The weather is making...

everything else more difficult. The air is like syrup. The front of the house looks like a police station with the all the 'no parking' paraphernalia. The 5 sq. meter lawn needs cutting again. And, it took forever for cocktail hour to get here.

Feeling kind of crabby, old and crabby, really. Tired too. So, I'll spare you nice people all the what fors.


QUOTE OF THE DAY:

I like rice. Rice is great if you're hungry and want 2000 of something. - Mitch Hedberg


SERIAL STORY Her Viking:

We left off here....

...like, seeing no evidence of jewelry and wondering if her Viking had ever worn any. Perhaps he was simply concerned that he might break a clasp while walking the beach. Once dropped, the widow knew, nothing could be found in the sand.

She asked herself if he might like a gold bracelet. It would go nicely with his tanned skin and strong arms.


Why her Viking stopped at certain spots, studied the waves, and then threw a coconut into the surf still hadn't been sorted out altogether by the Widow Mora. She satisfied herself with the idea that he was still just a little boy who liked to play in the water.

Then, she was completely confounded once more, the morning he passed by, in his usual determined gait, with a large, inflated, automobile inner tube slung over one shoulder. It could be, she thought, he had no confidence in his swimming stroke and was thinking of entering the water with the aid of the tube. What was even more exasperating for the hapless widow was that, this morning, her Viking walked right passed her house, around the curve, and out of sight. She could not imagine what he was going to do with the great rubber tube.

In three more days, her uncontrollable curiosity regarding the infernal inner tube was, at last, satisfied. Some distance up the beach, in the direction from which her Viking came each morning, the widow watched with her binoculars while he struggled to launch himself and the inner tube against the enormous force of the breakers.

Eventually, when he had gotten beyond the waves, he mounted the inner tube, sitting in its center, with his feet over the side and his arms in a position perfect for paddling. She remained glued to the field glasses as he maneuvered so his back was to the open sea, then, using his arms like oars, he stroked methodically far out from shore.

Once he had paddled to what seemed to be a pre-determined site her Viking stopped paddling and was content to just bounce along in the sea, buoyed by the inner tube. The distance was enough that even with the binoculars she could see little more than his tiny form, much like a piece of flotsam engulfed by the great expanse of blue.

At a different section of shoreline each time, her Viking repeated his curious routine for four days running. On the fifth morning he came sauntering down the beach as usual with his inner tube over his shoulder, the same kahki swimming trunks and a white T-shirt, but with something new. From afar the widow couldn't make out what this new piece of equipment was, but this morning she was to be rewarded as never before. Her Viking stopped directly below her house and threw down his things. Today his experiment was to begin from this point and it afforded the Widow Mora a birds-eye view of his whole operation. With the aid of her powerful field glasses she could almost count the curly white hairs on his forearms.

continued...

I met a guy who....

knew a guy who paints 'no parking' signs. I told the guy to send the guy around as I was in dire need of some 'no parking'.

Actually the guy paints the symbol for 'no parking', you know, the circle with the letter 'E' and a line drawn through it.

A day or two later the guy shows up. He's riding a bicycle with his equipment in a plastic bag tied to the handlebars. He appeared to be about 45, with a wide brimmed straw hat and piercing eyes that seemed to be awfully wide open for ordinary seeing. A bushy moustache with stubble over the rest of his face. Some how, what with the hat, stubble and the unsettling gaze he reminded me of Van Gogh.

We struck a deal. The curb, the width of the house was to be painted yellow. That alarming yellow that the transit authorities use to give one pause. Or, as my daugther, has named it: headache yellow. Also, two of the circular 'no parking ' symbols. One, on the cement of the driveway,is to be large, about the size of a super party pizza. The second, about the size of a medium pizza on the folding doors of the entrance.

Van Gogh commences with a flurry. The curb is done in a jffy. He has a homemade template 'patron' cut from cardboard which is traced on the cement and door. His 'no parking' symbols are of four colors not the standard two colored type.

The first circle is solid white, then a big black 'E', a narrow red circle around the white with a red diagonal line crossing the 'E'. To top off, the whole thing is circled by a five inch wide band of headache yellow. Color me pleased. See if the A's can ignore this.

The painter was unusually talkative. Many Mexican workman are not, they go about their business silently and rarely look up. I stayed out front with him most the time. I've learned this is a smart move if one expects to get anything like what one has paid for.

I noticed old Van had an eye for the ladies, of all ages. As they passed he gave each and every one the them a spooky stare with his too wide eyes. Nobody returned his look. He told me he was about half crazy over woman. Couldn't stop admiring them. I asked if he were a single man and he said no.

The painter went on to mention that he used to drink a lot. We chatted warmly on that subject for a while. Now, he said, he could no longer drink very much. Liver? I asked. No, it makes me nuts. he answered. He said he uses marijuana now because it doesn't make him aggresive.

Van Gogh, it seems, had led a life of drug experimentation. He told me he used to do a lot of cocaine, oh, I replied. Acid too. Well, I thought, that explains the eyes . He liked peyote. And, mushrooms.

He went on until he finished painting. I had quit listining somewhere around the mushrooms. All I could think of is how thankful I was that I had not run into this guy thirty years ago.


QUOTE OF THE DAY:

Life is a foreign language and all men mispronounce it - Christopher Morley


MEXICO ( as I see it):


Once Mexicans leave the confines of their homes they
consider themselves in hostile territory.

AND

I have been told that the small doors that one sees on many of the older homes were designed as such to prevent the men from riding their horses inside. Talk about some 'machismo'.


THE SERIAL Her Viking:

We left off here...

Once she located him she was amazed at how close he appeared. It all seemed a little too intimate, as if the Widow Mora were violating the stranger in some way. In a minute this uneasiness passed and she began to relish the advantage the field glasses gave her.


Her Viking did, indeed, have an impassive expression. The widow could not judge if he appeared determined, preoccupied or exactly what message his manner was conveying. She still couldn't see the color of his eyes but she could tell they were not dark. The binoculars did reveal, however, other interesting details she would not have been able to see with the naked eye, like his white eyebrows and the fact that his beard, although full, was neatly trimmed.

The widow wondered if her Viking had always worn a beard. Also, did he trim it himself or would he allow someone to do it for him?

She slowly moved the binoculars over his body, studying his feet and calves, his neck and shoulders and his stomach, which had become a little paunchy through the years but, the widow decided, was still well within acceptable limits. All in all, the Widow Mora was satisfied with the enhanced inspection of her Viking. Perhaps he was not quite as handsome as she had made him out to be but, still, she considered him an attractive man.

She kept the binoculars trained on the man while she envisioned dinners by candlelight and having coffee in the morning sun on the balcony with her Viking.

"Oh," she remembered, "I must clean that balcony, I suppose it's a dreadful sight. I'll ask Cee Cee to have her foolish old uncle come up and take care of it.

"Cee Cee," she called, "Where are you? Come up to my room and bring the coffee."

After a while Cee Cee shuffled into the widow's bedroom carrying a small clay pot of steaming coffee and a cup.

"Cee Cee I want you to get your uncle to clean the leaves and sand off the breakfast balcony."

"What uncle señora?" asked the leathery old woman.

"Your Uncle Pepino or whatever his name is. The one who always cleaned outside for the señor."

"Do you mean Uncle Pepe?" said Cee Cee.

"Yes, that's it, Pepe, you go for him and tell him to do it today." she demanded.

"Pepe is dead señora." the old woman said.

"What?

"Pepe's dead."

"Dead? When Cee Cee, when did your uncle die?' the Widow Mora asked, unsettled at hearing the news.

"Four years ago señora," answered Cee Cee.

"Oh," replied the widow, "I see. Well, when there's time try sweeping the balcony a bit, won't you."

"Si, señora," the old woman said, closing the bedroom door.

After a day or two with the binoculars the Widow Mora had become very comfortable with them and considered them indispensable. She placed them on the window sill where they remained at the ready. Along with the little serving table filled with her toiletries, the widow had Cee Cee put a small, straight backed, chair by the window so she could be seated as she waited for her Viking each morning.


Following his invariable procedure every day, the widow became enthralled with it but, was having no success making sense of it. However, she was happy with her tiny discoveries about him; like, seeing no evidence of jewelry and wondering if her Viking had ever worn any. Perhaps he was simply concerned that he might break a clasp while walking the beach. Once dropped, the widow knew, nothing could be found in the sand.

She asked herself if he might like a gold bracelet. It would go nicely with his tanned skin and strong arms.

continued....

When I say driveway....

I think most people envision a lane which joins a garage and house to the street. Usually houses are set back a considerable distance from the street, especially in the U.S. but, not here.

Houses and stores are constructed in a continuous 'row'. That is, the front of the houses appears to be one common facade with doorways and windows determining the individual homes and shops. Some have an opening large enough for a car.

Our house has room for a car. The house is laid out like the letter 'U', with the top or open end of the U facing the street. The open end is guarded by iron folding doors. One section may be opened as a single door to allow folks to come and go. If an auto is to come in, the remaining panels of the folding door are opened.

Now, the "driveway" that's haunting me is one in name only. The sequence is like this: house, sidewalk, curb, street. Total distance about the length of a smallish car with its trunk in the street and just leaving enough room for pedestrians to pass between its grill and the house.

Did I mention that from the waist up each folding panel has a window protected by iron bars? Since our quarters comprise the bottom of the letter U and there is a row of windows facing toward the street I can see when some 'ignorante' blocks our 'driveway'.

Perhaps this is more than anyone wishes to know on this subject. But, some of you have begun to offer combat suggestions, so I thought you should know the terrain. We are so few and they so many if we are to prevail we must organize.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

*When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. - Joan Baez


MEXICO ( as I see it):


In Mexico, city bus drivers will often alter their routes during peak traffic hours just to avoid congested avenues.

Narrow neighborhood streets become crammed with lumbering buses. The regular bus stops are crowded with expectant commuters wondering why there are so few buses at such a busy time of day.



THE SERIAL Her Viking:

We left off here.....

By two o’clock that afternoon the pair had worked their way to the roof and a storage room there that held the out-dated, no longer important, possessions of decades past. At 3:30 P.M. the widow let out a cry of triumph.



“At last! Here they are.” She said in a gleeful voice. She opened the leather case and extracted a long pair of field glasses. The Widow Mora held them to her eyes, twisting first one adjustment then another until she said, “I don’t remember them being so large and heavy. I can’t see anything. The room is too small.

“I must practice with them from my bedroom window. Cee Cee, when you’ve finished putting these things in order, fix me a tuna salad and bring it to my room along with a bottle of Coca Cola.” Off the widow went scurrying down the stairwell.

By sunset, still in her room, she had mastered the binoculars and was able to pinpoint anything she liked, enlarge it sufficiently, to study its details.

“Now, my wild viking, I can capture you,” the Widow Mora said to herself, “I shall be able to see the color of your eyes, the set of your jaw and the strength in your hands.”

That night the widow did not sleep well and a dozen times she wished the long ordeal would end so she could take up her station by the window. With the faintest light on the horizon she could stand it no longer. She got out of bed even though the widow knew she was, at least, two hours too early to see her Viking.

"What a tit I am," she said, scoffing at herself, while she sighted in the binoculars.
"What a shameless bitch I am and if others could see me they'd jeer at me and call me far worse things. But", her mind ran on, "I am here alone, as I have been for twelve years, and no one has offered me any diversion in all that time, so let them think what they will. This is my house and he is my Viking and I'm entitled to pass my time as I wish."

As the sky brightened the Widow Mora would like to have had a cup of coffee while she waited but she knew Cee Cee was barely awake at that hour and there would be no hot water for coffee. To try to hurry the old Indian woman's routine would be impossible but, nonetheless, the widow went to the head of the stairs and, in a piercing voice, called down for coffee.

After what seemed forever her Viking came into view, a half kilometer, or so, up the beach. The widow moved to improve her angle and began scanning with the binoculars. Once she located him she was amazed at how close he appeared. It all seemed a little too intimate, as if the Widow Mora were violating the stranger in some way. In a minute this uneasiness passed and she began to relish the advantage the field glasses gave her.

continued......

In order to reduce ....

the vigilance required to keep people from parking in front of our driveway I decided to put two 'costals' ( like a potato or grain sack) filled will dirt in the street on either side of the driveway. There! I announced to myself, let's see them get around those babies.

Most didn't go 'around' them they drove over them. Shredding the jute sacks and spilling a line of dirt as they drove away dragging the sacks with the undercarriage of their cars.

Although heavy, many folks,including women, simply got out of their cars and hefted the sacks to the sidewalk and then parallel parked across the driveway.

I stopped a young woman while she was dragging one of my sacks to the curb.
"why do you think I put those 'costals' there?"
"I don't know"
I flushed my best thin-skinned Irish red.
"So people won't block my driveway!"
"How was I supposed to know?" She huffed, got back into her car and spun the tires at me as she roared away.

It was clear sacks of dirt fell far short of what the situation demanded. I began putting rocks, bricks and pieces of concrete and when a brandy or tequila bottle wound up empty they too were added. If I had known anything about explosives I might have considered it.

The sacks got so damn heavy it became a chore to move them if any of the family needed to park there. The new loads were only a little more successful than their dirt bag predecessors. I still found bags ripped open and pieces of brick and glass strewn about.

Somebody stole one of the 'costals'! Stole it! What could he be thinking? That there was some treasure in it and he must get the sack home as fast as possible to open it?

I'll keep the 'costals' on duty but I have some other ideas. War is hell.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

The cemeteries of the world are full of indispensable men. - Charles de Gaulle


MEXICO (as I see it):


Between the cow bells of the garbage collectors, the flute of the knife sharpener, the whistle of the mailman and the chain rattling of the bottled gas men, the streets of Mexico sound like a Hari Krishna chant-in at Michigan University.


THE SERIAL: Her Viking

Will have to pospone until tomorrow. It's too late to get it typed and, beside, it's time for the Suns and Mavericks NBA playoff. 'nos vemos'

Because parking spaces.....

are few, too short or too narrow, there exists a free-for-all mentality here. It's an 'anything goes' attitude. Shoot first, ask questions later. Cross-ways,backward, wrong side, over the curb, on the sidewalk, doubled up or, if there's room, tripled up. Not to worry. At least we're parked.

I've been in Mexico long enough to understand that this is one of those things in life that we can do nothing about. It's like a flood, beyond ones' control. Or mosquitos, a thing that must be lived with.

The situation does, however, enrage me when my drive way is blocked by some asshole who has seized the moment. Never mind the 'no parking' painted on the entrance doors, or the cute little tin sign that announces that we will flatten tires for free. Never mind any of that. Caviet Emptor! Nature abhors a vacuum! A space is to be filled!

Because we are situated on a busy street, roaring with traffic from dawn till the wee hours, there is no shortage of assholes. In fact, it could be said that, we are the asshole capital of Mexico. Perhaps the world.

I have made it my mission, my duty, my God given right to contest this regime of assholedom. I confront, cajole, harrass and any other thing I can think of to make sure todays' asshole understands he is not welcome here. It's exhausting. And, maybe a little dangerous. Some of the assholes become indignant when told they cannot block the entrance of a private dwelling.

My reputation among the locals has plummeted from, curious looking old gringo to crazy, wild-eyed maniac gringo. I don't care. As someone famous said: All it takes for assholedom to win is for good men to remain silent. Or something similar.

I have more to say on this subject but, my heart rate is up, my fists are clenched and I must go to the window to see if the drive way is blocked.


QUOTE OF THE DAY:

It is never too late to be what you might have been - George Eliot


MEXICO( as I see it):

During the rainy season the trees, in the early morning, are
laden with raucous, bright green parrots. Their chorus is
discordant, their flight choppy and labored but their presence is
a delight

These beautiful parrots are like Christmas ornaments or painted
Easter eggs, impractical but enchanting.




THE SERIAL: Her Viking

We left off here....

The Widow Mora was about at her wits' end when she remembered the binoculars. Her husband had used them years ago, but, where in the world would they be?



“¡Cee Cee, ven acá!” she called out. “Hurry, Cee Cee, ¡ándale!” When the old woman finally made her way up to the master bedroom, the widow had worked herself into a froth of excitement.

“Cee Cee! Do you remember the binoculars the señor used to keep in his room?”
“ No, señora,” replied Cee Cee, her face set in an Indian expression which indicated she had no inkling of what the widow was talking about.
“Binoculars, Cee Cee, binoculars,” the widow pressed. “ You do understand ‘bi-noc-u-lars’, don’t you?”
Cee Cee stood, facing the Widow Mora, staring impassively at her.
“Oh God, Cee Cee! Can’t you remember how the señor watched out his bedroom window every afternoon, using his binoculars to spot the fishing boats returning, so he could be the first one at the dock and get his pick?”
“Si señora.” Cee Cee answered.
“Well then?”
The old servant said nothing.
“Can’t you remember the binoculars? They were large and the señor held them to his eyes to help him see the boats. The binoculars make everything seem closer than it really is. You must remember Cee Cee.”
“Si señora,” Cee Cee said, seeming to sense she had to offer something or the widow might become even more excited.
“Do you know where they are stored?” The Widow Mora persisted, “No, of course you don’t, why do I ask such a thing.” she added without waiting for a reply from the Indian woman.

“Go to his room, look through his desk,” the widow ordered, “if you can’t find them there go to the roof and search the storage room. No, no, you’ll never be able to do it alone, I doubt you’d recognize the binoculars if you came upon them. I’ll have to go with you. Come! I want to go this minute.”

The Widow Mora was flushed with enthusiasm as she sped along the corridor toward her deceased husbands' room. The idea of being able to use the binoculars to better observe her Viking was strangely sensuous to her.


She was in the room and feverishly rifling her husbands’ desk before the ancient Cee Cee had managed to arrive.

“Come in Cee Cee, get busy, please. They’re not here, oh God, where must they be? Look in the closet, there are boxes in there.”

Cee Cee watched the widow as though she could not believe so much activity could be taking place. The old woman had not seen the widow this energetic since she was a new bride.

The two women tore through dozens of cardboard cartons, which had become softened by the humidity and mildew of the tropical climate, but they were frustrated and every turn. By two o’clock that afternoon the pair had worked their way to the roof and a storage room there that held the out-dated, no longer important, possessions of decades past. At 3:30 P.M. the widow let out a cry of triumph.

Continued...

Another day, another crisis....

now what? I'm forced to ask myself a million times a month. The washing machine has failed I am informed. Again! Fuck!

Hasn't enough gone wrong yet? Is there a break or is this all there is? No and yes, respectively.

I e-mailed Pedro, who is the only workman I have met in Mexico who has given me an e-mail address. I must commumicate in Spanish, which, after twenty years dealing with this strange tongue is not too difficult, verbally. Typing, makes it a horse (burro?) of a different color. Anyway, it's done. Now I wait. Will Pedro respond? Sometimes yes, when he checks the machine. Other times he is astounded that there was a message left on his machine last week.

Pedro does not appreciate the pressure of deadlines, because, as a Mexican man, he has none. If there is to be a deadline in his world he will be the one who sets it.

How then can such a man, living in such a world, understand that it is already Friday afternoon and washday is early Monday morning? Is this only an Anglo-saxon thing?


Happy Memorial Day weekend to those of you who celebrate such things. I think, in a pueblo nearby, there is a dance tonight in celebration of Our Lady of Fatima. I'll not attend, rather watch the NBA playoffs. If they're televised. And, not pre-empted by Mambo dance contests or beach vollyball.


QUOTE OF THE DAY:


I can win an argument on any topic, against any opponent. People know this, and steer clear of me at parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect, they don't even invite me. - Dave Barry


MEXICO ( as I see it ):

Between traffic lights drivers wrap their engines up tight,
cramming through all four or five gears, as if to deny they will
have to acknowledge the next signal a block away.

Every red light sets the scene for a million emergency stops
each day.

AND

From the slightest high ground one sees the smoky fumes
rising from the city. If we weren't in such civilized times
you'd swear the city and been sacked by marauding hordes and left
to burn.


THE SERIAL: Her viking

We left off here....


Now that the man had a name the Widow Mora felt closer to him. She could think of him as a person, a friend and confidant, without the nagging distress of not being able to place him. In her mind 'the' Viking soon became 'her' Viking.


For years the widow had not taken an interest in her personal appearance. Her days passed routinely. There were no visitors, no highlights, and there seemed no point in spending time making herself presentable. But, since the arrival of her Viking, she had begun to change. While the Widow Mora sat by the sunny bedroom window each morning, waiting to catch a glimpse of him, she toyed with her hair and rubbed her arms and neck with a creamy lotion. Within a few days she had Cee Cee move an old serving cart next to the window and on it she put her manicure kit, combs, brushes and more creams and moisturizers. In another week the little table's bottom shelf contained eye liner, a lash curler, tweezers and different colored pencils. All of these things had been tucked away years ago.

One morning, when her Viking passed by, she noticed that he had a serious look about him and she wondered why. From all appearances he was vigorous and in good health; why then, was his expression so pensive? Was he worried or, perhaps, frightened? Had something awful hapened to him in America or Norway or some other far away place? Could it be that he was sad? Had he suffered some tragedy he was unable to forget?

"Impossible," she said aloud, "Impossible to know any of these things and guessing at them only makes me nervous. If I could just see his eyes then his story would be told. The eyes are always the focus of the human condition. But, how will I ever see his eyes?" Thoughts like these continued to pester the Widow Mora and she was not at all satisfied with the situation.

She must see her Viking up close. It was maddening trying to imagine all the details she, now so desperately, wanted to know. How simple things would become, she thought, if she could just go down and meet him on the beach one morning and invite him up to the house for coffee. She flushed when she realized how brazen she had become in these few short days.

Could the widow send Cee Cee to act as laison? How ridiculous! The poor old thing could never negotiate the steep, rough stone, steps that descended through the jungle growth to the white sand below. Any idea that Cee Cee would be able to return to the house via the same route was beyond insane.

The Widow Mora was about at her wits' end when she remembered the binoculars. Her husband had used them years ago, but, where in the world would they be?

continued...

Cut the 5 sq. meter lawn...

this morning, early. Still with the hand edgers. The old gardener who hunkered with ease has not returned. Don't know why. It happens a lot here. One thinks one has made a deal only to find out he was the only person who thought so.

Then, planted a tree I bought the day before. It's trunk is about 2 to 2.5" inches in diameter and about 8 to 9 feet tall. Hope it takes hold. I've had just so-so luck with this garden. The ground had been used much like a dump for at least a couple generations. I have hauled off tons of rocks, bricks, plastic crap dating back to the forties, glass, wire, wood and bones. Yes, bones. I have convinced myself they are all animal bones, but, at times the mind races. The soil is old and tired, which I can sympathize with, so I have been steadily trying to revitalize it by constant turning, fertilizing ( a brother-in-law has a dairy), sand and whatever other shit people tell me would be good for it.

Another sultry, smothering sort of day. Gave up early today, started drinking 'aguas frescas' (fruit water) by the jar full trying to rehydrate while waiting for happy hour to roll around.

Newest favorite blog title: Jowl Movement (KOS)


QUOTE OF THE DAY:

"See a world of tanks, ruled by a world of banks." — Sol Invictus


MEXICO (as I see it):


There is a conspicuous absence of clocks in public
places in Mexico. I suppose that’s because nothing runs on a schedule. A thing takes place whenever it takes place and that is all there is to it.

AND

Although most Mexicans are very conscientious when it comes to
their own property they exhibit little community spirit. Trash
and lawn clippings are often swept up in front of a residence and
then carried across the street to a vacant lot and dumped

Sometime, a vacant house on the block will become the dumping
grounds for all of its neighbor's leavings.

Apparently, when the mess doesn't actually touch their own
parameters the whole city is clean.


THE SERIAL: Her Viking

We left off here:

'Who knows though?' she thought; with the snowy white hair and beard he certainly would look distinguished in a navy blue, pinstripe suit. The widow smiled as she dressed the stranger.



What kind of man would he be? Gentle, she supposed. Kind too and with a soft voice. Assured and calm under pressure as well. The widow interrupted her daydreaming with a little snort of disgust thinking how foolish she would seem to anyone who could read her thoughts.

The actions of the stranger continued to baffle the Widow Mora. Lately, as he chose certain spots along the shoreline to pause, he would toss a coconut into the sea, then sit down, and watch the receding waves pull at the fruit. The undertow dragged it further out and each new wave carried it part way back. When the coconut had, finally, been pulled out so far that the developing waves no longer had any affect on it and it was sent drifting on the open sea, the man would stand, brush the sand from his trunks and walk away.

Despite not understanding what the man was doing the Widow Mora found herself anticipating his arrival each morning. She was even getting up a little earlier and waiting for him. When the stranger did not pass by her house she became agitated and a little angry with herself for allowing such a trivial thing to bother her. The widow waited by her bedroom window, always a half step back and a bit to one side. If she imagined that the man was looking in her direction she faded a little more to one side.

She began to develop feelings for the stranger. She liked him and wished she knew his name. Knowing that this was not possible, the Widow Mora decided to give him a name.

'What sort of name would someone from the north have?' she wondered. She would have liked to think of him as a Raul or Antonio, two names she had always favored. The widow could tell, however, that this man had no Latin blood. His name was certain to be totally different from any she would be familiar with. She tried to visualize from where he might have originated. It seemed likely that he came from the United States, like so many before him, but there really was no way to be sure.

Watching the stranger striding the beach, hair flying in the wind, white beard flapping too, it struck the Widow Mora that he must be a descendant of some type of Nordic people. She had seen their costumes in her husbands enclycopedia. After mulling a while, on what kind of names men from that part of the world were called, she realized that she did not know a single Nordic name.

After watching his determined pace and serious countenance, with the sea and sand in the background, she concluded he looked like a Viking. Of course, the widow was aware, the word Viking was not a proper name for a man and it surely wasn't as melodious as Raul or Antonio, but she thought it suited the stranger. Since she had no other name the newcomer became the Viking.

Now that the man had a name the Widow Mora felt closer to him. She could think of him as a person, a friend and confidant, without the nagging distress of not being able to place him. In her mind 'the' Viking soon became 'her' Viking.

continued....

Too hot to cook....

so we went out to eat 'ceviche' and drink a couple of cold beers.

Quaint little place with just enough breeze wafting through to make it tolerable. Why anybody would fill a nice little restaurant with plastic flowers though is beyond me. Not only are they ugly and obviously, to anyone who has ever seen a real flower, fake but they are always layered with dust.

The 'ceviche' was good and the beer cold so we pretended not to see the plastic flowers.


QUOTE OF THE DAY:

We’ve heard that a million monkeys at a keyboard could produce the Complete Works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the internet, we know this is not true.” - Robert Wilensky


MEXICO(as I see it):

The economical problems facing Mexico may not always have their roots in complex, international trade manipulations. It might be simpler than that.

My visiting sister-in-law wanted to take a ride to San Juan de Lagos so we obliged her. The cathedral there is a must for visiting Catholics because it houses, if that's the right word, yet another famous virgen. How these virgens multiply is a mystery to me. Is it by word of mouth promotion or cell division or what? But, that's another story I suppose.

As in all of these famous religious places the town makes its living from the thousands of faithful who come daily. Surrounding the cathedral, for block after block are stalls selling religious trinkets, shoe shops, jewellery shops, dress shops, hatters and
restaurants.

It seems pilgrims, after receiving a blessing from the Virgen are ready to do some shopping. My sister-in-law and her sister are among the best there are at this activity.

After tailing these two through dozens of shops my sister-in-law spots a pair of sandals she cannot possibly live without. She prances around the store with one of them on asking our opinions and, since we weren't paying, we thought the sandal was wonderful.

"I'll take them" she announced to the sales girl. "How much?"

The sales girls' eyes glazed over a bit and she whispered to the second teenaged saleperson. They both went behind the counter and began studying some papers.

My sister-in-law is from D.F. and is no chump. She smells difficulty immediately.

"How much are the sandals?"
"We can't find the price."
"Isn't it marked on one of the sandals?" The sister-in-law presses. The girls look.
"No."
"On the box?" The girls look.
"No."
"Neither of you girls know the price of these sandals? How is that possible?" Fires the sister-in-law, eyes widening a bit.
"It's that the store is new, only open a few days and the owner is not here."
"Then call the owner and ask the price of the sandals!" My sister-in-law shot back.
"We can't"
"Why not?"
"The phone hasn't been installed."

We stormed out of the shop sans sandals. Actually, it was a satisfying experience for me. This stuff always happens to me but I thought it was because I was a immigrant and just didn't understand how things work here. I felt better knowing that my sister-in-law from Mexico City, the New York of Mexico, couldn't overcome the Mexican business acumen either.

I'm no expert but, it would seem that, one of the first rules of economics ought to be that the employees know the prices of the merchandise they are selling. But, that's just me.


THE SERIAL: Her Viking

We left off here:


Along with the building, its furnishings, her clothes and a few pieces of jewelry the only other thing the Widow Mora had was Cee Cee, an ancient Indian woman, who came with the house when her husband bought it 25 years earlier.



When the Widow Mora thought of her husband as a brute it was not with the vision of a large, carnal beast, although he was vulgar, but more as a man without conscience, mean spirited and with poor values. He had been,in fact, a small man, almost frail in stature but in his own house he could be as tyrannical as any man twice his size.

He was a man who presented his opinions as facts. There was only one side to every subject and he would always inform his wife what that was. She was expected to rubber stamp anything he said and if she could not bring herself to do so he flew into a rage and called her stupid.

It was this image she carried of her deceased husband that had made her decide not to pursue the possibilities of another marriage. Actually, she had tried to maintain some sort of social life after her husband died. Like the whole world, the Widow Mora had allowed herself to dream that something perfect might happen. It had taken about two years for her to dispense with the obvious local pretenders: the ne'er-do-wells, the alcoholics and the good-family-no-money lot. By that time, the highway had changed direction and Topolomo was left to bleed to death. With no new people coming into the town it ended any possibility of the widow meeting someone of character.

But, now something different was happening and her mind began to race with resurrected hope. Each morning she watched as he came from the north, which was to the right of her house. She had an uninterrupted view of almost a kilometer and it was during his approach on this stretch of beach that the Widow Mora had to do most of her calculations about the stranger. If he were to pass her house, continuing south, he was soon out of sight as the shoreline curved around an outcropping of rocks. Those times, when the man decided to keep going, vexed her mightily.

When the stranger was walking along the open beach the Widow Mora was able to see that he had a head of thick white hair, which tossed in the sea breeze, a fleecy white beard and a lean, well tanned body. Although, from a distance at least, he appeared to be in solid physical condition the widow judged him to be in his mid-fifties. As he would come into her range of vision he paused every so often and stared at the sets of waves as they broke noisily one after the other.

'What was he doing?' the widow wondered. He seemed to have no interest in swimming, 'And a wise thing it was too.' she thought, because the surf along Topolomo's coast was particularly heavy. It was another reason tourism had always been spotty in this southern region of Mexico.

The Widow Mora liked it very much when the gringo paused directly below her house to study the waves. This afforded her the best vantage point. As he pondered the surf crashing in front of him the widow speculated what the stranger might look like in a white dinner jacket and a red bow tie. Since she had not seen him in anything except his swimming trunks, a tan pair of the boxer type, and two or three different T-shirts, she also wondered what style of street clothes he preferred. The Widow Mora surmised that he probably wore gabardine slacks, polo-shirts and leather loafers with no socks. She thought that sounded right for someone who appeared to be an athletic sort of man.

'Who knows though?' she thought; with the snowy white hair and beard he certainly would look distinguished in a navy blue, pinstripe suit. The widow smiled as she dressed the stranger.

continued...

I'm back on track...

after being tagged and meme'd (?).

I called my brother-in-law to ask if he could recommend a gardener who might like to cut my 5 sq. meter lawn for a modest fee. He had just the man, he said. His own personal gardener of many years.

Great!, I thought, this is the advantage of being a part of an enormous family.

The next morning an elderly man rang the doorbell. He was small, wizened and had skin the color and texture of cinnamon sticks. When we shook hands it was like touching a skeleton. His hands were bony, almost skinless, yet the latent power I felt in that handshake let me know that this was still a really strong skeleton.

We went up to the 5 sq. meter lawn and we both hunkered down in a typical Mexican fashion to discuss the wherefores. Now, if some of you don't know what 'hunkering' is I will explain it as a position many people, around the world, and even, in the southern U.S. are able to maintain while working, chatting or pausing for a smoke. It's basically, a squat with the knees spread sufficiently wide to allow both arms to pass between them, allowing the hands to reach the ground and do work.

This is a position best done by wizened, lanky, rubbery body styles. Most Americans cannot hold this position more than a minute before muscles and nerve endings begin to cry out. I have taught myself to hunker. For a gringo I'm not half bad.

My age, though, dictates just how long I can hunker. As the gardener and I continued to talk my leg muscles, knees and back began yammering for a break. The little wizened guy kept talking and hunkering. Finally, I struggled to my feet with a noticeable grunt. Courteously, he too arose,silently. I apologized for my years and condition and asked him how old he was. He smiled a snaggledtoothed smile and said, 81.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

Horse sense is what keeps horses from betting on people. - W.C. Fields


MEXICO (as I see it):


Oh, Mexico, what spectrum you show; the present and ten
thousand years ago.

In a city of six million inhabitants, one dawning morn, I watched a man and his sons cross an open field, hunched over, trotting slowly, each carrying rocks in both hands. While pretending not to notice them they circled a flock of chickens, that had gone wild. Their manuevers divided the uneasy birds and they isolated a hen. The father and his sons surrounded her, then crippled her by
stoning, charged her, barking orders to each other, garroted her
and carried the bird away to eat. The family was laughing and congratulating one another as they left.

I stood, mesmerized by what chance had made mine, a glimpse
into a time australopithecine.


THE SERIAL: Her Viking


The first time the Widow Mora saw him, her interest was piqued. There had been no tourist business in Topolomo for more than ten years. It had been that long since the government changed the course of the main highway along the southern Pacific coast of Mexico. That change had left Topolomo isolated and more than a hundred kilometers from what then became the main route. Yet, in spite of everything, there he was strolling the beach.

The people who had commercial interests in Topolomo had long since closed down and pulled out. Those few who stayed, mostly locals who knew of no other place to go, continued hoping there would still be enough tourists to keep them going, but it turned out that there were not. A few Mexican vacationers still came in the early part of summer because they liked the depressed prices and didn't mind the intense tropical heat, rough seas or the seedy conditions. All the buildings in the pueblo had been allowed to deteriorate simply because there was no incentive to maintain them or money either.

How was it, the Widow Mora wondered, that now late in August during the rainy season, a white man was walking the beach in the early morning seemingly full of purpose?

The widow could not make out his features very well since she was watching the man from her house which was situated fifty meters, or so, up the palisades overlooking the sea. The widow Mora could, however, see the man well enough from her bedroom window to trace his movements and make some determinations as to his age, height and weight.

At first, though, her interest was nothing more than curiosity. 'What in the world was he doing here? Why had he come?' she thought. Certainly he was no bono fide tourist. How had this person even heard of our town? There were no glossy brochures lauding the pleasures of Topolomo. The only way one got to Topolomo was to mean to go there. It could not be done accidentally.

When the man passed by the second, third and fourth day, always around 7:30 A.M., even though it was too early for the Widow Mora, she found herself, barely cognizant, stumbling toward her bedroom window. Hidden behind the drapery she just peeked out to observe the stretch of beach her view took in and if the stranger were present, she felt it made the effort worth it.

Her hair was matted and pressed from sleeping on it. She wore nothing more than a roughly sewn cotton pull-over that was cut like a hospital gown. Now, she never used her make up and appeared much older than her 47 years.

The Widow Mora's life was stagnate and had been so for a long time. Her husband died 12 years earlier. He was a brutish sort and his passing had not saddened his wife. She was left with the old house, precariously perched on the cliff, which she could not sell because of stipulations in her husband's will. She received a small stipend for having been his wife for 17 long years. It came monthly from an account in a Mexico City bank and the widow had no control over it. The amount had remained the same since the beginning and now, with Mexico's latest economical problems, was only enough to buy food and maintain the house.

Along with the building, its furnishings, her clothes and a few pieces of jewelry the only other thing the Widow Mora had was Cee Cee, an ancient Indian woman, who came with the house when her husband bought it 25 years earlier.

Tagged, meme, WTF !?

Surely you all can tell I'm too old to play tag. And, meme? I looked it up and still don't know what it means! But, I can't have the word spread across cyberspace that I'm a crotchety old fart.

Sooo.., it's about deserted islands is it? If only.

3 books, hmmm, my first choice would have to be a really big dictionary, great for passing the time and stunning the other three people on the island with my vocabulary. Maybe an encyclopedia to settle any arguments that may come up. And, an Atlas so we can find out where the hell we are.

Movies. I'm with gandhi rules on this, as a movie watcher I've probably seen thousands over the years, to pick three would just be a crap shoot. Besides, I'm not one who likes to see the same movies over and over again. But, keeping the line about not being a crotchety old fart I suppose I must choose. Papillion is one I've watched more than once and enjoyed it. Also liked a Robert Duval movie titled, Convicts. Slingblade would be another and Jack Nicholson in Goin' South. Yes I've chosen four. What if I don't take any albums?

Everybody has to choose 3 of everything, yeah, yeah. Sheesh.

Mozart is a shoo-in. Any instrumental jazz, with saxophone, piano and guitar. Maybe one old country and western wailer for when I'm drinking and feeling left out. There will be booze on this island won't there? If not, I'm not going.

Three people. Why? Never mind. I've known a bunch of people over the years. It would be easier to say who I would not wish to be stranded with. But, that's not the game is it?

Had a boyhood friend, David G., with whom I have laughed harder and longer than with all the other people I have ever met, put together. Haven't seen nor heard of him for decades but I'm betting he's still a witty guy.

I should choose a woman I suppose. Scary business.

Probably be best if I chose a stranger, that way she'd last a while before she caught on to me. I've met soul mates by catching their eye in a restaurant or while waiting at a traffic light. Locked in this brief encounter we both knew it was the real deal. No meetings, no names not even a handshake, but, in that instant, we both knew. I'll take one of them.

Perhaps I would choose my father if only I had known him better. He died as we were getting to know each other. Oh well, this is a fantasy island, isn't it? And deserted as well. There will be plenty of time for us to get acquainted, so, I'll choose my father.

Got up at 5:30 AM....

and hooked two fifty foot hoses together so I could water the whole garden area. No rain is the cause of all this. Why so early? The muncipal water pressure here is strongest in the pre dawn hours.

If one waits another two hours there isn't enough pressure to fill a hundred foot hose let alone provide a spray. I've seen men at Fourth of July picnics, loaded with beer, with more squirt.

Yesterday went well considering the mob of people in attendance. I have alway been a loner or if not a 'loner' certainly more reclusive than the average bear. The gang of inlaws that I am now a part of is a real challenge for me.

A pitcher of blenderized vodka, peach juice and ice, a couple of 'caquamas' (liter bottles of beer) and my personal, brandy and water over ice took care of much of the social pressure. Things went swimmingly.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

I'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living apart. - e.e.cummings


MEXICO (as I see it):


In the poorer 'barrios' of the city the morning sounds
include the, ever present, barking of dogs but that is only the
tip of the iceberg. Also may be heard the crowing of roosters,
the gobbling of turkeys and the cooing of pigeons.

More exotic sounds may greet the dawn. The bleat of a goat,
the grunt of a hog or even the raspy bray of a burro may
join the symphony of these humble surroundings.

All in all, it's a more melodious, natural, sound than the
raucous middle class racing cars through their neighborhoods,
blaring horns at each other, as they tear into the new day.

AND

When Mexicans play, adults as well as children, they are
very ball oriented. Not baseballs or golf balls, not the solid
kind, but the air filled, bouncy kind.

Everyone seems to enjoy games with balls. They kick them
mainly, but also, they bat them up in the air, throw them and
roll them too. They even enjoy chasing after a runaway ball,
unlike Americans who always wait for the other guy to go fetch
it.

Whether it's at the beach or the park everybody brings a
ball to round out the fun.

"The town was growing until ....

about two months ago, when they (U.S Border Control) made such a mess on the other side of the border that there's no way to cross here," said Reymundo Gamez, 69, who owns a small hotel. "The gringos are running off our clientele."

Don't you hate when that happens?

Cut my 5 sq. meter lawn this morning. Again, with the hand trimmer. Hard on the knees, back and arms but, my hands have gotten a lot bigger. That's something isn't it?

Not much going on. House is full of people. Little kids scurrying in and out. Can't change into my tank top and boxer shorts to watch TV at night, afraid some uninformed visitor will bust in on me. Might scare one of the little ones into dumbfoundedness.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

"Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war." - Donald Rumsfeld

THE SERIAL:

We left off here: "I guess the old fool repeated himself to make
sure we boys understood how amazing the whole deal
was."
'And,' he says, 'that's exactly what we're going
to do for this young fella right here.


"Mike drove Darrell's car out to the desert so
we'd have some privacy from the law and the wino went
to work. He peeled Darrell's levis off of him, cleaned
up the hole in his leg with this bottle of stuff. Then
he soaked the leg of Darrell's trousers with it and
even did his sock too. It was real satisfying to us
watching the oxygenated water furiously fizzing away
all our problems. He even poured a little bit of it on
Darrell's shoe top which had changed color some. I'm
here to say that the old rummy knew what he was about.
"While we were waiting for Darrell's clothes to
dry, which didn't take long in the desert night air, we
all pitched in and got Darrell on his feet and walking
around. He was a little gimpy but there he was hobbling
around with nothing on but his underwear and one shoe.
"Finally, Darrell announces all's well, 'Let's go
boys, I believe I can make her okay.' So, we rode back
down to Van Buren Street and dropped off the old wino,
right where he belonged. When he got out of the car he
carried off Darrell's half-pint and that's the last we
ever saw of him.
"Mike and I got taken home. Darrell continued on
alone and drove to his place. We heard later on that
he limped right on into bed clean as a whistle and, so
far as I can recall, that big cow he was married to
never got wind of none of it. Maybe she suspected
something a day or two later, the way Darrell was
walking funny, but that don't count for much.
If a woman discovers you're guilty of a fault two
or three days after it happened it ain't near so bad
as when she busts you, straight-up, the very night
you've got evidence of the fault all over you."
Uncle Arlin quit talking and leaned back in his
chair. He was finished. I don't know anymore about it
except that's how I found out that oxygenated water
will take blood out of cloth. I guess it's an odd way
to learn such an ordinary household hint. I suppose
most people know about it from reading mmHeloiseÄÄ but I
never read her book. That's why I almost always stuck
around when Uncle Arlin started up with 'One time
when...' because I learned a lot of valuble stuff from
him.

Just saw an article....

which stated that there have 30 suicde attempts at Gitmo in the last couple of years. 12 of these attempts have been by the same man!

Now, I ask you, how can anybody who muffs 12 suicide attempts be taken seriously? He must realise he's damaged goods and not one virgin, let alone 72, would have anything to do with him. His career as a martyr is in the crapper.

Huge clouds on the horizon. My 5 sq. meters of lawn is wiggling with anticipation. Hope everything works out or it's the buckedt brigade for me.

Company coming for the weekend. Some from Tijuana, some from Mexico City. I will try to avoid the incessent chatter and dip in and out of the crowd to get some of the food. When visitors come the quantity and quality of the food service goes way up. Over the years my inlaws have come to know that I am unable to watch and talk about babies for hours on end. Nor can I participate in the endless recollections of great aunts and uncles, nieces, nephews, etc.,etc., ad nausium. I glad I cannot for if I could I would choose not to and that would make a bad guy. As it is now I'm known simply as the anti-social gringo.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

"I want my people to be the most intolerant people in the world." - Jerry Falwell

MEXICO ( as I see it):

In Mexico, getting drunk is the only thing that works 100% of the time. Everything else is hit or miss.

AND

As a Mexican driver pulls away from his house in the morning he automatically makes the sign-of-the-cross. It's not clear whether he's asking for safe passage or if he's asking forgiveness for what he's about to do unto others.

THE SERIAL: Oxygenated Water

We left off:

Darrell was real candid . Darrell was real candid
with the old fella, he reared up on one elbow and said,
'What the fuck is this stuff and how do you know about
it?'

"The old bum answered Darrell like this: 'Listen,
lad, I was a soldier way back in the big one and I was
stuck in a small town over there.'

"I can't, for the life of me, recall where he said
the town was. It might have been Belgium or France
but, anyway, it was one of those pitiful little burgs
that the Germans and us were swapping back and forth."

'It was all tore up and the folks were scared to
death,' he went on, 'They was all living like cave men,
double timing everywhere they went and staying in the
shadows; too afraid to even stick their heads out of a
window for fear some bastard would punch their ticket.
The summer I was there the town happened to be ours.

'Well, lads, I met myself a woman.' The wino
paused long enough to take a nip from Darrell's
half-pint. 'She was fifty years old, never been married
and didn't even have any kids. Matter of fact, I don't
know if she were a virgin or what. Maybe she just
hadn't used her equipment in a long time.
'She was a real proper woman living by herself in
a little rooming house that had somehow not got hit by
nothing thrown by two armies. Normally speaking, a
woman like her would never even give the time of day to
a dumb-ass doughboy like myself. But, in war times,
with people knocked off stride and death and disaster
all around, I guess the warmth of another human body
values a lot more than in regular times.'

"So,the way we boys were getting his story was that this
woman had allowed herself to get close to this old bum,
who, at the time, was a young buck soldier. We waited
while he asked to take another look at Darrell's
bottle, then, on he went."

'Boy's I've never again seen anything like this
woman. She had the body on her of a woman thirty years
old instead of one fifty. Her thing was so tight that,
I swear, she must never have had a man. I could hardly
do any good. I tried to make love to that woman every
which way I could think of but each time she'd go to
squealing. I wanted to think that some of it was from
passion but I learned the most of it was from pure
pain, like a young girl gets when she's starting out.
'Anyway, this here one time', the wino said,'I
built up a real head of steam and I had to throw
caution to the wind. I just didn't know how to be
gentle anymore cause I had to get it. You know how it
is, boys.'

"Well, we didn't know 'how it is' in those days,
at least Mike and I didn't, but naturally, we nodded."

'Hand me that there whiskey stuff, will you kid?'
the old boy asked Darrell and went right on talking, 'I
was about to bust and I plowed straight on into that
woman and let fly. Well sir, she put out a yell like
she'd been snake bit, but I held her real tight and
talked to her nice and soft until she calmed down.

'The trouble was, when she got up to go to the
bathroom,' the wino's eyes got big, 'I saw this here
blood stain as big as a dinner plate right there on
the sheet! I looked at that thing and thought, Lordy,
Lord what have I gone and done to this poor woman?'
'When she came back to bed and saw the stain she
turned white and went to palpitating. She was deathly
afraid that the landlady would see that sheet come
laundry day. I guess, even in hard times, when
ruination lay within arm's reach, landladies are still
real fussy.

'Lads, I gotta tell you, that poor woman was
killing herself grieving over that bloody spot.
'This is awful,' she told me, 'terrible! If my
landlady sees this she'll throw me out in the street.
My village is devastated, there's no place for me to
go; I'll be lost!'

'Well, I couldn't stand to see her so upset over
something I'd done to her so I asks 'What you want me
to do?' The lady says to me without even hem-hawing, 'I
want you to get some oxygenated water.'
'What?' I blurts out.
'Oxygenated water,' she repeats, 'go get some.'
'Where in the hell am I going to get oxygenated
water at this time of night in a tore-up pueblo out
here in the middle of nowhere?'
'You must return to your unit and ask for it at
the medicine tent,' she says.
'The medicine tent!' I says, 'What are you talking
about?'
'The place where they dispense medicine to your
fallen comrades.'

Boys, I was just a kid from thesticks and I'd never heard anybody talk so refined as that lady.

'Oh, I get it,' I says, 'you want me to get some
oxygenated water from a medic back at my outfit.'
'Yes, yes, from your 'outfit', that's it, from
your outfit.'

"The old wino paused as if to take a little
breather, then he added to Darrell, 'Pass me that nose
paint again, will you son?' We boys were all hoping
that we didn't run out of whiskey before this old guy
ran out of story."

'Well', the wino went on, 'I gotta admit that I
felt a little responsible for the lady's dilemma.
After all, I'd had my way with her and I kind of loved
her just then so off I treks, into the night, back to
my outfit.

'When I got there I thought about forgetting the
whole deal; the hell with her sheet, you know what I
mean. But, I was real young and things still seemed
important so I hunted up an orderly who gave me a
small, brown, bottle of the stuff. It could have been
my ass, because they weren't giving up no passes to
soldiers at that time of night. I had to sneak past a
sentry to get out of the compound. By the time I gets
back to the boarding house it's almost four o'clock in
the morning and the lady was still wide awake; still
fretting over the bloody sheet.

'I'm telling you now boys, it was the damndest
thing I ever saw. The lady dumps the oxygenated water
directly on that big ole blood spot, the size of a
cow-pie, and, by God, she disappears the stain! I'm
talking about disappeared the blood!'

"I guess the old fool repeated himself to make
sure we boys understood how amazing the whole deal
was."
'And,' he says, 'that's exactly what we're going
to do for this young fella right here,'

continued...

First off I would like to.....

thank Sue, who stopped by after visiting Lemur Boy's girl , for saying she liked the skinny columns that my blog has decided is best for me. I wonder, if she knew how to fatten them up would she tell me?

Secondly, please forgive me if I seem to be a bit doltish. My daughter told me that I MUST turn of the comment button to receive responses to my blog. She did not, though, tell me that this must be done EVERY time one publishes. I assumed it was a set and forget chore. Perhaps the internet has not yet caught up to my expectations. Anyway, I get it: EVERY time.

Having a bit of trouble typing today. Might be the Chilean wine I drank with the Italian spaghetti this afternoon. Do those two countries have good relations? An extradition treaty? Never mind, I'll mull through even if I have destroy the ' backspace' key.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance - Ken Hubbard


MEXICO (as I see it):

Mexico is upset about the proposed methods being considered by the U.S. Government to control its borders. Walls, troops,etc.. So much so that they are planning to sue the U.S. Government in the U.S. court system.

Let me get this straight. In order to maintain the current level of illegal immigration Mexico will demand, in U.S. court, that any move to outlaw illegality will be met with severe legal reprisals?! Is that about it? Talk about your ' cojones'.

AND

Some of our city stop signs are so routinely blitzed that
authorities sometimes change the signs from the offending street
and put them on the cross street instead, hoping a new look will stem the tide of lawlessness.

It's a sort of Mexican style democracy based on negative
majority rule.

THE SERIAL: Oxygenated Water

Where we left off:

We all agreed that we sure didn't want to go to her house to clean up Darrell. We had to get him spruced up enough so he could sneak his sorry ass in there without fire and brimstone breaking out.

"I recognized that we still had a serious problem,
bullet or no. I said, 'How the hell are we going to get
all the blood out of his clothes? His wife's going to
see that his levis and sock are stained purple and she
ain't apt to mistake it for red pop. You can't get
blood out.' I did not tell that I knew all this because
my mother had told me so.
"One time I had come home with a bloody nose or
something and my shirt was soaked with my own juice.
Well, she went to hollering about how I might as well
burn the shirt because no matter how many days she
would work on that shirt, it wouldn't ever again be
worth a damn. She told me if it ever happened again I
was to soak it in cold water right away. She meant the
shirt, not my nose.
"By God if I didn't start going on just like my
mother had, 'Shoot, we'll never get all that blood
off Darrell; hell, he must have a pint of goo in his
clothes.'
"After that the car got quiet as we all considered
what I had just told them. Out of nowhere the old wino
says, real calm like, 'I can get the blood out.'
'What?!' I demanded.
'That's right, kid, I can get her out.'
'How's a guy like you know anything about it?'
Darrell asked.
"The three of us were probably thinking the same
thing. How's this rummy know anything about getting
blood out? It didn't look like the old fool had washed
himself in thirty years let alone worried over stains
on his shirt. Well, he didn't waiver none; he guaran-
teed us he could not only sterilize Darrell's wound but
that he could get the blood out of his clothes at the
same time.
"It wasn't as if we boys were so smart that we
were confidant about everything We were all pretty
scared and about out of ideas, so we said to the old
boy, 'All right then, go on and do'er!'
"At that, the wino announces that we needed to go
get some 'oxygenated water.' We three just looked at
each other stupefied. He might as well have called for
'Kryptonite' for all we knew. Darrell, being the most
involved in the plan, said, 'What in the corn bread
hell is oxygenated water?'
"Our combined education in those days was not much
to talk about. Mike and I had nothing more than eighth
grade and nobody knew much about Darrell's
accomplishments except it was a sure bet he was not
earning big bucks with a diploma.
"The old man was not set back one bit by our
skepticism and said, 'It's good stuff, boys, and we can
get some at a pharmacy. But we best hurry before this
boy catches something bad.'
"Like I said, Phoenix always has been an 'Open 24
Hour' type town so it didn't take but a minute to find
a drug store. We also found out that the stuff was
not very expensive which was fine with us. What with
buying malt liquor, whiskey and a pinch of gas for
Darrell's car we couldn't scrape up another dollar
between us. There was no more whiskey money and I was
hoping that we wouldn't lose our wino; especially since
he was now in charge of the whole show. He had already
asked to have a look at Darrell's half-pint.
"It was plain the old boy knew something about
what he was saying because I had gone in the pharmacy
with him and, sure enough, he ups to the counter and
says, 'Gimmie some oxygenated water.' The pharmacist
didn't bat an eye and out we walked with a jar of the
stuff.
"Darrell was still plenty suspicious though; you
know, after having been roughed-up and wounded several
times during his life he insisted on knowing exactly
what you're putting on him. Darrell was real candid
with the old fella, he reared up on one elbow and said,
'What the fuck is this stuff and how do you know about
it?'

continued....

It appears that I'm...

the only one who is agitated over the way my blog formats itself. Several people have said it's OK. If you all who have been blogging for sometime aren't annoyed I suppose a newcomer like me should learn to relax and let the syntax fall as it will.

Still dry here, the garden suffers, but, I'm on it.

Fixed liver and onions for 'la comida' The liver sold here is sliced really thin, it's like wet sheets of maroon blotting paper. It's quite good though. The key is in the cooking. It must be fried fast, just a sizzle a quick flip and another sizzle and to the plate.

Our next door neighbor is remodeling his house and making it into a pizzeria. The houses here are joined by a common wall so all of this will be very close to us. We are not happy about this change but there are no zoning laws to interfere with his idea so there is little that can be done. The only tactic left open to me is to hope he fails miserbly.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

Why is "phonics" not spelled the way it sounds? anon. (?)

MEXICO (as I see it):


On the hottest of afternoons Indian women, wrapped in layers of
fabric, may be seen at the traffic signals throughout the city,
selling or begging.
So cleverly are they snuggled in their cloth cocoons that
one would never suspect that somewhere in the overlapping
material, up high or down low, toward the front or at the back,
there will be the bump of a baby sleeping among the folds.

AND

I have taken a liking to tequila since the first time we
met. Tequila, however, has treated me rather rudely.


THE SERIAL: Oxygenated Water

I left off here: Darrell's in the
back seat so he could stretch out his leg. He said he
felt better when he could get himself into a
semi-supine position."
I don't know if semi-supine was one of Uncle
Arlin's words or if his cousin Darrell had really said
that. Either way, it didn't make any sense to me.
But, I didn't say anything about it and Uncle Arlin
kept right on telling his story like everything was
clear to him.

continued...

"Since Mike had been left in charge of the car it
was my job to negotiate with the wino. It took us a
little while to come up with one because those old
farts were always lurking around the side streets on
both sides of Van Buren. The cops rousted them if they
were hanging out on the main drag. Finally, we
located a grizzled-up old scruff sitting on the curb
about a half block off Van Buren.
"He looked just like all of them old zeros down
there. I can't describe him much. He was short and
ugly, stubble bearded and smelled like the worst you
can imagine in the world. I called him over the car
window and began to parley.
'Look here mister we need some whiskey pretty
bad.'
'Oh yeah?' he says.
'How about going in this here liquor store around
the corner and get it for us?'
'I might,' he says, 'depends on what you're going
to do for me.' It was plain to see we had run up on a
real altruistic type person.
"I said, 'You buy us a half-pint of whiskey and
we'll toss in another just like it for yourself.' Well,
let me tell you, the ole boy said nothing more than,
'Yes sir, that'll get her done. Gimmie the money.'
'Wait a minute,' I said 'we've had this experi-
before.'
"There had been times when we had given money to
these old rummies and had them go in the front door and
right out the back door of a liquor store. They'd
leave us sitting out in the car with our thumbs up our
butts while they're long gone down the alley with two
bottles of booze.
"I said to this crusty old sort, 'No you ain't
going alone. I'm coming with you.'
'All right, come on then.,' he said.
"As we were rounding the corner to the store the
old guy asks, 'What's the matter with that boy in the
back seat?' I tried to play it off, 'What do you mean,
what's wrong with him? There ain't nothing wrong with
him.'
'Hell, kid, I ain't blind. I could see his leg
is bleeding and otherwise messed up. I was looking
right at him through the window.'
"There was little else to hide regarding the
matter since the old boy already knew damn near as much
as we did about the situation, so I said, 'Yeah, well
it ain't none of your business but he's been shot.'
'What you say? Shot! What the hell you bob-tails
been up to?'
"I ran down the gist of it all while we waited in
line at the liquor store. After we got the whiskey and
were heading back to the car he says to me: 'Looky
here, you boys could use some help, cause it's easy to
tell you don't know what you're doing.' I had no
trouble agreeing to that. The wino went on, 'You best
take me along with you and let me have a look at that
boy's leg.'
"When we got to the car I confabbed a minute or
two with Darrell; since he was the oldest and the one
hurt, it seemed it ought to be his decision.
"This here fella says he knows something about
this sort of thing and he says he'll take a look at
your leg if you want." Darrell figures, at least, we're
safe with this old bum. He's no cop, that's for sure
and we felt that was ninety percent of the battle right
there. If he's not a cop, he's probably okay. Finally,
Darrell says, 'Yeah, yeah, get in old timer, we'll take
a swig from these bottles and talk it over.'
"The old wino plops himself in the back seat with
Darrell and, first thing, snaps the seal on his
half-pint by giving the bottle a slap on the bottom
like he was spanking a baby. Then he threw his head
back and hit her long and hard. As far as the other
bottle of whiskey was concerned it wound up in
Darrell's hands. He might have let Mike and me take a
little taste but if he did, I don't remember it.
Anyway, off we went again driving around the city.
"The old man says, 'Well, let's have a look at
your leg.' He gets Darrell's trouser leg rolled just
far enough to take a peek at his calf muscle. He
begins to mash around a little and Darrell starts
threatening him with his life if he so much as begins
to hurt him. 'Calm yourself, son, I got to see what's
happening, don't I?' the wino asked. 'There, that's
good enough.'
"As he raised up to a more comfortable position
the old guy took another long pull off his bottle and
continued, 'It appears to me that the bullet is not in
your leg, that is to say, I figure the bullet went
clean through. You've lost a lot of blood and you,re a
mess but, in fact, the bullet ain't there.'
"That was a real good piece of news as far as we
boys were concerned; the bullet ain't there! That
relieved the pressure on Mike and I or somebody else
from trying to pry a bullet out of the leg of a bad guy
like Darrell. The old man went on, 'What we need to do
is get you cleaned up a bit to make sure you don't
catch no lead poisoning or nothing.'
"Darrell thought it over for a minute and then set
out the situation for us, 'Well, we damn sure can't do
it at my house, cause if I go in there like this I'm as
good as a dead man. The bullet might as well have
passed right through my brain. My old lady ain't up
for none of this.'
"Mike and I had met her and we knew he was not
lying. The bum nodded like he already knew her too.
I've now forgot his wife's name but I remember that she
was a whole lot more than you'd want to face. We all
agreed that we sure didn't want to go to her house to
clean up Darrell. We had to get him spruced up enough
so he could sneak his sorry ass in there without fire
and brimstone breaking out.

continued...

My cries for help...

these past four days have gone unheeded. I had come to the conclusion that bloggersville or cyber space, or where ever the hell we are, is a cold-hearted and lonely place.

But then Lemur Boy's girl let me know that if I wish responses to my plight I have to enable the 'comment' thingy. You may color me 'sheepish".

I have only been in the computer world for four years and it has been a very embarrassing, humbling and ego smashing experience. The farther I go the less I am able to say with certainty. If I were not into suffering ( most of the men in my family are not happy unless they're unhappy) I would quit the internet.

Another hot day in the highlands. Just a spit of rain, only enough to spot the window panes with tiny explosions of dirt. I cut the grass. It's just five meters square. Too small for a lawnmower, which are rare here anyway, so must be cut with hand trimmers. On ones' knees, with nothing but souped up scissors make five square meters feel like Yankee Stadiums' outfield.

Quote of the Day:

24 hours in a day, 24 beers in a case. Coincidence? I think not. - H.L. Mencken

MEXICO (as I see it):

The spicy humor know as 'picardia' is ever present in
Mexico. It is loaded with 'double entendre' and much snickering.

Memo, my closest friend back then, was forced to leave Mazatlan
suddenly and go to Guadalajara for an emergency hernia operation.
Since we were practically inseparable, quite naturally, I was
concerned and inquired about him every day at the hotel where he
worked.

Well, apparently, I inquired so often that a story began to
circulate among the other employees that, in reality, Memo had
gone to Guadalajara to have a baby and that I was the father.

AND


Many Mexicans mis-trust any food that is not prepared in their own kitchen by a mother or a wife. Some will not eat out because of their suspicions.

If a visitor brings, as a gift, a new specialty food from another country like a jar of miniature sweet gherkins or a tin of creamed pearl onions the giver will be thanked profusely and the gift will be fondled and the pretty label admired but that's it.

The food itself will be put on a shelf or on top of the refrigerator to await an opportune time for its removal to a more permanent place. There it will rest quietly having uncelebrated birthdays.

Years later though, someone in the family will still remember who gave it to them, when it was given and how nice it was of them.


I'm still not going to continue my story until I can get it to print out in a proper text form. Yesterday I was appalled to see that everything below, MEXICO was also mangled into that same strange presentation.

I think I'll wait for some wizard to get me on the right track before I continue shooting off my mouth.

Well, I have to ...

tell you I'm so discouraged about how my blog is presenting itself that I'm going to discontinue my serial story until I can fix whatever it is that is going wrong. One has to practically put a kink in ones' neck just read all those fragmented sentences. It's not worth it.

Anyway, hot and muggy again. We are at almost 6,000 ft. of elevation and, yet, it gets hot as hell with high humidity. Go figure. The rains are coming. Every year we say that about now, knowing full well the rains are not coming until another sweltering month drags by.

Mixed up some cement this morning to do a little stone masonry in the garden. I don't know what makes me get involved in deals like that. About 6 A.M. I feel young and strong, around 11 A.M. I begin to question my judgement and by 1P.M. I'm looking for a shot and a beer.

MEXICO ( as I see it.):


The way to tell a real Mexican's car is not, necessarily, by
the rosary on the rear view mirror, they're are millions of other
kinds of Catholics but, whether there's a roll of toilet paper on
the dashboard.

AND:


After spotting a Telmex employee working in the street I
stopped to ask a question about a telephone problem I was having.
He was a nice lad and was able to help explain things to me.
When we finished he asked me why the United States canceled
his, and his wife's, visas. To him, it was a fair exchange of
information, after all he had answered me. He was disappointed
when I told him I didn't know. I think he felt that Americans
ought to know this shit.

MY QUOTE OF THE DAY:

There is only one success - to be able to spend your life in your own way. - Christopher Morley


And here is where I would continue my serial story Oxygenated Water, but I cannot format it so it looks half-way normal. Once I get it fixed I'll continue the story if I can remember where I was.

Gaak! It doing it again! Everything below Mexico is not laid out as it was before I clicked Publish Post. Help, I'm drowning!

After yesterdays' problem...

with the strange way my text showed up after clicking 'Publish Post' I'm here to try it again. Why the second half of yesterdays' blog is formatted more like a poem than prose is beyond my ken.

Hot and muggy in the highlands of Jalisco. Mid-nineties with threatening clouds but so far it's pure bluff. Tried to turn a little soil in the garden this morning but was soaked in sweat within minutes. I said the hell with it and went inside to watch the Federer,Nadal tennis match.

My quote of the day:

Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar." - Edward R. Murrow

MEXICO (as I see it):

It would seem that if the Mexicans are going to wear American T-shirts with messages written on them they should, at least, understand the words. Being a little better versed in the verbiage one is carrying around might eliminate seeing silver-haired old ladies at mass wearing T-shirts that announce: 'SHIT HAPPENS!' or 'DO ME NOW!'

AND

Mexico is a place where modern sky scrapers are being erected and from among the massive steel girders and tons of wet concrete may be heard the incongruous sound of crowing roosters. Workers, away from home, living on the construction site for months at a time, raise chickens for food. And, maybe the birds help these Mexican men keep in touch with their perception of reality.


THE SERIAL: OXYGENATED WATER


"Let me tell you boy, when that gun went off it
nearly scared the dick right off me. I mean, I thought
it was the end of the world. People broke and ran
every which way. Quite naturally, the report of a
pistol is going to draw a lot of attention. River Side
Ballroom had some sort of security in the form of
off-duty police or rent-a-cops, I can't remember which
they were but they had them around because of the
place's rough reputation.

"Anyway, this gun goes off in the semi-darkness of
the parking lot and Darrell lets out a whoop and
shouts, 'The son-of-a-bitch shot me!' I groaned to
myself, 'Oh my God!' Since everybody else on the lot
was running all over the place, trying to get gone
before somebody official showed up, Mike and I joined
in with them. All three of us were hot-footing it for
Darrell's old car. Darrell was running too but not
very good. He hollered to Mike, 'Jump behind the
wheel, I can't drive!' I thought, 'Oh shit! What does
that mean?'

"We all piled in and Mike fires up this old rag of
a car and peels across the parking lot throwing dirt
and dust straight up into the few old yellow light
bulbs they had strung around out there. You can
believe me it was an eerie sight, seeing those people
charging all over the place through a big, yellow dust
cloud.

"We hit the street fairly flying and Mike pressed
the old car for all it had. We sped around the strange
streets of south Phoenix for awhile with no headlights.
We figured that was real smart; that way nobody
could see us. It makes you wonder about young people
don't it? At any rate, as we wandered about down there
we were trying to ascertain just where this boy was
shot. Darrell was beside himself with pain and was
making a lot of noise.
'God damn!' he was yelling, 'I hurt.'
'Where do you hurt?' Mike asked into the rearview
mirror.
'It's my leg, the dirty dog shot me in my leg.'
Darrell wails.

"We all wanted to get a look at his leg to see
what was going on. I forgot which leg it was and it
really makes no never mind so I'll call it the right
one. So, anyway, we stopped long enough to take a peek
and, sure enough, the boy was bleeding like a stuck
hog. The blood was oozing down his Levis and making
his sock all juicy and was even beginning to change the
color of his shoe leather.
"I said to them both, 'What in the world are we
going to do now?'

"We boys knew, even back then, just by roaming the
streets a bit that you sure as hell can't go to any
doctor or hospital when you're sporting a bullet wound.
If we had done that we'd have been trick-bagged for
certain. They would have told us, 'Sure, lads, we'll
help you out. You all just sit here in this nice
sterilized waiting room while we go for some medicine.'
But, what they really meant to say was...'while we call
the cops.'

"We had no way to explain the bullet wound. In
fact, there's hardly any sensible way a bullet wound can
be explained. I mean, it stands to reason that getting
shot involves an illegal act of violence, unless you
shoot yourself in the leg, in which case they're going
to ask you to show them the gun you did it with and we
didn't have any gun to show them. So, my question
remained, what in the world were we going to do?

"After some pondering we got to believing that we
could take out the bullet ourselves. It seemed, under
the circumstances, to be a reasonable idea since there
was no one to help us in a professional manner. It was
settled then, we'd just have to go it alone.

"Remember now, Darrell was married and had his own
apartment but we sure couldn't go there. Darrell was
married to an ugly woman. She was fat, she was strong
and she was mean; she was every bit as mean as he was.
Darrell had a somewhat inordinate fear of his wife.
It was because he knew she had had about all she could
stomach of him coming home beat up, shot up or with a
paddy wagon following him in. Going home with a sock
full of blood would not be rewarding. Things would only
get worse for Darrell. Lacking that option, and him
bleeding and whining all over the place, meant we'd
have to get on with it right there in the car.

"Since all the blood was below the knee we guessed
that the bullet must be in the calf of his leg. We
also figured that we might just squeeze it out since
that part of the leg is kind of soft and mushy anyway.
Why wouldn't it work?

"Darrell gave the word: 'Shit-fire, boys, let's
do'er. I can't stand feeling like this much longer.'
After that he added, 'But, I've got to have some
whiskey first.'

"Well, you know, that's how we thought back then.
Whiskey's good for bullet wounds; it was always good
for John Wayne. We knew them ole cowboys always got
drunked up before they took a bullet out of one of
themselves. So, we boys thought...'Well hell, let's go
get some whiskey then!'

"Neither Mike or I could buy liquor and Darrell
surely couldn't walk in anybody's liquor store. He was
leaking blood from his knee to his shoe and sniveling
quite a lot along with it. So, we did what we always
did in those days, we went down to Van Buren Street.

"It was a pretty wide open section of town;
prostitutes parading around and lots of bums, winos and
the like. Best of all, there were block after block of
liquor stores which were almost always open for
business. All in all, it was a nice area for anyone
who needed something. Many times we boys in the
neighborhood had pooled our money when we wanted
something to drink and headed for Van Buren Street to
hunt up an old wino. We'd call one over to the car and
tell him that if he'd go in the store and get us
such-and-such a bottle we'd give him enough extra to
buy himself a touch. It usually meant a half-pint of
wine or whatever it took to keep the fire lit for him.
"Darrell was still pissing and moaning: 'Come on
boys, let's get on with it. Son-of-a-bitch do I hurt!'
As we got to Van Buren, Mike and I are still scared to
death carrying around a shot man. Darrell's in the
back seat so he could stretch out his leg. He said he
felt better when he could get himself into a
semi-supine position."

I don't know if semi-supine was one of Uncle
Arlin's words or if his cousin Darrell had really said
that. Either way, it didn't make any sense to me.
But, I didn't say anything about it and Uncle Arlin
kept right on telling his story like everything was
clear to him.

continued....

Can anybody explain....

to me why the text format on my blog is so strangely spaced? It was not typed in that form. It happened after I pressed 'publish post'.

I remain, flummoxed in cyberspace.

There's a volcano...

threatening somwhere in Indonesia. A headline said the increased activity "....meaning an eruption may be imminent, an official said."

I thought the word 'imminent' took 'maybe' out of the equation. Maybe not.

About Mexico:

In Mexico, unless you’re asking directions to a church or the nearest corner store, you’re born dead. The people know their own block. Two or three blocks away is hazy and twenty blocks away is the outback.

Most directions are given in a language reserved for only those in the know. “ Más pa’ca; más pa’ya; arriba, abajo....”. Unless one understands country Spanish one is destined to wander block after block hoping each “ Pa’ca or Pa’ya” means your headed on the right course.

AND:

Mexicans, it is said, wish to please and therefore always
try to respond to any question or request. It matters little if
the information they give is accurate, the point is to reply.
I've always thought that it's not so much that they want to
please as it is that they don't want to admit they don't
have an answer.

Quote of the day:

The word is not the thing! - S.I. Hayakawa


The Serial: Oxygenated Water


Every time Uncle Arlin started up with 'That
reminds me of one time when...' most folks tried to
weasel off but I usually stayed around. I had learned
a lot of interesting stuff from Uncle Arlin over the
years. It was just a matter of sticking it out until
he finished.
"That reminds me of one time when I was a young
man," he began, "I must have been about 16 or 17, no, I
don't think I was 17 yet, well to be honest with you I
don't remember just how old I was, so let's say 16,
okay?
"I went out one night with my buddy Mike, who was
my contemporary, and his older cousin Darrell, who was
from California. Darrell was 21 years old. He was
known to be a real bad hombre and carried around a
lousy reputation. He was married on top of everything
else. Being married and from California kind of made
him a hero to we boys in the neighborhood. Not only
was he getting a regular piece of ass but he was a
tough guy to boot. We admired tough guys in those
days. Darrell was from L.A. and we Phoenix kids always
figured that guys from L.A. were a cut above us.
"Anyway, Darrell had a car and this particular
night the three of us went down to south Phoenix. We
were going to a dance hall called River Side Ballroom.
River Side also had a lousy reputation just like
Darrell. It had been running for years and since I had
been a little kid I had heard wild stories about how
tough guys used to gather up down there. I remember
stories about cowhands, pickers and miners coming in
from as far away as Globe, Miami and Gila Bend for the
weekend. They'd stomp one another in kick fights.
They'd pull knives and clubs on one another. Those ole
boys would go to fighting over women or money or God
knows what all.
"Well, as it happened, we got there fairly early
of an evening and, of course, we'd been drinking a
little. Neither Mike or I was old enough to buy booze
but Darrell was and he'd sprung for a six-pack of
Bulldog Malt Liquor. So, we sauntered in this here
dance hall with a couple of them Bulldogs up under us
and we weren't inside but about fifteen minutes when
things began to hot-up some. Naturally, Mike and I
were standing around the edges of the dance floor
because we really didn't know much about participating
in such goings on. We were just proud to be in a place
like River Side Ballroom with a guy like Darrell. But,
right off the bat, Darrell gets involved in a
confrontation with another man. I never did find out
what it was over but it was enough for us all to wind
up outside in the parking lot.
"It wasn't very well lit out there and it was a
dirt field in those days. This fella Darrell was facing
off had some friends with him and Mike and I were out
there for Darrell. I guess we didn't appear to be much
of a force compared to the other bunch, us being only
sixteen and them all being at least drinking age.
"Darrell, having been a real bad guy all his
life, wasn't afraid one little bit and the argument
soon got to the 'fuck you' stage. After that, there
were a couple of fast moves and a scuffle. To
everyone's surprise, even to the guy Darrell was
against, somebody in his outfit whipped out a pistol
and by God if he didn't take a shot at Darrell!

continued...

Timidly I creep....

from under my rock into the bright lights of blogging. Have no idea why I'm here or, exactly, how I got here. I kept clicking 'continue' options and here I am.

I'm hoping this is the place where one can rant (or whine) without being called foul names. The Yahoo message boards are killing me.

I think I'll post a daily quote on my blog. I had a high school teacher who did that for every class. I don't remember what subject he taught but I do remember many of the quotations. I prefer the more sardonic quotes no pollyannaish pap for me.

I've also thought about starting a serial story. You know like the ones they used to show at the movies before the feature. Perhaps that was before many of you were born but I think you'll like it anyway.

I will post my observations on Mexico where I have lived long years. Promise you won't take them too seriously, like rushing out to make an investment in LA Bolsa.

Is there a time limit or a word limit for a blog? Can one ramble indefinately? There's more but if I spend it all on the first day what will become of tomorrow?

My quote of the day: There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it. - Denis Diderot