The Spikes

Back in the days when we had to leave Mexico every six months when the visa expired, I for some reason did the trip by myself. My dog and I. And on he second day, after having crossed the border to the US, I stopped at Gila Bend, Arizona.
It was about 104 degrees when we stopped and my dog let out a shriek when he jumped out the car and landed on the tarmac and burned his feet.
We stayed put in the room till it had cooled down enough to go out for a walk.
Behind the Space Age Lodge where we stayed, there was a big rail yard with lots of places for my dog to pee and otherwise mark a brand new, to him, territory.
And there I found the big wonderful nails they use to anchor rails to the planks; I have since learned they are called spikes.
I collected what I could find and for years I used them as paper weights and whenever I needed to hold something down . I loved the way they felt when you had them in your hand, the weight and the form.
And then they got lost. I would occasionally think of them and wonder whatever happened to them till yesterday, when cleaning the upstairs room after painting, I decided to empty a box I had sitting in corner from the day we moved into the house.
And there, at the bottom of this box, were my spikes.
By now they were quite rusty bot otherwise in good condition.
I have been cleaning them and rediscovering how good they feel in my hand.
Glad to have them back.

The Bus

He was standing waiting for the bus at the bottom of my hill when I came barreling down this morning, so I gave him a lift to town.
He is currently living in the house the Mad Queen used to occupy, so he is sort of a neighbor.
He uses a cane to get around because he is slightly crippled.
Thanks for the lift, he said. Yesterday, he continued, three buses passed without stopping.
I don't understand, he said. I have a loud voice, and I tell the driver to drive carefully because I value my life. And I tell the driver to use the wipers when there is rain. And I only pay half price because I am crippled. And now they don't stop for me.
I don't understand.

I was going to write a post about my chest of drawers that I found next to some garbage containers in New York, and how I dragged it up the fire escape to the studio, but I thought...nahh, not now.
Then I thought I would write about the bad weather and the implications of this and I thought the same....nahh.
So I am just posting this wonderful drawing of Albrecht Durer that I found searching for "Bernice", a reference in the book I am reading right now.
Berenice-- or Veronica--was according to legend a woman who lent a cloth to Jesus to wipe his brow as he was hauling the cross. Ever the person with manners, he handed it back to Veronica, complete with an imprint of his face.
This is Durer's celebration of that event.
Beautiful, isn't it ?

Words

It is sad that certain words go out of fashion. As for example the word "platitudinarian", a person given to the use of platitudes, which I found re-reading Daniel Deronga.
It is a marvelously descriptive word, and a word so easily and so rightly applied to politicians of to-day.
Let us reinstate it.

Tis the season

Local lore has it that the rainy season starts June 15, and right on time the rains came. And how.
But this time I was prepared; I had had the leaky roof weatherproofed and the laundry area as well. I was feeling fine. I had done my bit.
What I cannot control are the black-outs and the weak satellite signal that seems to go out every time we have shower.
These things are up to the local electric company and the Canadian satellite provider, and neither is doing a good job.
But I did my part and I feel great.
How I will feel four months from now--the official end of the rainy season-- is a different story all together.

A Thought

If GARRULOUS can lead to
GARRULITY
Can QUERULOUS lead to
QUERULITY ?
And can we then talk about querulity of old age, a condition far more common, I think, than
garrulity of old age

Doggie bones

I was in Pitial, a suburb to Puerto vallarta, for an entirely different reason when I remembered a maid of some friends of mine--and maids in Mexico are the sources of this kind of information--had mentioned that this was where one would find doggie bones. At the butcher's across from the church.
And there it was, and there I was, deciding to spend a hot ten pesos on something nice for the Worthless Ones. Bones. All dogs love bones. Some dogs survive on bones. Bones are good for dogs.
And I proudly carried my light blue plastic bag full of--to dogs--delicious bones to my car and, this being the last purchase, fought the traffic back to Mismaloya and my house in the woods.
And I baked the bones for a while so the mutts would not have to suffer raw meat and such like.
And then I gave them the bones when they were sufficiently cooled down and................
the mutts gave them a sniff, a look, and then went back to sleep.
There they were, the bones that I thought would vindicate my lack of ardor with the mutts, ignored and cluttering up the floor.
All dogs love bones....
Yeah Right; not these dogs. Not these miserable ungrateful critters. I mean, what does it take to make them sit up and take notice ? Half rotted fish and leftover tortillas ? The kind they seem to be so keen on when they get to share the raid of the raccoons of the garbage in the neighborhood.
I give up. The next time I go to Pitial I shall most certainly NOT buy bones for the dogs. No sir. No how.
Let them suffer the way they make me suffer.

Bing

There is a new search engine, Bing,
and for the fun of it I tried it out and wrote:
First Chamber Dance company, and
Tah Dah.....
The history of FCDC is located in the archives of the University of Washington, in 12 cubic feet and four large packages.
There is something disconcerting in the notion that Chuck's lifework, and certainly a good part of mine and others, is contained in 12 cubic feet and four large packages in the archives of UW.
Well, better that than total oblivion.
But "12 cubic feet and four large packages" really doesn't sound very impressive.

On the first page of the autobiography of Anthony Trollope [1815-1882] he talks about the "garrulity of old age".
I love that expression;
And the awful truth is that this blog is just another example of that.
The garrulity of old age.

Frugality or what ?

I had treated myself to a package of new underwear, Hanes knit boxers, one blue, one gray.
And I had dropped the gray in my laundry basket where, unbeknown to me a busy rodent was gathering stuff for nesting and ate holes in my brand new skivvies.
When I discovered this mishap I was left with some tough decisions.
Should I go against the admonitions of Mothers everywhere to always wear clean and whole undies, just in case of accidents or hospital stays or other calamities where people might see your undies and point fingers at you if these were not clean and whole, or should I ignore all that and still use the new but now holey undies.
I took the chance and I am still taking the chance, although the holes have gotten progressively larger.
So I wonder if this is frugality, or just me being cheap.