4am is perfect.

It has begun and I have been here before. Waking up from a slumbering world and having life crash down into my bed before I open my eyes. It usually happens towards morning the month before a major departure. It is a moment of true clarity - a perfect time to realize that a leaving is actually going to take place. Then comes the icy slide as logistics and time-tables battle with emotions - when the next step of the looming departure leaves no room for breath, and I see the faces of those I care for, and the room is silent, and my thoughts are shrieking. I can see a little too clearly at 4am. My vision is 20/20 and life is too bright to stare at. So I breathe deep and sink back into dreams, hiding behind the sunglasses of the Almighty. Thank God the world is imperfect. Do you ever wonder why we feel no compassion for the perfection of a super-model, yet a struggling stranger can evoke our compassion? (Forrest helping the man fumbling behind his car.) The perfection of 4am is a lie. the imperfect world of 4pm is more to my liking.

gastronomical mischief

When I was a youngster, I worked at a grocery store. I would come home and make the same snack I did every night at 9:30 pm... three baloney sandwiches on white bread with a slice of lettuce and a hot jalapeno out of a jar. It was a habitual feast. Also about that time that I discovered the microwave and american cheese. I knew my mother would frown upon this act, so I always cooked this up in the afternoons when no one was home... one slice of american cheese food on a saucer, placed in the microwave until the cheese food bubbles up and begins to turn a dark orange. Like magic, it's a giant Cheezit! Sometimes I would scrape it off the saucer before it completely cooled down and hardened and eat it with both fists like a giant mouse. This habit of food/play may be genetic, as I discovered when eliciting a confession from my dad about his favorite weirdo snack... a fistful of soda crackers (soda?!) and a thick slice of cheddar on each cracker topped by copius shavings from a raw garlic clove. No one sleeps well at his house on those evenings. I also have on my kitchen counter a jar of "caramel taffee" that my dad made with raw sorghum molasses, butter, sweetened condensed milk and an old pan, and way too much free time. My brother has always been a "blender freak" adding bits of this and that out of the freezer and mixing it up (this was way before smoothies were cool, or even had a name). I also caught him mixing all of my dad's aftershave into a bowl and rebottling it to come up with new "essences". This odd bit of familial alchemy even stretches to my mother, who used to eat old cornbread in a glass of milk for dinner, or would go for a week straight eating raisin & shaved-carrot salad with poppy-seed dressing. The only notable breach of trust I can remember commiting as a youngster was a year in the late 1970's, when I was in charge of putting the "glazed donuts" in the oven (no microwave at that time). These "glazed donuts" would have a nice sugary goo on them when I pulled them from the freezer. I did what every good 12-year-old boy would do: licked all the glaze off before putting them in the oven to bake.

Golfball Size Hail : )

I am a storm addict. I've been watching the weather reports on three channels for a week now anticipating the next bout of severe weather. When the alerts start rolling across the bottom of the TV, I go collect my goodies: flashlight, radio, bicycle helmet, and granola bars. And when that little technicolor gem of a doppler radar-screen shows up in the corner of the TV, all lights in the house are turned off, all doors are opened (with screen doors locked) for optimal viewing, and all televisions come on with channels synchronized and volume levels high. Sometimes I dash out to the front porch to listen to the other weather freaks on the radio call in what they've seen along the highways, or get on the phone with my Dad and brother over in Fort Wyandotte. I've never actually gone storm chasing. No, I like the excitement of having the fireworks display descend upon the backyard (mi casa), watching the terrifying furies of nature roll low over the rooftop, seeking a spot in the neighborhood to target (Dirt & Dash are up the street! What about Forrest and Family down the block?) I will admit that I don't maintain a level of ecstatic joy throughout the ordeal, such as when the power goes off and the sump-pump can't keep up with the water volume, and my basement threatens to flood for the 4th or 5th time (who is counting?) Or when the magic hail-balls catch one of my vehicles in the open. Yes, there is a certain feeling of genuine dismay at the threat of property damage. I have layed awake in bed, almost positive that the next lightning strike was going to blast the bedroom apart, and leave us scurrying in our nighties for a fox-hole crater in the yard. Looking back, I don't know when my infatuation started. I was scared of storms as a kid, but as I grew older, storms became a distraction. The black clouds rolling in with all of the city-wide efforts to "batten-down the hatches" became a vast elixer for coping with the mundane. Did I mention that we might get hit this afternoon!?! Can't wait! (Extra added bonus: Neece doesn't like storms... she plays all "stoic" but she likes a bit of squeezin' when the warning sirens come on over in Olathe...)

chauncey, froggy, muriel...

Neece and I were watching two little girls while their father picked up their mother from the maternity ward. I was doing my best to keep up with them when the youngest ran off into the yard and started shouting a name. Her older sister told me that she saw her invisible friend Muriel. I didn't see Muriel. My neice has an invisible friend. We don't know his name, but he is a "little colored boy" according to my mother, and he lives downstairs. When I was little, my brother had two invisible friends named Chauncey & Froggy. I couldn't see either of them. I was cool with Chauncey because he had a sophisticated sounding name which grounded him in civil society. I was a little bit scared of Froggy because my uncles used to tell me that if I didn't go to sleep at night, a big frog would come out of the mattress and pull me back in, zipping it closed so no one could find me. The closest thing I had to an invisible friend was an old stinky man who wore overalls and painted himself like a clown. "Mr. Ensley" as I called him would hide in the corner with his head lowered when adults came into the room. At dusk he liked to tickle all my little enemies until they would kick him off. Actually, there never was a "Mr. Ensley". I just made it up today to scare my wife. I was jealous that she had Speed Racer as an imaginary friend. I'm not too scared of Speed Racer because I know him.

mahogany mistress

On chilly days I miss my pipes. I had a box of old pipes of varying colors, a rich red dapper looking pipe from England with a fine medium size bowl and straight, short black stem, and a deeped-bowled Italian pipe with wood so blonde it was almost orange (in fact, the longish stem was a golden/orange color.) I had a couple of others, but my favorite was a burly, knarled, stub of a monster, with a thick, fat, irregular bowl that was black and burled and rough on the outside. It fit my left hand in a natural way. There was something reassuring and settling about it. I would sit outside and smoke a savory Danish blend. Sometimes I would try a golden, mellow Virginia leaf that tasted sweet like molasses and woodsmoke. Then there were the Turkish blends that had a hint of spice and smoked fruit. What I miss most was lighting my own private campfire in the pipe and tamping it down a bit until an orange ember burned quietly at the center. Usually it was in the evening, when the light was dimming, and my thoughts could curl into the twilight with the smoke. Some evenings I could make a pipe last an hour or more, gently breathing the aromatic smoke but never drawing it into my lungs. The pipe. I stopped smoking the pipe because it's no fun to smoke when its hot outside, and my wife was becoming alarmed (bless her.) I may take it up again some day when I'm a little older. But be warned - a pipe involves tobacco, and when you quit, it takes about three months before you stop licking your lips lustfully at every cigarette butt in the parking lot of HyVee. (seductive demon weed)

knot another

One day you wake up and there is a knot in your chest. The binding has been a quiet act, the ends of the rope pulled by those you love and the fallen emotions that breathe wordless doubts into your wide-open ears. You walk with the knot and eat with the knot and smile with the knot and weep with the knot... I stepped outside this morning to a warm day. Our Bradford Pear tree is the most magnificent tree I've seen. It has always been there, but not so radiant. I've done my share of chop-shop pruning, hoping it would survive my meager manicures. It survived. Spring has brought thousands of soft jeweled petals that rain down in sighs - drifting with the caress of a breeze to rest upon the grass, the flowering shrubs, the sidewalk, the beaten asphalt of the street, the fading blue paint of the Subaru, my stubbly head. The grace of God perfumes the air with not too sweet an aroma, not too contrived a color, not always falling on our questions or our designs, but always drifts to the low spot, to upset the black water rippling in the gutter.

An Awful Sting

Saturday I looked at a spilled splotch of water on our kitchen counter. Engaging in a bit of amateur augery, I divined an amazing image of a Scorpion poised to strike. Knowing that I couldn't sell my kitchen counter on Ebay, I wiped it up. I went to the main library branch Sunday afternoon and was startled to see a 10 foot by 10 foot painting of said Scorpion in the entryway, on temporary display behind the security desk. Last night I dreamed of two black scorpions, one large and one smaller that were both equally aggressive and needed to be caught. I couldn't catch them. (scrabble scrabble scrabble)

mark on the beast

I have an old, small dog named Hercule. In order to take him to Spain on a plane we have to get the proper paperwork to allow entry into the European Union. Okay - no problem but we just found out that Hercule has to get either a tattoo or a microship implant with all of his personal information on it. Oh no! - I'm a Christian and my Dog has to get The Mark of The Beast!?! Does this mean he won't be allowed to run around my mansion in heaven? Are there spiritual consequences for me allowing one of God's creatures to receive The Mark? (Will I be consigned to dog hell?....what is dog hell like?) The good news is that he doesn't "buy nor sell" at this point in time anyway, so I'm okay there, but still....

itineration

Morning Everyone!

The image of a huge ship sailing out of a safe harbor to undertake a major journey was the best way I could describe the process of itineration. I don't know why I thought a couple of boat rides made me a sailor, but I was soon to find out the truth. Reality hit when it took multiple tugs and massive shoves just to move this new ship a few feet from the dock. After busting the links on a few chains, there was a point when I felt the ship's huge mass gliding across the port and heading steadily across open water. The props began to churn and momentum built into a steady pace that was a testament to the sweat it took to get underway - I began to suspect that even if I had the capacity to slow the ship down, I could not. Days passed. Weeks passed. Eerily quiet afternoons and soul-numbing stormy nights would pass on the open sea, with no where to drop anchor during moments of weariness and frustration. Neece and I would spend many mornings trying to hog-tie and wrestle the other overboard, only making peace a few moments later until mutiny became an option once again. Many times I longed for land and fantasized about a small island with just me, a hammock and a moment of shade with a baptist beer (Dr. Pepper) to cool my sunburnt face. Many days I stared over the side of the ship not knowing if the waves were actually passing beneath our ship, or if it was just the wind blowing around us and we were standing still (even though I could feel the engine thrumming deep in the hull.) At times I was seasick and desperate for a point of reference. I would see vessels on the horizon and would try to contact them. Some of these vessels were Carnival Cruisers headed the other direction, who couldn't take the time to acknowledge my call. Other vessels were tired trawlers that would put alongside and offer to share what provisions they had while comforting one another with tales of the mysterious deep. Looking up to the stars later in the evening, I would see by the Southern Cross that progress was indeed being made, and the silent beauty would nourish my spirit. And then one morning the horizon changed in a small way - a gray strip on the horizon turned into land, and we both dared not hope that we had actually crossed such a vast distance. But it was true. Now the momentum is reversing. Comfortable with the physics of the ship, we are patiently riding its mass into the middle of a large peaceful bay that we do not recognize - and there are many questions to be answered. "When can we get off the boat? What will the land be like? Who will meet us? Can they warn us of the new dangers?" But other questions from the journey will never be answered. Someday the wounds will heal into scars and the many crossings of the future will waste our fat into wiry muscle. But I know this - I'll never listen to the Beach Boys' "Sloop John B" without staring out at the ocean like a buggy pirate with an itchy peg-leg...
It is just beginning