Malheuresement

http://wcg-journal.blogspot.com/2012/07/july-4ths-unsung-prophet.html

The Chicken Pie Shop

The Chicken Pie Shop

Crewman

Fuckit

"I forgot..."

Dogs clearly have memory.   They remember us; they remember where they dropped the ball or the bone; they dream.   But do dogs have a concept of forgetting?  Dogs clearly do forget.  But are they conscious of having forgotten and are they aware that we do that thing we call forgetting -- that we do the >blank<.

Nicki's morning routine is as simple as it is invariable:  up, poop, eat.   He expects me to get up somewhere around 7:00 a.m.    When I stir, he stirs.  If I do not stir somewhere around 7:00 a.m. he stands over me and stares until I stir.  

Once I'm up, he stands waiting for me to be attached and ready to yank me outdoors where -- yanking me still --  he pees, sniffs and poops.    All of this happens, I might add, before I've had any coffee. 

When we return,  I turn on the water pot and Nicki stands around waiting for me to open the door to the place where CHOWBAG is, whereupon he will nudge me out of the way and thrust his muzzle into the bag to scarff up more kibble than he will get from his cup.   He will then hear the high pitched whirrrr of whatever it is that precedes his bowl getting put on the ground full of kibble that has been pulverized and bulked up with water or broth so that it has the consistency and approximate taste of hamburger.   He will then gobble and lick.  

Habit is a form of fixed memory and so he clearly remembers this  routine every morning.   But this morning, I did not.   I was working on a project and forgot, or more accurately put got enmeshed in a ridiculous mash of html  which I didn't mix up in the first place.  At 10:30,  I pulled away from the screen and went to make another cup of coffee.

Nicki followed me to the kitchen were he sat down, looked up and gave me this worried/pleading look.  

Ohmygawd!  I forgot!  I'm sorry...   I  patted him on the head, and immediately set about  making his kibble burger,  apologizing yet again.

Obviously Nicki knew he had not been fed and he had remembered that by then he ought to have been.   I think he  felt something was wrong.   as obviously something was.   He knew I was not doing what I have invariably done.   But did he understand that I simply forgot?

Straw Hat and Pull Ups

It's been hot the past two days.  I'm glad I had the foresight to buy an air-conditioner.  (Marked down 50% because it was a left over model for last year.  Oh fie!)  Yesterday it was too damn miserable to do anything; so I didn't.

Today it was about 5 or 7 degrees cooler but still warm enough for Nicki to rejoice in water.  So I took him to the pond off James street.   Surprisingly no one was there.  Even the ducks appeared to be hiding under rushes somewhere.   Nicki had the pond to himself for endless wasser-balling.

I wore my new Panama-Cowboy straw hat which I picked up for $12.00. 

Water-ball time over, I drove to the gym making sure the Jeep got parked in a shady spot with a breeze.   This month, I've changed my routine to a three way split:  (1) chest and back (both free weights and machine); (2) shoulders & triceps (free and machine) and (3) legs and biceps (free and machine.)

There weren't that many people in the gym but for some reason they were extra friendly.  When I had finished my bent over rows (135 lb) and was panting my last, this guy who does 300 lb squats on a BOSU ball (!) comes over and slaps me a high five, saying "I heard you."   As I was getting ready to do my pullups this heavy set severe looking black dude (of the sort Miss Hillary must have had in mind) comes over and asks if I'm finished with the pulleys.  "No, but feel free to work in; I have to rest."  He flashes a smile.  Finally rested I do my pull ups which I've been working on cautiously on account of a potential tendon issue. The  dude turns away but I know he's watching me in the mirrors.  I do 8 and just as I start to fail he turns around and assists with a lift to my shoes.   I thank him and he says, "I wanna be like you when I grow up."

After changing and taking a last sip at the water cooler, a young girl doing seated dumbell work smiles and says, "Nice hat."

Zion 86

Zion is one of the most beautiful places in the United States, in my opinion.  It is to the Grand Canyon what a delicate gothic chapel is to the massive St. Peters.  

I don't know what it is like today, but when Carlson and I backpacked there in 1986, there were no amenities at all once one ascended from the camp ground and park curio shoppe.  We had to tote (and conserve) our own water. Those were also pre-cell phone days. But being young such absences were of no concern.  

For two days there was nothing to do but enjoy our own company and the vast expanse of a silent nature that seemed primordially welcoming.   That... and watch the little squirrel feasting on his pit. :)

NARRATIVE

NOT ENOUGH  FOTOS

The Canyon Cabin

Canyon Cabin, CA  (4/92)

Full Set, April - May 1992
(updated)

Official Commemoration

FIPS GEBURTSTAG

Logos in Sensu

Some years back, I apostated.  I rejected Christianity and all its nefarious works. I could not raze cathedrals but I could root its works out from my mind.   Henceforth, nihil in mente nisi prius in sensu.  And not just in general but in sensu meo.   No more games.  I stood here; God knew where to find me.  He could ring me up anytime.  If not, well not, but no more convoluted conundra.  Fuck that shit.

And if God, then a fortiori no one else.  In all of history there were perhaps 20 geniuses, no more than 100 at most really worth reading.  I had read them; they had  solved nothing.  No more chasing after a babble of opinions.  I packed away my books.  Henceforth, I would listen to no one.   I scoured my mind and became a Fundamentalist Positivist.

There was only one problem. I loved Bach. I hadn’t grown up in a Lutheran tradition.  The little Bach I knew was secular and fell into the category of nice but nothing  special.  Certainly not Beethoven.  But at college I was forced to parse the St. Mathew Passion.  Dragged through it I should say, measure by measure, until one day something cracked in the roof of Aristotle’s cave and I heard, as if for the first time, an indescribable beauty.  To this day, I can recall walking through the quad and hearing with deep assurance and delight the strains of Bach emanating from a window.  If I came away from college with anything, it was with an appreciation of Bach.

What to do?  I pondered.  I convinced myself that had Constantine chosen Mithras over Christ; had Zoroastrianism conquered the West, Bach would still be Bach with minor adjustments in the text.  The obnoxious theology could be ignored.  It doesn’t work.  For Bach, every composition was an act of christian prayer and when you listen to him you join him in prayer.  He would not say otherwise.  The story of Christ is not the story of Mithras; but if it were it would still be the story of Christ and Bach’s prayer would be the same.  In short, try as I might, Bach’s music was an echoing tether that kept me ever within earshot of Christianity, in sensu.

Cabin Comforts

Fine Music in Febreuwary

Doggish

It is interesting how dogs learn English.   Nicki-the-Lab has always associated "wan' go out?" with what the question suggests and the phrase invariably provokes a ferocious,  affirmative happy-dance.  I don't even have to say, "out" -- the word "u'wann'?" suffices.

But it has been grim and rainy of late.  This evening Nicki came alongside as I lying on the bed and resting my eyes.   Tonight, as last night and the day before I sighed, "Ohh, you're such a pain in the butt" and this phrase immediately provoked his happy dance.  So we went out.

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Doing Mindless Chewbal

As in... "Uh huh... and you expect me to lie on the soggy ground ... ?"  Not

New Year's Ponderings

The other week during a slow day at the gym we noticed a father-son duo come in to work out.  Dad was a heavy set burly dude in his mid forties, probably a high school footballer, now out-of-shape but still strong.  Son was a wimpy, scrawny thing who evidently was like totally not into this at all, if he could help it, which he couldn’t.

I didn’t pay it more attention, apart from noticing that the only thing the duo seemed to share was a certainly joylessness.

Alas, the other day, the joyless duo were back at the gym, in the locker room as I was changing shirts.  As dad walked away toward the wash basins he told his kid to fetch something from the locker. Do it! Now!  He snapped in a low-tone commanding whisper.

Wimpy, sultry son obliged, spiritlessly.

Back at the basins dad handed the kid the shaving cream and told him to put it on with his hands.  I noticed that the kid was about 13, and this was his evidently his first shave.

You’re getting it more on your fingers than on your face Burly Dad said, again in a disparaging mutter.

Everything the father said was calculated to be a critical, contemptuous put down in some subtle but no less degrading manner.  Above all, threatening, a welling storm of breaking force behind the muttered commands and contempt.


As I sponged my face, I wondered what kind of funny quip I could make about my first shave.  But nothing came to mind and I headed out for the gym floor.

When I came back they were still there.  Dad was off by the basins, the kid was sitting on a locker-bench with his head in his hands and quite evidently close to tears.

I was about to give him a wink and a thumbs up when I heard the beast heading over.  I went to my own locker and watched them head out.  The human race is nothing to cry over but abuse of the helpless is an outrage all the same. 

I know one never knows what family dynamics are at play.  It is impossible to say that the kid isn’t an impossible brat or a lazy slob.  It is impossible to say that dad isn’t trying to do his best.  What can be said is that his best sucks.

We feel tenderness, happiness, hatred and anger not because we imagine them but because they are sensible, as much as warmth or stinging cold are felt because they actually are.  

Glancing at that kid with his head in his hands, trying to escape his helplessness in his iPod, I could not but think of Nicki, hopeless in his cage at the pound after having the joy of life disciplined out of him by what i know was another heavy set asshole who had determined that “the dog” was “incorrigible”.

Only fools rush in where angels fear to tread and I won't.  But i am pondering  safe, sensible, official options all the same. 

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