Candy!!!!!!

I am tossing out a general question Halloween related. What is every one's least favorite candy?

I sat here and thought about my least favorite candy I had received while trick or treating as a child. Necco wafers topped the list. I still don't know what they are made of. They have little if any sugar in them, look like they might be antacid pills and have no distinguishable flavor between the colors. They might be pressed dust for all I know. Never cared for smarties or pixie sticks or candy corn.

We used to go to an old lady's house that lived at the end of our block. She gave out whole cans of Shasta pop. She was born with no hip joints and would slowly waddle to the door, her upper body swaying wildly back and forth like a child getting tossed about on a bumper car ride. She smoked constantly and her house reeked of smoke. Even as you turned down the path towards her house you could start to smell the smoke. She was something like 180 years old, was covered in deep wrinkles, had no teeth and her speech was garnished with a rattley southern accent. Her house was completely covered in vines and weeds. All that was visible from the road was a small porch light shining through a thick growth and a dim glow from her living room shining behind her screen door that seemed to say "Enter-- if you dare! Mwa! Ha! HA! HAAAA!" It was always a spooky house, but particularly ominous on Halloween. The vines and trees transformed in the dark to ghostly figures hunched over and leering. in order to get to her front door you had to pass through a gate in her fence. the gate had an archway over it and the entire fence and gate were draped in crawling vines. Passing through the gate, the branches and leaves groped out at you like zombie hands. I always just closed my eyes and ran through. Once you reached the door you could see inside her house. Bubba, her son was always sitting on the couch in nothing but coveralls (wish I were making this up, but my siblings will verify the validity of this haunting tale) Her dog Butch, a black and white bulldog would come barking and snorting to the door. From deep within the house over the blast of the TV you could hear Mable scream "Butch! Git over here!" and she would emerge from into view, the living room light creating a silhouette of her swaying waddle dance. She would open the door with the promised Shastas in hand, but hold them hostage as she yammered on about crazy people putting razor blades in candy and people poisoning kids with Halloween candy. 30 or so minutes later she would conclude by explaining that this is why she gave out sodas. Because you can't poison a pop. This is what I believe she said anyways. I only picked up every 4th or 5th word because she talked in that funny lippy way people do with no teeth, and the whole time I was just thinking "Give me the pop lady, so I can dart back through that scary gate and go home and put myself in a sugar induced coma!" After we got the can of soda, the can always made our candy bag smell like smoke. Looking back, I am not sure why I didn't skip that house.

I don't think I was ever a very smart child. It might even be easily argued that lack of intelligence has carried over into adulthood. My mom however, was smart. Every year for Christmas she would bake treats for the neighbors. For whatever reason at the time, she could never take the plate of treats that she had just made, down to Mable's house. And for whatever reason, "You are the youngest" "Can't find my boots" "Your legs are younger than mine" "You are closer to the door" "Just Swing on by real quick" and I always ended up taking the treats down to Mable's. Several hours later I would return, frozen and full of lippy, slack jawed meanderings. One year I lucked out. When I ran down to her house I noticed her purple AMC Pacer wasn't home. She was out either restocking on cigarettes or out for her morning coffee. She didn't answer her door. I pumped a joyous fist into the air said "YESSSS!" and put the plate of treats down on the porch and ran like Hell home for once delighted that I was back in less than a minute and having not endured any conversation.

Another time we did a neighborhood service project at her house. We all showed up and started clearing all of the weeds and vines off of her house. Just off of her porch there was always a metal lawn chair. While I was clearing an armful of branches, I turned around and saw her sitting in her chair watching the flurry of activity in her yard. She had a cup of coffee resting on the bottom of her foot and her leg was twisted all the way around backwards so that the bottom of her foot was just below her chin, making a nice resting table for her cup. I guess when life gives you bad hips, you make a convenient go-everywhere coffee table. And then one day she just died. I was astonished. I was convinced she was immortal. I was told the missionaries had killed her. That figures. They had been teaching her for quite along time. They challenged her to quit smoking. In less than a week the poor old thing was dead.

You know, Shasta doesn't taste the same when the can isn't covered in a thin veneer of smoking film.

Halloween Hyundai

One of my favorite things to watch on TV is "This old house" A PBS show where they remodel a historic home.

Usually about two thirds through the show you see the homeowner proudly walk into the house and look around at the demolition as they explain "We only had budgeted $2,000 to replace the porch light and the shutters, but we found termites, when treating the termite damage, we found most of the electrical was damaged from a previous homeowner. When we were replacing the electrical we found that most of the pipes were cast iron and some of them were even clay pipes! Can you believe it! Clay pipes! Now we are looking at a bill of $250,000!" The homeowner explains as a fake smile beams across their face and a tear runs down their face. "And that is just the price of the demolition! The contractor says we are looking at about a million to get it back together! In the mean time we have been living in my in-laws linen closet with a Rottweiler." At this moment one of the hosts walks into the scene holding a skull and is followed by a policeman who is jotting down notes. The host explains in a thick Maine accent "It looks like we just found the remains of a human under the master bedroom. Looks like we are going to have to exhume the corpse and excavate the entire west wing of the house Norm." I would laugh and slap my knee because I knew it wasn't me footing the bill. Besides, the thought of them living in a closet with a rottweiler did strike me as humorous.

Last week on my way home I smelled anti freeze in the car. I watched the temperature to see if it was going to overheat. Nothing.

I got home and found the car was making a small puddle of coolant. I wiggled hoses, shined a flash light all around, but I couldn't find where the leak was coming from. I took off the hoses to see if I could find a leak in them. Nothing. Removed the cooling fans and the radiator. All looked fine. I figured I might as well replace the hoses because the car had 150,000 miles on it and they were original hoses. They were definitely getting soft. Perhaps one of the hoses was just leaking. As a safety measure I took the radiator to a radiator shop and had it pressure tested. They called back later that evening. There was a split running the whole length of the top tank. They could fix the tank or for $12 more get me a new radiator. I went with a new radiator.

When I was pulling out the radiator I noticed the timing belt was glazed. In some cars (not mine) when a timing belt breaks the pistons collide with the valves and causes catastrophic engine damage. These are called destructive timing belt failures. Luckily in this car it has a non-destructive engine. but a broken timing belt is still a huge pain to repair once broken. I decided it was time to replace that.

While removing the A/C compressor I noticed the A/C belt was cracking and missing some pieces. Time for a new A/C belt. I also found the alternator belt was unraveling and was missing some cords. Time for a new alternator belt. After taking the water pump out I noticed there was some coolant stains and heavy crust build up around the weep holes on the water pump. Time for a new water pump. I have it all torn apart. noticed it needs an oil change too. Unfortunately I am out of money. The water pump and the re assembly is going to have to wait until I get paid again. This all comes in the same month that all of our cars need to be registered and several other bills are due.

I am sitting here with a fake smile beaming on my face and a tear running down my cheek. Just flooding the market with my own little economic stimulus package.

Stalkers Unite!

I write this blog for my own amusement, but I welcome any viewers although I don't blame you for not sticking around. However, I have seen on several blogs a new item called "Followers". It made me curious "Who actually reads my stuff?" The only way I know is if you post comments. Until now. If you actually read this casual, meandering, dribble I write, not just have read a post or two, but all of them, then sign up as a follower. Because if I get the most followers I win a new car! Well not really. But I will give a free car away to a random follower!!!! Nah, just kidding. Well, maybe I will give you a Toyota.

Dude! You're freaking me out!

I know I have joked about this stuff, but last week I found myself securely fastened in the center of one of my own remarks of jest.

Sometimes the occasion is required that I utilize a restroom at my workplace location. There are four urinals and all of them were vacant at the time. I strategically placed myself in front of the end one in case someone did enter the restroom, that left three of them to my left open and hopefully they would pick one that was at least one stall away. I have a comfort zone and when using a urinal, that comfort zone expands. Sometimes you get a social pee-er someone that despite having distanced locations, picks the closest station to an occupied one. You hope it never happens, but sometimes it does

Co-worker enters the bathroom I am thinking "Don't pick the stall next to me, don't pick it, don't pick it, don't pick it... oh great! a social pee-er!"

As he walks up to the stall next to mine he says "How's it going?"

I think "Oh no! not only is he picking the stall next to me... but he's a conversationalist! What's he gonna do next? put his arm around me?"

I glance over quickly to see if by chance he is talking to someone else. No one else is in the bathroom. He is staring intently at the wall in front of him. "Fine." I mutter out quietly.

Silence. Other than him picking the stall next to me when he had the choice of two other better locations, I calm myself as I assure myself that his socializing has ceased.

"How are things in recurrent going?" He suddenly blurts out

"I... uh... um... I am not working on any recurrent training courses for you right now." I stammer out.

He looks over at me like I am interrupting. I look back with a surprised look thinking "Well, you are the one talking to me!" Luckily I finish and turn and walk over to the sink. He begins talking again. This time the subject has deviated off to a new topic that I don't know anything about. "Who is he talking too?" I wonder. I look into the mirror and I see the bluetooth earpiece cradled on his left ear. "I'm an idiot! How embarrassing!" I growl under my breath.

Later that day I had to head over to the airport to get a new security badge issued as mine had expired. I parked in the employee parking lot and got on the bus that would take me to the terminals. The bus had two levels of seating. near the front of the bus there were two rows of seats with their backs to the exterior wall of the bus facing inward to each other. on the row of seats behind the driver there was also situated a large luggage rack for the crews to put their luggage on. On the upper level of seats in the back of the bus were 3 rows of double seats on either side of the aisle and one long bench on the very last row of the bus. A few ramp agents were seated in the back and a Delta flight attendant sat right behind the bus driver.

I sat down on the empty row across from the flight attendant. The ride was quiet except for the hum of the engine as it lurched the bus forward and the squeal of the brakes as they grappled the bus to a stop. Suddenly the flight attendant sitting across from me blurted out "Mmm hmm, I am on the bus right now" I looked around to see who she was talking to. She was staring out the window across from her. Up until that point I thought only crazy cat ladies talked to themselves. She did not look disheveled, hair seemed manicured, didn't wreak of cats and I didn't see a shopping carts nearby. She obviously had enough mental wherewith all to be gainfully employed as a flight attendant. Maybe she forgot her meds this morning. her conversation with herself stopped. Then she started talking about where she was going, a birthday party for her brother and Warren Buffet. She even paused as if she were listening to responses to her comments. She yammered on and on. I was so confused. I kept stealing glances at her to see if she was going to do anything more crazy or bizarre. She kept staring out the window. Then I saw something blink under her hair that was pulled down over her ears and I saw her phone cradled in her hand resting on the seat next to her. She was obviously talking on her bluetooth.

I am wondering if these bluetooth earpieces shouldn't have a giant orange flag that pops up when being used. You people don't know how confusing you are to other people. Of course you don't realize that, you are too busy talking on your phones.

The winter battle has begun!

As I stood in the driveway and waved good by to a beaten and tattered Chudleigh, earlier this summer, I am certain I heard old man winter having himself a good chuckle. I felt his icy cold breath that sent a shiver down my back. I sniffed back a tear and detected the slight pungent odor of shame and vengeance in that billow of Winter air. I knew he had retreated to his summer fortress in the North. But had since spent the majority of his time pouring over maps and studying strategies. thoughtfully sliding tiny icicles, snowflakes and blue thermometers over a huge map splayed out on a table, he would giggle and jot down notes as he carefully planned this year's attack. He hated Al Gore tauting about global warming and receding ice caps. He despised the theories that he was faltering in his... old age. He hated furnaces. He hated snow shovels. He hated ice melters. But most of all he hated Chudleigh. Seeing him pawned off like a three legged mule made him giddy. Giddy like a little school girl in love. He immediately returned back to his maps with fresh courage.

As I write this it is currently snowing outside. Sunday October 12th. Yesterday, Winter made a preemptive strike by turning down the temperature and peppering us with a light snow. Summer was putting up a good fight for me this year and we have had unseasonably warm weather up until recently. Or perhaps this was part of Winters plan. Lull us into a false sense of security. Make us think it was an endless summer and then when we were all lounging about our pools in speedos and bikinis, sail in and freeze us mid stride as we rushed inside to fetch our winter parkas.

Do not tell old man Winter but while he was making preparations for this years winter season I have been building a secret weapon in my garage. I have been rebuilding my newest snow blower. It has been completely disassembled, inspected and put back together with the newest and best parts as time and money allowed. Friday night I put some of the last bolts on the engine and got everything hooked up as it should be. I pulled on the chord and it puffed out a small hiccup. I pulled again. This time 3 hiccups. The third time I pulled on the chord it hiccuped, belched, farted and sneezed and then roared to life. I shut it off, and tried again. This time it eagerly jumped into action. I tried again yesterday and it started with no problem. Not bad for a 40 year old engine. As I have gone through this snow blower I cannot believe how great the condition it is in. Everything is built strong, out of solid chunks of steel and metal. Nothing is plastic. Nothing is shabby or flimsy and everything on it means business.

The body of the snow blower is being repainted. and I am having new skids made for it. They are being made out of old, thick leaf springs. I also still need to order new bearings for the rear wheels and then I will be completely ready. When it is all put back together I will post a video of it

Bring it on old man! Show me your ugliest face, and when you do... I will punch that face with an iron fist!

Paying respects to the rain gods

There is a tradition that occurs every week amongst my children. When we walk to church we pass a large concrete vault with a steel grate on top. If you were to peer inside you would see and hear a torrent of water gushing through it. Every week we do the same thing.

Shelby stops and I say "Don't pick up a rock!" Shelby picks up a rock. I say "No! don't..." As Shelby tosses it through the grate. Then she looks back at me like "I am sorry, I couldn't stop myself, it just happened!" The following week we repeat.

Then the thought occurred to me that we had formerly been in a then-getting-serious drought a few years ago, about the same time my children started offering sacrificial rocks. I wondered if it wasn't similar to the offering of a virgin to the volcano to appease it's fiery belchings. I wondered if I couldn't convince them that they had helped. I decided that I would stop bothering my children about this, because if there is one thing I want my children to learn is a bizarre and unfounded system of intricate superstitions and hopefully a healthy fear of inanimate objects.

I also realized that children will also do exactly the opposite of what you tell them to do. So, they will probably stop throwing rocks in the grate and... we will enter into another drought.

No Sleepy

Here it is October 1st, 3:00 A.M. I am wide awake.

Last night I came home, made dinner and became so sleepy that I found myself in bed by 9:00 and out cold by what must have been 10:00. (This is uber-early time for me to actually be asleep)

Then I woke up about 30 minutes ago wide awake.

As the final wisps of my dream wafted away, I snagged a few pieces so that I could share them. I dreamed that I had written a book called Adiagnosense (No clue what meaning that word would even have) The cover of the book was high gloss and was completely black. The title was written in Times and was white. Below the title there was a thin white line and then there was a bright red apple emerging from the shadows. The apple was shifted off to the side, towards the spine of the book and also emerging from the shadows was a snake and it was biting the apple. Obvious iconology, if even a bit cliched.

Inside I had written several hundred poems that went something like:

Systematic happenstance

Casual melodrama shatters the aqueous biosphere.
writhing in sedated monotony.
Fresh off the grill,
the fog drains the contorted symmetry.
Lazily beckoning,
abrasive comforts,
vibrant indulgence,
sudden elusiveness,
hallowed trechor,
erroneous reprieve.
calamity awakens the newborn ninja.
hush...be still, for tomorrow we sleep.


It was obvious that I had written the book to mock those that gather in dark, candle lit rooms, thickly adorned in a heavy smattering of black attire and perch thick, heavy rimmed glasses on their faces. That assemble together to read poems to each other in hushed tones and overly dramatic pauses. That scour the words for meaning and derive life direction from a series of loosely strung together words. But, I was at a book signing and they whisked me away to a room that was dark, candle lit and had heavy black curtains in it and the very people I was mocking began showing up and gushing to me about how meaningful and poignant my words were for them. It was taking a lot of self control to listen to them without laughing.

I once took an interpreting literature class that I thought was somewhat interesting, but some of the ideas that were thrown out during class made me spin around in my chair and look at the commenter and think "WHAT???" I walked away from the class with a realization that there is no absolute correct interpretation of what you read. It changes depending on your perspective.

As one of the final projects for the class we were given an assignment to pick a poem or short story, research what several "professionals" had interpreted it as and then we were to write our own interpretation. I don't remember what poem I picked, but I was happy to find that with a short amount of research I quickly located several in depth interpretations, that I put into my paper. I added my own interpretation that I pulled out of nowhere... completely bluffed my way through and to my delight, actually assembled a very persuasive point of view. And then I found an interview of the author where she was specifically asked the meaning of the poem. She basically said "Um... I don't know... I just liked the meter of the words and how they sounded next to each other. I didn't pay much attention to context."

I felt duped. I felt like an archaeologist who found something mysterious at a dig. I had inspected it, analyzed it, speculated and theorized it. Then to have my studies interrupted by a colleague saying "You done playing around with my chicken club sandwich, cuz... I kind of want to finish eating it now."

Here's an art exhibit idea for any art students (if it hasn't already been done... which it probably has) create a 3D sculpture and place it in the center of a round bubble maybe 10, 20 or 30 feet in radius. paint the inside of the bubble white and the outside black. Leave random slits in the bubble to peek in at the 3D sculpture. Make sure that every slit in the bubble reveals a completely new feature to the sculpture so that it almost looks like a different object from each slit.

On a more serious note, I would comment that this is a metaphor of how I think life is. That is the reason I will never get in an argument about ideologies like politics or religion. From my view of the sculpture I could be standing here yelling at you that I see a hammer and from your view of the sculpture you are standing there yelling at me that you see a pink flamingo. If you ask an orphan, a war veteran, and a college student about either of these topics, you will get a varied array of answers. I think there are absolute truths that the author, sculptor, and the creator know, but I also think that is the beauty of art and scripture, your interpretation can change almost by the minute depending on what your current perspective is. Your interpretation is enlightening, relevant and hopefully beneficial and then your perspective changes. Wow! sorry, that was a deep and thoughtful post. Here is yet another glaring example of the ill effects of insomnia.