Well I thought it was funny!

    This past Monday at my favorite music hall, Conundrum, we played part 1 of Martin Scorsese's George Harrison documentary "Living in the Material World" for free. This coming Monday, we're playing part 2 for the same exorbitant fee. On the announcement for the latter I wrote this about the former, to a very muted response:
"Revelations you missed from part one of "Living in the Material World":
1) Fifth Beatle? Margaret Thatcher
2) Every song ever written is about Pattie Boyd. "Greensleeves," "The Brandenburg Concertos," "Lulu Had A Steamboat," Beethoven's Ninth. ESPECIALLY Beethoven's Ninth. All. of. them.
3) The Beatles did not in fact record as Klaatu after their official breakup. They recorded as Hamilton, Joe Frank, and Reynolds.
4) That's George singing on "Roll Over Beethoven." (OK, that one's real. Well I didn't know!)
So come see part two, wherein we'll learn even more!"
    Yeah, I know, there should be quotation marks at the beginning of each line. Sue me. Well I thought it was funny!
    Something else I thought was funny: last night I dreamed I was watching an invisible porno. (How did I know it was a porno if it was invisible? That's a really good question. I'll be sure to ask my subconscious.) And I thought in my sleep, "I bet this would be a lot more entertaining on HBO!"

Retro futurism

    Please tell me that it is not my imagination that Honda Civic hybrids look just like miniature versions of 1970s Citroens. I ask this because I googled such a self-evident point and found... bupkis. Citroen is very active in hybrid technology, apparently, and this pushed all hits about physical resemblances off the first few results pages. Or it's my imagination. Or the Internet is dominated by Americans and 1970s Citroens never caught on in the US. Or all of the above.
    What I was going to say before Google disabused me of any illusion that I know what things look like is how funny it is that a design that was thought to be futuristic 35 or so years ago is back again. Is the new design retro? Is it still futuristic? Is it unbeLIEVably successful plagiarism? Or is it all in fact my imagination? I don't know!!! But I think it's pretty cool.

NO RAIN! NO RAIN! NO RAIN! NO RAIN!

    Last year was very odd in that almost all year, the weather would turn threatening at some point or other during a given day, but it almost never got around to raining. As I complained about the lack of rain at the time, it seems churlish to complain about heavy rains this year, so I won't. Actually, with the rest of the country mired in drought, it's probably even more churlish either to complain or to brag about the fact that we're getting any. It's just weird is all. I can't call it incessant because it does cease, and we've had our share of Chamber of Commerce days as well.
    I just wish the weather gods could arrange it so that the heavy rains fall on non-dialysis days. Though thanks, weather gods, for calling off the showers by the time I had to pick Dad up today. I can't say I'll actually perform a sacrifice in gratitude. Well, maybe I'll lay off the Woodstock references for a while; I call that a sacrifice.

Coldwater flat

    I always thought this a romantic phrase, or at least that it reflected a charming sort of roughing it. When the water heater blinked out last night, however, I adjusted my thoughts quickly. Fortunately, the landlady got an electrician out by this afternoon, so I didn't have to experiment with this Drama in Real Life (so sue me, RD) too long, not even 24 hours. I must say I never enjoyed a hot shower more in my life than the one I took this afternoon. (Well, a hot shower per se at least.)
    Otherwise, I got nothin'. Although googling indicates that a) that should be "cold water" and b) there is an apartment complex somewhere (presumbly Lawrence, KS) called Coldwater Flats. Must! Move!

Puzzlin' evidence

    I just wanted to say a little more about my tragic jigsaw puzzle addiction. An odd thing is that the program I'm playing jigsaw puzzles with, right after I said that they had quit updating and so the free puzzles every Friday weren't appearing, updated and ALL of them appeared. I had certainly checked with the Internet connected before; I guess it just took a while to get all the artwork downloaded. (Mind you, you still have to download each actual puzzle individually.) So the claim that there are 5,000 puzzles may not be true, but there are more puzzles than I will ever get around to playing!
    It's very weird to me that I like virtual jigsaw puzzles to the point of obsession, while I never liked real ones at all. It might have something to do with my very limited eye-hand coordination. More likely it more involves the fact that jigsaw puzzles are really annoying. You either have to play a marathon session or you have to have a large expanse of floor or table devoted to the incomplete puzzle for however long it takes to solve it. Since a kitty has entered my life, of course, real jigsaw puzzles would be really, really, really ill-advised. But I can recommend virtual ones very enthusiastically. Hopefully, I can rein in the obsession a little... one of these days.

French bread jigsaw

    Pleasantly odd day I have going on here. Some weeks ago, the guy in the other half of this house asked me to get his mail and newspaper for a few days. I said no problem and did so. In gratitude, he gave me a $10 gift card to Whole Foods. This gesture was wholly unnecessary but richly appreciated. I went to Whole Foods and found (and bought) an item I never saw before, Ian's gluten-free dairy-free soy-free French bread pizzas. Today, I finally tried one-- and found I was terrified! I knew perfectly well that it was GF DF SF; moreover, I knew perfectly well that I had eaten all that stuff for upwards of 45 years and none of it had killed me. Apparently, I've built up quite a neurosis about breads and pizzas and anything that looks like wheat. I got over it. Ate one, enjoyed it, survived. Yay!
    Meanwhile, I don't know if I've mentioned it but I've been developing a terrifying virtual jigsaw puzzle addiction. I found a free app on the iPad that started the ball rolling. When I gave the iPad back to Anne, I hunted down a free program for Windows, which I'm if anything even more hooked on. It's supposed to offer a new free puzzle every Friday, but it seems that they quit updating. However, what it also offers is the opportunity to make your own puzzle from your own picture. And I've got a LOT of pictures. So far the cat and Congaree Swamp have become puzzles. The cat feels that she should be played with in the more conventional way; I don't know what Congaree Swamp feels about the matter.
    Back to dreamland (you thought I'd quit reporting my dreams, didn't you? Ha!), I learned last night that the woman of my dreams wears glasses. That's literally (i.e., the woman in my dreams DID wear glasses), not necessarily figuratively. The previous night, I was briefly Cary Grant; then I was just a smart-ass observing that Cary Grant should take off his Cary Grant makeoff (which in the dream apparently included a good part of his skull) and only reveal later in the movie that he's in fact Cary Grant. Hell, even in my dreams I can't stay Cary Grant for long!

You kids get off my lawn!

    The other day, a couple of teenagers walked along the strip of lawn outside my fence. This is perfectly legal of course, and nothing that I object to on any level. However, a few weeks ago, somebody let their water buffalo poop on that stretch of lawn, and it hasn't biodegraded to any degree noticeable at all. So I came very close to having my first "You kids get off my lawn!" moment, but only for their protection. However, they had already passed that point on the lawn, so I figured they had either found out about it already, or would very soon. Water buffalo-- a serious hazard.

Where the deer and the alligators play

    This time, I definitely saw the alligator, and not just the tail. At Congaree Creek this afternoon, I should have known it would be a good wildlife-viewing day because before I even hit the loop trail (or if you prefer, before I'd gone 0.2 miles or so) a couple of white-tail deer crashed by. They appeared to be on the loop trail, which might have been an illusion, but then at that size, they probably appreciated the extra space between trees. They fled; I blame my singing. (Everybody's a critic.)
    When I got to the swampy section where the nice fellow with the young family showed me an alligator that I couldn't actually see the other day, I looked in the same place and there was an entire alligator. Basking, not bothering anybody. Maybe eight feet long and a little bulky-looking. Well-fed, I was hoping. As it wasn't yet 60 degrees, I was reasonably confident s/he would continue basking for some time yet. I thought of throwing him/her my jacket, as I was suddenly feeling considerably warmer, but I thought s/he might misinterpret the gesture. Regardless, there are definitely alligators in there, 'cause I saw one. Some day I'm going to remember to bring the camera on the days when I need it!

I'm only happy when it rains

    OK, I'm only physically comfortable when it rains, but I don't know any songs with that title. I suppose a person with common sense would find a workaround. The problem, which I have no doubt blithered about before, is that the heat pump dries out the apartment abominably. ("Abominably" must be one of the oddest looking words in the English language.) I have two humidifiers, but using the highly chlorinated tap water in them leads to me making these weird air burps, which I can't help but think aren't healthy. Anyway, they don't feel healthy.
    I could just as easily go buy distilled water for the humidifiers, but this seems like overkill and is also something of a pain in the butt. So, I keep the place as chilly as I can stand and only run the humidifier when the kitty becomes a static electricity monster. I know I could come up with a better solution, but on the other hand, winter is nearly over and it's raining a lot these last days of it anyway. So the solution seems to be finding itself. And I really like that Garbage song, too (though googling indicates that "I'm" isn't actually part of the title).

Focus

    ...although I guess I could have been cute and called it "Focus on the Family." Yesterday I took brother Malcolm hiking at Congaree Creek Heritage Preserve. There was one especially lovely scenic vista that I hadn't noticed before. I tried to take a picture of both him and it, but just couldn't. He was gracious about letting me take yet another of my people-free nature shots. Later, I did succeed at taking a picture of him surrounded by nature and pinpointed the problem: modern cameras look for a focus and hone in. The rest of the picture becomes background. If the focus is lit differently than the rest, well, too bad for the rest. The picture of Malcolm turned out pretty neat, but really he's too dark and the world around him is all washed out.
    The point is, though, that I always thought that my predilection for pictures without people reflected some degree of sociopathy, and it worried me a little. But what it really reflects is that I just don't know what the hell I'm doing when I get a camera in my hand. I can shoot landscapes because they're easy, but putting a person in a landscape is hard so I long ago gave up. I'm perfectly happy to recognize that I can stand to work on technique and theory. I'm even happier to realize that I'm not really a sociopath. Or at least not in this instance.

This modern life

    Last night's gathering for Dad's 92d birthday was something of a fiasco, though fun in the end. We went to Outback Steakhouse, which is usually a pretty relaxed place of a Sunday evening, but not this time. Part of this may have been due to today being a national holiday; maybe some people treated it like a Saturday night. The main problem however was that at some point in the evening the computers at Outback had gone down, so nobody could pay, so nobody could leave, so nobody new could sit down. By the time we got there, the problem had been fixed, but the backlog was still having a little trouble clearing.
    As we were a party of 7, we had adventures getting seated anyway. They wanted to put us at a table for six with one chair on the side, but there was literally no room (less than a foot) for anyone to sit in such a chair. Then we talked our way into another table for 6 with a seat at the end which nephew James took, which pretty largely prevented anyone getting by in either direction. Then finally they gave us the table they showed us in the first place plus the one next to it (all told with room for maybe 12), so at least we were comfortable. Then we started waiting for our food.
    It was a long wait. It made us wonder how a giant corporation couldn't have procedures in place for handling transactions using pen, paper and arithmetic. At least some of those people must have been willing to pay in cash if computer failure meant no credit cards could be handled. But maybe the cash registers wouldn't work at all. On the whole, it was a very poor recommendation for the 21st century.
    It's also unclear why having no one able to pay for a long time would create a backlog for the kitchen, but I guess when we all did finally get seated, we all ordered at the same time, and thus a backlog followed a long lull. Anyway, that's the closest to making sense out of it that I can manage.
    When the food did arrive, it was mostly cold, though mine was fine. On the whole, we all agreed we didn't need to come back to Outback again ever. However, Dad was cheerful, and singing, and having a good time, and certainly felt a lot better than the previous evening when we went out after dialysis. And that's all that matters.

Alligator!

    I was strolling the loop trail at Congaree Creek Heritage Preserve when I encountered a young family at a very narrow place. Mom, Dad, three tiny little girls. I have no idea how the girls were getting around on this fairly tough trail, but I guess they were small enough to carry. Regardless, the reason they were stopped turned out to be that Dad was showing them an alligator sunning himself about 50 feet away. He was nice enough to show me to, though to be quite honest I couldn't really pick it out. (Only the tail was visible, he indicated.) Still, it was a much more exciting hike than I usually have. (As it was only 45 degrees or so, we weren't exactly in a lot of danger, though.)
    Today is also my dad's 92d birthday. Siblings Anne and Malcolm, Jr., and Anne's son James are down from Boston for the weekend to celebrate the day. We took Dad and Margaret out last night and are doing it again tonight, and Anne, James, William and I went out for brunch this afternoon. It's been a pleasant, fun weekend.

So nice to see you again

    Not you. Well, that's not true; it's perfectly nice to see you again as well. However, I was referring to my sense of humor, missing lately. It rolled in again, strangely enough, with the foul weather. I stress that a sense of humor has little to do with being funny; I was at my funniest when I was clinically depressed and had just enough sense of humor to keep from pulling a Virginia Woolf. Sense of humor is the ability to find the funny side in any situation. As my situation is anything but funny, this is a skill that I desperately need. And thus am very, very glad to see it again. And you, too. And with a sense of humor, I may find that other people are more glad to see me, too. Something to hope for in any case, but if they don't, I'll probably find something funny about that as well.

731

    No, it isn't Barry Bonds' adjusted home run total. It's how many days there are in two years, assuming that one of the two is a leap year. As it's also the number of consecutive daily blog entries that I reach with this one, apparently my blog is now two years old. Now at least there's an excuse for it being terrible.
    One doesn't want to blog about the weather two often, even on anniversaries that offer a ready-made excuse for mailing one in. However, today is as beautiful a day as can be imagined, with highs in the mid-60s. Tomorrow, on the other hand is expected to be cold and nasty; the payoff is that some weather forecasters are claiming that there will be snow. And no doubt, somewhere there will be. I would welcome a total strikeout by the forecasters and a complete rerun of today. Hey! It could happen!

Lying without statistics

    Some time when I was in high school, I noticed that all the car ads featured glowing references from JD Power & Associates. The thing was that all these ads were for cars I knew to be terrible, and yet all of them seemed to be the best in their class. The only way I could figure it was that good ol' JD made up some awfully small classes. "Mid-sized sedan, bumper falls off in first week of ownership" class for example. And yet, JD Powers rolls on, these 35 years and more later.
    In the interim, an outfit popped up called Consumers Digest. The Wikipedia entry (which Wikipedia editors note sounds like an advertisement) claims they've been around since 1960, and maybe they have. However, the much better known Consumer Reports had attained much greater visibility with its "Best Buys," but refused to advertise or accept advertising. Suddenly, Consumers Digest shows up in almost every ad on TV (but especially for cars) with their "Best Buys." Hmmm. Lately, I'm not hearing so much about Consumers Digest in ads. I don't know if they've given up or if my much-curtailed TV viewing just means I'm missing the ads. Or maybe they were bought out by JD Powers.
    Hey, look! A link! It wasn't my imagination: http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2010/05/the-truth-about-consumers-digest/

Egg

    Yesterday morning I found an egg, unbroken, right in front of my front gate. I bought eggs recently, so I suppose it's just possible that it somehow slipped out of the carton and fell on the ground both without breaking and without me noticing. But I prefer the idea that it's some kind of voodoo message. I especially like this idea because it doesn't seem like a particularly threatening voodoo message; it seems friendly or even hopeful. Anyway, that's how I like to interpret it.
    Still, there's a dang egg in my yard. You hear about egg-suckin' dawgs, but none of them seem to have turned up to show off their skills. There are a lot of stray cats around, but none of them have taken any interest either. I could toss it into the vacant lot next door, but if somebody stepped on it at some future date, they would definitely be unhappy. I guess common sense says to put it in the trash next trash day, and cope with whatever voodoo curse is laid upon me as it arrives.
    Yesterday was a fairly odd day in the neighborhood all the way around. Speaking of the vacant lot, there were two trucks either in it or in front of it from the cable company. I assume that the vacant lot wasn't getting cable, but then, you never know. They didn't stay long, though. Nobody to sign the work order, presumably.

Valentine's

    As solos go, I'm about as pro-Valentine's Day as anyone could be. However, I'll be happy when it's done, not because of the day itself but because of the advertising. The advertising doesn't annoy me out of any solo bitterness (much), but because of how stupid the advertisers assume women to be. I haven't made a list, but as best as I can remember, to guarantee sex on the 14th, all I have to do is send flowers, send chocolate-dipped berries, send pajamas, or send a four-foot high $100 teddy bear. I think if women listened to more sports talk radio, they'd have a lot more insight, not into how men think, but how corporations think. I'd like to think that neither men nor women are that stupid; then again, if the ads didn't work, the companies would try another approach. Here's hoping they do anyway just on general principle. If they remember any of those.
    Things are running oddly at the dialysis clinic. Saturday, they hustled Dad into the dialysis area right out of the car, but then he had to wait a half hour before he actually got hooked up. Today, on the other hand, we were as usual about 20 minutes early. We had to wait those 20 minutes, plus 15, when I started complaining (since I was told by the social worker please not to complain until and unless they're running 15 minutes late), at which time they told me it would be another 10 minutes, plus those 10 minutes at which time I started to blow my top. The social worker came out and I almost calmly pointed out yet again that all we ask for is a chair time when a chair is in fact available. If they want to change his time, that's fine; we just want to know what it is. It turns out that stopping dead and looking straight up is pretty effective because it lets them imagine the awful thing you were about to say but bit back. Regardless, after telling me they weren't giving him special treatment, they called him back a couple of minutes later. Problem was that they had new technicians on his bay. Hopefully, things are better next time.

Willard Waterman

    Oh all right, it isn't the most earth-shaking discovery ever. Still, it's been driving me nuts for at least a year. There was this actor on old-time radio. (Well, there was this actor on the radio a long time ago, now retroactively an actor on old-time radio.) He got smarmy down with a hammerlock. However, he mainly appeared on programs which didn't list the cast, or named only one or two leading actors. Character actors didn't make the cut.
    As nobody much is working on an Internet Old-Time-Radio Database, the probability of ever finding out who this actor was seemed fairly remote. However, he turned up in the Screen Director's Playhouse's version of "Magnificent Obsession," toning down the smarminess to play the romantic lead. So I found him. Apparently, his big career moment was taking over for as the Great Gildersleeves. Speaking of smarmy.
    I think I've mentioned before how many old-time-radio shows are different adaptations of the same show, usually a film script, but I've certainly hit a lot lately. I'm up to my third "Hired Wife," this was my second "Magnificent Obsession," and I just hit my second "Prisoner of Zenda," too. Interestingly, very few of these are recycled scripts. They're actually rewritten from different angles and are often quite different. Partly this is because some are half-hour radio programs while others are hour-long. Pretty neat, regardless.

My vast social skills

    As I mention now and again, I am the host for Columbia's Drinking Liberally group. Now and again, we get together especially to watch some major or minor political event on TV. The State of the Union address is one of those events, and it's coming up Tuesday. For some reason, it has been a traditional big get-together for DL, not only for us but for chapters across the country. Political junkie though I am and have always been, I have no idea why. I have never had any interest in the SOTU and still don't. I think this became a DL tradition during the Bush years and has just hung over even though we're no longer likely to get ripped and throw things at the TV (much).
    Anyway, TV-watching in a bar is problematical since normally the TVs are all tuned to sporting events with the sound off, and music is playing in the place at the same time. However, we have a former venue where we used to be able to cajole them into changing the TV for us sometimes. We went back there for Election Day and it went pretty well (at least compared to the presidential debates, at a different venue, which were fiascoes).
    So I went around there this afternoon to ask if we could have our meeting there Tuesday night, and what the odds were that we could hijack the TV. I couldn't see the waitresses we had had in November, or any waitresses. The bartender was there, but the room where we meet is a different room from the bar so I wasn't sure if he would know one way or another. Sooo I skedaddled. Social anxiety took over and I scampered. I will try to ask again either later this evening or tomorrow some time. I'm pretty sure it won't be a problem (unless they decide to celebrate Mardi Gras on the actual day, which would definitely be more fun anyway) but nor was it one of my finer moments.

Orange scones

    or some damn thing. Long ago, for no apparent reason, I took up drinking orange juice mixed with milk. Somebody, probably my sister, told me that this is in fact an orange Julius. (Don't know what the capitalization rules are when you don't buy it from a stand at the mall.) The other day, I got a bug in my ear that it would be fun to make orange julius cookies, substituting almond milk for the kind from a cow. You know? I think they worked out.
    There's not much cookie-like about them; they're most like scones, or maybe cornbread. (Suggestion: put some orange peel in the next time you make cornbread. Ought to be pretty neat!) Even I as the person who made them wasn't exactly bowled over at first, but they're starting to grow on me. Anyway, if you want something more cookieish, you could always put in more honey or raspberry preserves or whatever. I'm finding them particularly delightful smeared with raspberry preserves. They're also neat with peanut butter on them, but maybe a little less so.
    I'll admit it that one reason I love this recipe is that it was goofy fun throwing an orange, a half cup of almond milk and a little orange zest in the blender and hitting the button. This is the kind of stuff I live for. Sad, isn't it?:) (It's obvious that I'm talking about a navel orange, right? Guess not; well I am!)
    Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Throw in a great big enormous mixing bowl: a tablespoon of EV olive oil; two tablespoons of honey (that's right; I'm down from four for once); a large egg, preferably cracked, shellless and scrambled; the orange (preferably peeled) and 1/2 cup of almond milk and zest (I just used a potato peeler on the orange's skin, which didn't produce much but it went a long way) from the blender; 1 tsp of vanilla extract; 2 cups brown rice flour (though I had 1/2 cup or so of chick pea flour left over and while my chick-pea-allergic food tester is out of town I figured I'd use it up, but all told it was still a total of 2 cups of flour) and a cup of slivered almonds.
    Mix up this unholy mess and you'll find yourself with something not entirely unlike bread dough. Since I was expecting a fiasco, I just levered the whole thing onto parchment paper on my pizza pan and threw it into the oven for 10 minutes. I flipped it, more or less, and gave it another 10 minutes, then flipped it again, turned off the oven and put it in for another 10.
    It didn't cohere well enough to make a cake or a loaf of bread or anything (though it may have if I'd put it in a loaf pan) but I think it would have come out prettier or anyway more orderly if I'd had the patience to drop the dough on the paper as cookies. As it was I cut them up into chunks, and they're pretty brilliant. The orange flavor isn't strong, but it's noticeable. I really think the little bit of zest imparted more flavor than the entire orange. Also there's no apparent creaminess, so the orange julius aspect really didn't come through, but on the whole I like them a lot and think you should try them. Maybe as cornbread!

Leave

    When I moved into this apartment, the previous tenant left a welcome mat that just said, "Leave." I thought that that wasn't very nice and it certainly was not the message that I wanted to convey to visitors. However, it was a very nice welcome mat and it seemed silly just to throw it away, especially as I would then have to go and get another welcome mat. So I just turned it around. Now, it says "Leave" when you are in fact leaving, which doesn't seem so offensive to me. Also, it restores a little humor to what would be a very funny joke if it weren't so mean-sounding.
    Otherwise, I got nothin', apart from finding out again as I do every year about this time that Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born on the same day. You would think that that would be more widely known or more widely remembered. Then again, I forget it every year, so maybe everybody knows about it and forgets about it, too. Otherotherwise, just worrying about the blizzard to the north and enjoying the outstanding weather we're having and trying not to feel too guilty about it. Here's hoping that the weather forecasters are all wrong.

Never want to work that hard

    Dad news is not bad, but not great. The new catheter quit working after 2 1/2 hours, so he only got a half dialysis, and this after missing the previous one. However the nurse assures him that this is normal for a first session with a new catheter, and that the next session Saturday should go fine. Moreover, he feels fine. So I didn't have to wait this time, and am in fact done for the day. Time to start painting the town!
    The other day I found to my surprise that of the horribly overplayed megahits of the '70s, one has left the brotherhood, at least to my ear. I'm ready to listen to "Just the Way You Are" by Billy Joel again. This may have something to do with the fact that, unlike in the '70s, I can hit the notes now. Or maybe time heals all wounds, including even Billy Joel fatigue. It's a great song except for one thing: I still can't figure what's so hard about clever conversation, why anyone wouldn't want it, and what kind of woman would be interested in a schmoe who didn't? Paging Christie Brinkley!

Different day!

    So I can be mistaken! The nephrologists actually noticed that clotting at the access (what they call the fistula that is the access point for dialysis) three times in a month is sort of excessive, and might require a different approach. So instead of doing the same thing that had caused great stress twice already this year without actually, you know, working, they switched to a simpler approach. They just put a catheter on his jugular vein. This didn't require any sedation, so he didn't have any aftereffects or weakness. Also, his labs were OK and anyway you aren't supposed to use a catheter for dialysis the first day, so he was excused from having to go to dialysis to make up for missing yesterday's session. We felt like kids let out of school early.
    Also, we didn't have to wait 3 hours before they started doing anything, either. The whole deal took less than two hours. Now, it's not like this is the end. He still has to see a surgeon and get a new access installed. This will probably entail a short hospital stay some time in the coming weeks or maybe months. But hey; at least we're having a good day today!

SSDD

    The first S is "same," while the Ds are "different" and "day." Got the call, later than ever. Up until now, if it's past 1 pm and I haven't heard anything from the dialysis clinic, all is go and we're going to have a good, or anyway not a bad, day. However, it was after 1:30 this time. I was just coming in from taking my walk. Margaret called, as the dialysis center had again called her instead of me. Dad had clotting again, so he wasn't able to have dialysis. I needed to come pick him up. We have to go to the nephrologists again at the crack of dawn.
    This is now the third time in this very short year. Admittedly, it had happened once before so it isn't entirely unprecedented, but this is starting to get ridiculous. At least now we know the drill. This time, if he's still weak by Sunday, presumably we'll know better than to call an ambulance and hit the emergency room. (The hospital is asking for $4K for that adventure, by the way.) So you know, not a crisis, not a big thing; just another something we would be just as happy to avoid. And obviously a step backwards in his physical therapy program. Ah well.

Puddin', Button, Punkin and Peanut

    Long ago, Alice and I used to enjoy visiting the Dillard House in Dillard in northeastern Georgia. The Dillard House is famous for a buffet that comes to you. They call it family-style dining; the staff brings you everything all at once: meats, sides, bread. It's family-style in that it's like a Thanksgiving dinner for two (or however many are in your party. The menu is preset, slightly different every day, but extensive. I remember fried and barbecued chicken. I remember excellent cornbread. I remember never being able to finish it all but being allowed to take doggy bags.
    They have a motel alongside, which is pretty large. We always crazy-mad loved staying there. While it isn't in the strictest sense in the country, Dillard is a very small town and it's a lot more like the country than we're used to. And the mountains are nearby. Not too far away they have vacation chalets, also excellent and much more private. We very much enjoyed staying there once.
    There's also a farm, with sheep and goats and I think one cow. And farm cats. Every time we went, there was a new crop of kittens. They had a way of hanging out at the front door of the restaurant, as if they thought that being ultra-cute was going to get them leftovers out of generous and well-fed patrons of the restaurant. You know what? I think they may have been right!
    It was here that Alice and I determined that all kittens should be named Puddin', Button, Punkin or Peanut. And every time we came, a new set of kittens would find themselves saddled, for an hour or two or a day or two, with these names. "Just hand over the fried chicken," I'm sure they were thinking.

Up a creek

    So today was a lovely and a warm day, and as I so often do I decided to go hiking at Congaree National Park. Normally, I just go around the very, very, very easy boardwalk loop and call that enough exercise for anybody. (It's all of 2.2 miles, but at least I usually go fast.) Today, however, that was just not possible. It was just too great a day, particularly considering that it's February the freaking third. So I opted for adventure.
    The trails at the park all interconnect, so you can easily turn a one-hour hike into an all-day one without thinking too hard. My problem is that I skip right from "not thinking too hard" to "not thinking at all." I decided to leave the boardwalk and head out on the longer Lake Weston loop trail. Then when I hit the intersection with the Oak Ridge and River trails, I decided that one of those would be even better. I wasn't going to do anything crazy; I checked my watch and decided to turn around in fifteen minutes. Like that's going to happen!
    After the fifteen minutes, the Oak Ridge and River trails split and I decided to follow the former for an even bigger loop. It was early and it was turning into a truly spectacular day. It couldn't be prettier out nor could it have been nicer for hiking. I marched on with a song in my heart and Cary Grant in "Suspicion" on the iPod. Then arose the serpent. (No, not Cary Grant.) A very nice couple came from the other direction and told me that the trail was blocked by water ahead. The lady said that I could get around it by going 300 yards to the left, hopping across and beating my way 300 yards back. I thanked them and carried on.
    It really was a very long way before I hit the water, but it couldn't be mistaken. When your trail markers are on trees sticking up from the middle of a creek, it's a hard sign to miss. I took her advice and headed left, got across no problem, but couldn't find the trail again on the other side. I kept looking and looking and struggled through a lot of vegetation and mud.
    Finally, I came across what had to be the creek that represents the canoe trail through the park, which I'm pretty sure is called Cedar Creek. A great thing about the park is that they let trees that fall decompose naturally. A problem with this is that some of them fall next to streams and in the distance look like pedestrian bridges. So I kept heading upstream thinking I was seeing a bridge (and therefore the trail) only to find that I was mistaken. However, one of the rules of life is that if you're lost in the woods, follow a stream and you'll find a path or a road or a settlement eventually.
    There were a couple of trees fallen all the way across the stream, and I gave some thought to trying the natural bridge route. I mean to the point of climbing up and testing my footing; not to the point of testing it over actual water. My well-developed sense of self-preservation (also known as my deep strain of cowardice) came through, however.
    Eventually, my trips away from the stream to avoid mud, muck and switchcane put my feet on the trail again, which turned out to be the way that I had come. I can't say I minded even an iota. It was still about an hour's hike out, but the day had gotten even more fabulous as I had been getting ever more lost. Being found again made it maybe slightly easier to appreciate.
    You would think that at my age, I would have been cured by now of penchant for trying to get lost in the woods, preferably someplace out of cell phone range if not someplace where I don't speak the language. You would be wrong.

Mrs. Ruff

    When I was in elementary school, I had a teacher named Mrs. Ruff. I had her for both fourth and fifth grades. Desegregation had just happened (I mean de facto; de jure had happened decades earlier) and there were comparatively few black teachers in the formerly (practically) all-white schools.
    Mrs. Ruff's husband owned the Blue Ribbon Cab Company, the largest black taxicab outfit in the area. Unfortunately, he died while I was in fourth grade. So for two years at least, Mrs. Ruff was teaching elementary school and at the same time running a large and successful taxicab business.
    I don't remember much about her as a teacher; there wasn't colossal amounts of teaching going on in elementary school in those days anyway. Also, I desperately needed glasses but held out until I absolutely could not any longer, which was latish in fifth grade. So it was all literally a blur. But what I remember about her was that she was a great person. Sadly, I don't think she lived all that long after I left her classes.
    Today I saw a Blue Ribbon cab with a white driver. It's not necessarily a sign of changing times, or revolution or even evolution. But I felt good about it. I like to think Mrs. Ruff would have, too.

Duckweed meditation

    Today was a chilly but a beautiful day, and I very much looked forward to going for a hike. One of my favorite hiking trails in the area is at Congaree Creek Heritage Preserve. One of the great things about it is that there are very few visitors, so I can sing as loudly and obnoxiously as I like.
    This time, however, there was another visitor. She was an attractive young woman all in purple. The trail at Congaree Creek consists of a short connector trail that leads you to a longer (2.5 mile, more or less) loop. She was ahead of me since I had to hook to the iPod and zip my jacket. I wasn't going to follow her anyway (not being all THAT creepy) but was pleased when she went counter-clockwise, thus allowing me to go clockwise without bothering her.
    I made it more than halfway around the loop before encountering her again. Congaree Creek has these rather Paul Bunyanesque benches every now and again on the trail, and she (or anyway somebody female wearing purple) was sitting on one facing a duckweed-covered pond. Duckweed, they tell me, is the smallest flower in the world; however, most people seem to think it looks more like pond scum. I can't say that I'm a fan. It struck me as a strange place to take a rest, but maybe she's a huge fan of ducks. (I've been there a lot and seen a lot of duckweed, but if I've seen any ducks I don't remember it.) It's a great place to see great blue herons, but I think you're more likely to do so by keeping moving. Anyway, I appreciate that none of this is earth-shattering. It just struck me as weird. Maybe she was just tired; maybe she finds duckweed an aid to meditation. Regardless, it was a lovely hike. I hope she enjoyed her day as much.