacious and funny woman named Miriam) served us drinks of increasing strength. Mine was a rum/vodka/orange juice concoction called a Happy Happy, which certainly had that effect. The fact that we were finally on vacation helped, too.

Eventually, the porter took our bags to our room and we started to get set up there. And a little while after that, we discovered we hadn't locked the door, because the maid walked right into the room. Now, to spare my honey any undue embarrassment, instead of saying what we were doing, I'll just list the various things we weren't doing.

• We were not playing Scrabble.
• We were not watching TV.
• We were not filling out Sudoku boxes with random numbers.
• We were not not having sex.

That about covers it, I think.

Anyway, the maid just stands there, speaking very quickly in Spanish, most likely explaining how very embarrassed she is. But she just stands there. And talks and talks. And then, finally, runs out of the room. She's mortified, I'm sure. And Kathy and I burst out laughing.

"That's it," I say. "By the time the week is over, we're banging a maid." Kathy automatically fist-bumped my outstretched hand, and then said, "I can't believe I just fist-bumped that."

But she did.* And for the rest of the week, our maid was all smiles whenever she saw us. Even when we were dressed.

Rob

*Although we didn't, of course.

Cracking the Books

I don't have time tonight to get into what I did in Puerto Plata, so here's what I read there (and since):

Riding the Rap. An Elmore Leonard novel about Raylan Givens, now best known for being the lead character of the new show on FX, Justified. The novel was terrific (I expect no less from Leonard), and there were a lot of elements taken from it used in Episode 4: "Fixer."

Last Words: My brother gave me George Carlin's autobiography for my birthday last year, and I finally got a chance to read it. I planned on reading a chapter or so and then start another novel, but it was so engrossing that I'd finished it by the time were were stateside again. There aren't many showbiz biographies I'm interested in, but Carlin's a hero of mine. He didn't disappoint.

The Book of Three. The first book in Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain series. I've read this a number of times. Inspired by Welsh mythology, these books are to me what Tolkien's are to most of my friends. They're the fields of fantasy I played in as a kid, and they've only gotten broader and richer since I've returned. Next up is The Black Cauldron.

Power Girl: A New Beginning. I missed the first six issues of Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray & Amanda Connor's Power Girl comics, so I'm happy to see the book I've dug since issue 7 started out so strong. Every character Connor draws is filled with such personality and life, and Palmiotti and Gray provide her with playful scripts that never paint the hero is a real, flesh-and-blood person... and give the book great New York flavor, as well.

And rounding things off with another gritty crime drama, there's Daredevil: Cruel and Unusual, an well-done five-issue sequence which starts with Matt Murdock at a psychological low point, until he's confronted with a chance to defend a career criminal on death row...but who didn't do the crime he's going to die for. So why'd he confess? By Ed Brubaker, Greg Rucka, Michael Lark and Paul Azaceta.

There you have it: Rob's Reading Corner.

Rob

Gone.

Be back soon. Sunburnt, drunk, and ready to blog.

Rob

I Just Realized I'll Be Missing the Lost Season Finale

Appropriately enough, I'll be on an island.

Anyhow, this will have to hold me over until we get back from our trip:



Rob

If I Can't Score It, It Ain't a Word

Lately, I’ve been playing a lot of Scrabble on Facebook. Call it Lexulous, call it Wordscraper, it’s still Scrabble. Capital S, eight letters, 17 points, and a proper noun so you can't play it anyway.

Thing is, I’ve noticed that there are words that are missing. Not so much words that are missing from the acceptable word lists, but actual letter combinations that should make words and somehow don’t.

WOY, for example. I imagine it as a popular game in the Polynesian islands involving a coconut and butterfly nets.

PLUD. An unripe plum.

GLAB. That film in your mouth after a night of drinking.

HULVEY. That feeling of wanting to eat even after you’re stuffed.

PROTT. Any detritus found between the toes.

ZAY. An overall term for any sort of animal-to-animal communication.

VULT. A temperature-sensitive place to store chocolate; something of a Cadbury humidor.

TWONK. Physical assault similar to a purple nurple.

XUMI. A smoky taste, but chewy, too.

QUOKE. A triple-or-more jump in checkers, getting kinged in the middle.


Anyhow, this is also a roundabout way of telling you that I'll be running off to parts unknown, kicking back with some friends for a little while. Don't know if I'll have internet access, and don't know if I'll use it much if I have it. But I'll see you in a week or so, 'kay?

Rob

If You Go Out to the Woods Today, You're In For a Big Surprise

Years ago, some friends and I were at the San Diego Zoo, where we encountered an animal we'd never seen before. Heck, I'd never heard of it, and I don't think Chris and Allen had either. The animal was the takin, a hoofed mammal that's a relative to the ox. Here's one:


Anyway, this creature was entirely new to us. And the sign made us even more curious. The bold print read:

Takin
From Behind, Like Teddy Bears

The story under that headline (and I might have every single detail wrong, but I've never forgotten the gist) explained that the daughter of the naturalist who was studying the takins used to only be able to catch a glimpse of their hindquarters, as they'd always run away when people approached. She's see them darting into the forest, and, only seeing two of their legs, thought they looked like teddy bears standing up.Hence the subhead, "From behind, like teddy bears."

Now, there's a certain myopia to jargon. If you're familiar with a word, you know just how it's pronounced, how it's used in a sentence, etc. You don't think about misinterpretations. As a zoologist, you know that "takin" rhymes with "rockin'".

Not so with your casual passersby. To us, well... I won't go into the details, but I think this picture says it all.


Rob
(P.S. You're better off not Googling "teddy bear sex," like I did to find that picture. Trust me on this.)

Speech!

I was on vacation throughout the Democratic National Convention, so I missed pretty much all of the speeches. (Because I was in a hot tub. So there.) And then I was home for the Republican Convention, but I didn't watch because there are too many items in my family room that could break my television screen when hurled with appropriate force.

I'd intended to go back and watch some of the speeches online, but so far, I haven't gotten around to it. Most video clips I watch online run for about as much time as it takes a panda to sneeze, or Strong Bad to answer an email. So once again, my attention span has failed me.

But today I realized that most of the speeches from both conventions are available as free podcasts. And that, I can do. So if you see me on the train, nodding along with my earbuds in, I'm probably rockin' out to the jammin' grooves of Dennis Kucinich.

Rob

What I Did on My Summer Vacations

Listed briefly:

Swam under a freezing cold waterfall.

Hiked to a boulder field.

Relaxed in two different hot tubs.

Drank in two different hot tubs.

Was asked if I was trying to drown myself in one of those hot tubs. (I wasn't; I was just tired of listening, and put my ears underwater.)

Played Magic: The Gathering.

Watched a ton of That 70s Show.

Saw Tropic Thunder. (Lots o' fun.)

Rode my bike around Corolla, NC.

Ate the best chicken I have ever had the pleasure of tasting. Oh good god, more please.

Cooked pulled pork. Cooked lasagna.

Took a kayak wildlife tour in the northern outer banks.

Rode in a SUV over miles of beach.

Saw lots of wild horses.

Recognized that we really need dunce caps to take things to the next level.

Camped.

Drank.

Started to learn how to play "Cruel to be Kind" on the guitar.

Participated in a campground version of The Dating Game. Claimed my special porno talent was "deep sea diving." Lost, but got a free condom anyway.

Lost a free condom. Possibly in the wash.

Tried honey whiskey, against a magic eight ball's advice.

Saw Steve Earle kick ass onstage. And Kenny White, and the Felice Brothers, and so many more.

Threw my nephew around a pool.

Explained the physics behind shotgunning beers to my niece; briefly regretted it.

Borrowed my mom's car, making the North Carolina drive much better than it would have been otherwise. (Thanks, Mom!)

Missed pretty much all of the Democratic National Convention.

And the Olympics. Though I did see one Ethiopian runner pass his countryman at the last minute to take the bronze medal in the marathon. That had to be one uncomfortable flight home.

Swam in some pummeling waves at the beach. Bodysurfed to exhaustion.

Played beach volleyball.

Read Little Girl Lost, The Way Some People Die, Songs of Innocence, and The Thin Man.

Hung out with friends.

Hung out with family.

Bought more fudge than I should have.

Saw the Wright Brothers Memorial in Kitty Hawk.

Ate a dozen raw oysters.

And more, I'm sure... but it slips my mind at the moment.

Rob

Home From Vacations

After driving and driving and driving and staying with friends and driving and driving and swapping cars and driving and driving, we're home from our vacations at last.

More later on how it all went.

Rob

Old Dog

Thirty-eight is too goddamn old to be learning how to drive.

Rob

Regarding the Previous Post

In my haste to publish, there's one thing I forgot to add to my last post:

"Boo hoo. Poor me, I'm going on vacation. Again."

Gotta keep things in perspective.

Rob

Vacation Overload

So we’re driving to North Carolina this weekend—the last leg of our first-and-only August Vacation Overload. Three vacations in a month, scheduled so close together to accommodate a lot of diverse schedules. Speaking for myself, my wife, and our two lonely ferrets, We Will Not Do This Again. We’ve had fun on our trips, but it’s not so much fun doing laundry from the suitcase to load it into a backpack to unload it, wash it again and load it into a suitcase. And I hate seeing Gus and She-Devil settle into their comfortable routine in our living room, knowing that in a few days they’ll be having to adjust to new surroundings again.

This is wearying on a number of different levels, even before we get to the ten hours of driving.


But ten hours of driving is exactly what’s looming in our future. Luckily, we’re breaking it up, stopping over with family on the way down, and friends on the way back. But that’s still a lot of driving, and we’re taking Kathy’s car because she has air conditioning. My car used to have air conditioning, but it’s been fixed and refilled a few times now and somehow the freon keeps leaking and I’m sick of wasting the money and putting freon into the world for no good reason and anyway my windows roll down so screw it.

(Years ago, my family had a car with a broken A/C and windows that could no longer roll down. My friend Chris and I took it car shopping one July day; it was our only way to the dealerships. At every red light, we opened both doors wide so we could get some sort of a breeze through the sweltering hotbox of the Reliant. It was so hot I was actually slowing down so I would miss green lights. When we stepped out of the car, it looked like we were climbing out of a swimming pool.)

Anyway, we’re taking Kathy’s car. Which has one obstacle:A stick shift.

So I suggested that this week we trade cars, so I can drive to work in her car and get used to the controls, since it’s really unfair and impractical to make her do all the driving for this vacation. And if there’s one thing I know, it’s that it’s easier to seep into my unconscious mind when I’m sleepy than at any other time of the day.

So this long post all comes down to the one point I wanted to make: There was a little bit of nervousness to my morning because of the stick shift, but nowhere near the white-knuckle terror of parking in the Canyonero.

This was really going to be a one-sentence post. Boy, did it go off the rails.

Rob

Macabre Tales of Vacation

So it’s the next to last day of vacation, and one of the kids sharing the house with us—the youngest girl, a golden-haired cherub—asks me if I’d like my fortune. She has one of those folded paper oracles that kids make. So I pick a color, and she spells it out, folding and unfolding the paper flower. B-R-O-W-N. Then I pick a number, and the counts it out, moving the flower again. Then I pick my final number, and she lifts the flap and says:

“You’ll live tomorrow.”

Which is nice, I guess. But even as innocently as she said it, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the kids were about to orchestrate a great culling of the tall ones, and I alone would be spared.

Rob

Ah, Publishing!

Foolish me. I looked at my work email while I was on vacation. But my inbox was largely taken up by two message threads: "33 Best Belgian Ales" and "Summertime BEER!"

Ah, publishing. Without a pub, how could we even spell it?

Rob

On Vacation

See you in a week.

Rob