Mondays... I could never get the hang of Mondays

Actually, it wasn't too bad today, considering. The worst thing that happened was that the daycare that we thought had an opening available didn't, although they did take our paperwork should an opening present itself.

Ian got to play in his sandbox today for the first time, and even as I grumbled over having to sweep up the outflow after him, I felt good that he was able to go and play outside on the deck. I got a couple of interesting job-related calls as well; keep your fingers crossed.

In The Midst of Life, We Are In Death

Today was All Saints' Sunday at our church - a time to reflect and remember the friends and loved ones we have lost over the past year. As part of the service, our choir performed John Rutter's Requiem. If you've never heard it, find a copy and listen. It's a stunning piece of work.

As we sang though the oratorio this morning, I couldn't help but think of the people I've known, and the people that my own friends have known, who have passed on in the past 12 months. I thought of them, smiled a little, came near to tears at more than one point, and said prayers for their souls.

Bob Hankins
David McLaughlin
Helen Apperson
Suzanne Messick

I remember.

Filling Up My Closet

This morning I was doing my laundry and putting my clothes in my new closet when I took a look at what was in there.

Shirts. Specifically, dress shirts. Shirts that I could be wearing to a job, or at least a job interview. Shirts that would look pretty darn spiffy in the fluorescent glow of your typical high-rise cubicle. Shirts begging for a stain from some sloppily-eaten Chinese food. White shirts. Green shirts. Blue shirts. Yellow shirts. Even a pink shirt.

Alas, it seems that my shirt collection is destined to be worn only for church, reunion and family portrait occasions. It has been over a month since we moved here, and I've only had one bite on my resume. It's as if I'm invisible here. I need to find a job soon or else we may very well lose our house. Having to foreclose on your house two months after you move in? That would not be a very good thing, especially at Christmas.

Hopefully, something good will happen soon, and I can start taking my dress shirts out of the closet on a daily basis.

iPod Shuffle-NaBloPoMo edition

I realize this may seem like fudging on the NaBloPoMo event, but I feel I need to do this before I go on to more important issues.

1) Revelation (Mother Earth)-Ozzy Osbourne
2) I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man-Prince
3) She Loves You-The Beatles
4) Every Night-Paul McCartney
5) Parker's Mood-Charlie Parker
6) Lakini's Juice-Līve
7) The Odd Ball-Henry Rollins
8) Stone Free-The Jimi Hendrix Experience
9) I Can't Watch This-Weird Al Yankovic
10) Gingerbread Boy-Miles Davis
11) Never Enough (Big Mix)-The Cure
12) Goodbye Pork Pie Hat-Charles Mingus
13) Take The Long Way Home-Supertramp
14) Snake-pj harvey
15) Got The Time-Anthrax

Hmmm... I gotta ruminate on that shuffle. More later.

NaBloPoMo-Yr Tw

As I see, it is once again National Blog Posting Month. And again, I shall endeavor to entertain the mass(es) by posting once a day for November. The trick this time is that I shall be posting different content to both this blog and to my MySpace blog thingie.

I can't promise it'll be exciting, or even worth a minute of reading, but I promise there'll be something for at least thirty days.

Cheers!

Flippin' Cats!

I know that I have had my share of embarrasing moments in my life. Heck, you ALL know I have had a special gravitational attraction to catastrophe. But yesterday morning just beat it all out.
I had been up 'til about 3 Friday night/Saturday morning trying to get Ian to bed. He just refused to go to sleep, and frankly I can't remember if he passed out first or if I did. In any case, I didn't wake up 'til about 9 Saturday AM. To make things more interesting, I had forgotten to herd the cats into our garage for the night.

Kathy was already up and rehearsing music for a requiem we're doing at our church in a few weeks. I had passed out in our guest room after unsuccessfully coaxing Ian to come sleep with Daddy, or just to sleep, period! When I woke up, I decided I needed at least a few minutes in my own bed and I went to the master bedroom.

For whatever reason, I decided to crawl into bed on Kathy's side. I don't know what made me do it; I attribute it to Murphy's law. In any case, I had just crawled into the sheets and pulled the quilt over me when I rolled on my side and felt a distinctive "squish" on my bare leg.

In an instant, I decided it had to be one of three things:
1) a washcloth Kathy had been using and discarded on the bed for some odd reason.
2) a hairball horked up by one of our cats
3) "Oh dear God, no."

I lifted up the quilt and top sheet and looked down at my leg. Sure enough...

A cat had pooped in our bed.

I don't know why I didn't smell it when I walked in the room. I don't know why I had to think of other possibilities. I just know that when I realized what it was, I jumped out and bundled up all of the bed linens to take to the washer for immediate processing.

The offending cat (we know who it was since she's done this kind of thing before, but not to this degree) has been banished from the living area, and may be headed to a rescue shelter before the week is out. It sucks because this cat is Ian's favorite. She snuggled him in his crib back when he was a newborn, and she has basically been by his side ever since. She's also a very sweet cat, which makes it that much harder. With the bed poop incident, however, it may be time for Lovecat to find a new home.

I'm taking offers.

Moving On

We've moved. Outside of Atlanta. More later.

Ipod Shuffles for Peace

Or something like that. Actually, I needed to put one of these up, 'case it's been a while:

1. Once-Pearl Jam
2. The Best Of Times-Styx
3. When The Levee Breaks-Led Zeppelin
4. I'm Not In Love-10CC
5. She Hates My Job-Local H
6. Hand Of Doom-Black Sabbath
7. Many Meetings-Howard Shore (from LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring)
8. Welcome Home (Sanitarium)-Metallica
9. Scandalous-Prince
10. Nothing Else Matters (live)-Metallica
11. The End-The Doors
12. U Got the Look-Prince
13. Nookie-Limp Bizkit
14. Hedwig's Lament-Hedwig and the Angry Inch
15. Y'all Want A Single-Korn

Hmmm... I was afraid it was going to be all old, OLLLLLD stuff, and then Local came along with the Hand Of God and livened things up. Two Princes, two Metallicas, and an instrumental break from Lord of the Rings. Y'all wanna single? Fark that!

On the Edge of History

Tonight I'm sitting here watching the Dodgers and Giants on ESPN, as Barry Bonds is looking for home run #755, which is the major league record set by Hank Aaron. I'm a bit divided on the inevitability of Bonds breaking the record. On the one hand, records are made to be broken. However, I'm not all that anxious to see Barry become the new Home Run King, and not simply because of the steroid allegations.

My reticence to cheer Barry stems from the fact that I remember when Aaron hit 715. I didn't see it, mostly because we were lucky to have a color TV back in those days. I do remember reading it the next day in the paper, and even though I was 7 and just barely getting into baseball, Hank Aaron immediately became my favorite player. The fact that he was playing for the Atlanta Braves, my de facto hometown team, only made it that much sweeter for me.

It wasn't until I was an adult that I fully understood the full implications of Hank Aaron's achievement. The color line, the hate mail he got for an entire winter before breaking Babe Ruth's long-standing record - even the fact that he broke it in Atlanta, a city in the heart of a former Confederacy only beginning to rise above the sludge of racism; it all made the story so much more incredible. It made Aaron's record that much more precious.

That's what makes Bonds' chase so painful to me. Not so much the question of banned substances; it's the potential loss of one of the great stories in sports history. The story of Hank Aaron's mom running out to home plate and embracing him to shield him from potential snipers will be replaced by a sullen Barry Bonds sitting at his locker, stonewalling reporters who ask him pointed questions about androstenone. Sure, there'll still be old and aging farts like me who'll remember the story and try to pass it on to our sons; I just hope they'll listen.

Update from Stonewall Country

It's been a while, so I decided to update y'all on what's going on in my life, and that of my family.

• I am no longer working at the newspaper. Those of you who keep in semi-regular touch with me know why. I'm looking for work, and while I haven't found anything new yet, I do have a couple of irons in the fire. I'll let ya know what happens.


• After a brief flirtation with moving to Alabama, and then Georgia, Kathy and I have decided to stay here in VA, at least for now. We're currently scoping out some property on which to put a house. Depending on job situations and the mode of housing we choose, we could have a house-warming some time in the early fall. (crossing fingers)


• Speaking of kicking it in the country, Kathy has decided to start up a new blog dedicated to her interest in home decor, cooking, and all things domicile-related. It seems only natural, seeing as how she only has subscriptions to some 127 home-decorating magazines.* Check it out at http://kathysmagicwindow.blogspot.com/.


• Ian is still growing, although his interest in all things Thomas is augmented by worship of Tweetsie Railroad. We went to see the 'Road in June, and since then Ian plays with his model Tweetsie almost as much as he does Thomas and Friends. He has even taken to singing "I've Been Working On The Railroad" as "Tweetsie Is The Railroad".

That's all I got for the moment. Now that I'm unemployed, I guess I can/should update more often, eh?

How you?

*Figure slightly exaggerated. Slightly.

Somehow, I've always known...

Your results:
You are The Joker

The Joker 67% Magneto 62% Mr. Freeze 58% Mystique 58% Apocalypse 54% Dr. Doom 52% Riddler 51% Venom 50% Poison Ivy 48% Lex Luthor 46% Dark Phoenix 46% Two-Face 46% Catwoman 43% Green Goblin 42% Kingpin 34% Juggernaut 30%

The Clown Prince of Crime. You are a brilliant mastermind but are criminally insane. You love to joke around while accomplishing the task at hand.

Click here to take the Super Villain Personality Test

Too Close To Home

I was thinking about posting something here about the weekend, maybe something to do with the Don Imus situation, but all that was thrown out the window this morning.

Someone (or some people, I'm not entirely sure) has shot up the Virginia Tech campus, and as of this moment, at least 22 people are dead. People here at the newspaper are listening to radio broadcasts and streams, and awaiting news of any local casualties. Frankly, I'm praying that's not the case. I'll try to keep a running commentary as I hear anything new on the situation.

1:50 pm

Now hearing on WVTF that between 20-30 are dead.

2:23 pm

Someone in the office just said the toll's up to 32.

2:35 pm

Now the New York Post has as its top story 32 dead, 21 injured.

I have to share this story from this weekend, but first, in case you didn't know, I have a phone interview with a software company tomorrow morning Wish me luck, and pray that I can get out of the newspaper business before it does me in. Anyway... Yesterday, Da Kat, Li'l Ian and I went to Harrisonburg to look at modular homes and scope out some land a Realtor had told Kathy about. The first part of it was pretty cool, although the prices that we had heard were so low start to add up once they decide to add on A/C ductwork, basement, etc. Still and all, we have a better idea of what we want in a house and land, and what we DON'T want. Which brings me to the land looksee. Kathy had called a Realtor about finding a decent size lot where we could put a modular home. The Realtor suggested a place about 10 miles outside H'burg that she said would be nice because "there's a lot of other people with modulars out that way." However, she couldn't get away to show us the property, so she gave us directions. After lunch, we set out for the lot, which was located near a town called Singer's Glen. After driving about 15 miles (not 10), we decided to stop at a little country store in Singer's Glen to make sure our directions were right. It turns out they were mostly right, but somehow we were missing a few key turnoffs to get to the property. The store clerk's wife set me straight and, as I was walking out the door, she wished me "good luck". I assumed she meant that in a navigational sense. Boy, was I ever wrong. After following her directions, we got to Mayberry Drive. Sounds nice, doesn't it? Well, it was except for the fact that there was a free-range chicken farm on the road. And by "free-range", I mean that there were chickens all over the friggin' road! There were also a multitude of empty bread wrappers blowing through the chickens' de facto coop/shelter yard, and across the road. It reminded me of this guy who lived near me when I lived in North Carolina, only instead of 5-6 chickens running loose, this guy in VA had about 30 at the moment. Once we cleared that hurdle, it was onto the next task; finding the turnoff road. We went one way, and all we saw were a couple of guys working on their cars, and some pretty wormy looking kids walking down the road with no particular aim or purpose. We got to the end of the road and turned around, hoping it would be at the other end. As we came back, we noticed one of the kids walking a rather sizable pit bull. I slowed down to let the kid move to one side or the other, but he just kept walking towards us. I thought, "OK, I realize this is a little bitty Prius, and I have some hippy-dippy stickers on the back of it, but if you don't move, you and your big dog are gonna get a hurtin'!" Finally, the kid moved, but he shot me a look like I was twice as old as I am. We kept going and finally reached the other end of Mayberry, and our destination: Copperhead Road. Now, I should have realized that a road named for a song about moonshiners/pot growers who make lawmen "disappear" might not be the best road in the world, but we had come that far, and by God, we were a-gonna see this friggin' lot if it killed us! We should have turned around at the sign, but we didn't. We should have turned around when we saw the steep grade of the narrow dirt road, but we didn't. We should have turned around when we saw the trailer covered over with plywood and a crudely-lettered sign saying "All we are saying... give Jesus a chance", but... we didn't. We thought about that one, but we didn't turn or back out. We kept going another 50 yards, and then it happened. A HUGE dog lunged out at us, and snapped its jaws at my driver's side window. It made us jump, but we recovered when we saw that Redneck Cujo was chained to his doghouse. Then I noticed something else lying beside the doghouse. I nudged Kathy and said "hey, look over there." At that moment, our jaws dropped when we realized what it was. What we first thought was another large dog sacked out on the ground beside the Attack Dog From Hell's clapboard kennel was in fact a full deer carcass. It was at that moment that Kathy and I looked at each other, mouths agape, and said to one another "Aw, Hell no!!!" I put the car in reverse and we headed back to Harrisonburg as best we could. We were laughing all the way back over this, especially after I came up with my three theories of how the deer had ended up a tasty snack for Damien II: Electric Boogaloo. They are as follows: The owner found the deer as roadkill and decided it was cheaper than buying a 50-lb. bag of dog food. The owner shot the deer on a hunting trip and decided "Hell, I'll give it to Dolchstoss Jr. He'll eat it up!" That dog was the meanest sumbitch ever put on God's Green Earth BTW, we think that when Kathy told the agent that we were looking to put up a modular, she thought we meant "trailer". We looked, and along Mayberry/Copperhead Road, it was wall-to-wall trailers, and not one true modular home. Craziness.

Just that kind of week

Just call it diarrhea, cause it's been the... well, you get the picture. I'll just give you some lyrics from Ani DiFranco, to give you my mindset at the moment:

Every State Line

Got pulled over in west Texas
So they could look inside my car
He said are you an American citizen
I said "Yes sir,
So far."
They made sure I wasnt smuggling
Someone in from Mexico
Someone willing to settle for America
'cause theres nowhere else to go

I broke down in Louisiana
And I had to thumb a ride
Got in the first car that pulled over
You can't be picky in the middle of the night
He said "Baby, do you like to fool around
Baby, do you like to be touched?"
I said "Maybe some other time
Fuck you very much"

I'm in the middle of Alabama
They stare at me where ever I go
I dont think they like my haircut
I dont think they like my clothes
I cant wait to get back to New York City
Where at least when I walk down the street
Nobody ever hesitates
To tell me exactly what they think of

A little town in Pennsylvania
There was snow on the ground
I was parked in an empty lot
Where there was no one else around
But I guess I was taking up too much space
As I was trying to get some sleep
'cause an officer came by anyway
And told me I had to leave

And every state line
Theres a new set of laws
And every police man
Comes equipped with extended claws
Theres a thousand shades of white
And a thousand shades of black
But the same rule always applies
Smile pretty, and watch your back

Shuffle Off To iPod-land

Fifteen songs, all on my iPod:

1) Erotic City-Prince
2) A Girl Like You-Edwyn Collins
3) Get Off Of My Cloud-The Rolling Stones
4) Riviera Paradise-Stevie Ray Vaughan
5) Take It To The Limit-The Eagles
6) Nobody Told Me-John Lennon
7) Indifference-Pearl Jam
8) The Long Grift-They Might Be Giants
9) Love Song-Tesla
10) Tear Me Down-Spoon
11) Rid Of Me-PJ Harvey
12) Interstate love Song-Stone Temple Pilots
13) Don't Cry (Alternative Lyrics)-Guns N' Roses
14) Animal-Pearl Jam
15) St. Cecilia Mass: Credo-Gounod