Re-post: How I met PD by Bill
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Posted:Jan 24, 2016 4:16 pm
Last Updated:Feb 22, 2023 2:36 pm
41583 Views
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How I Met PD
I was in a bad marriage for eighteen years. I'm not suggesting there were no good times, but I'm not going to write about them, and I'm not going to write about that marriage at all. It was my third. You can get to feeling like maybe you're doing something wrong, or even that there's something wrong with you, when you've failed at marriage three times. I had got tired of packing up and moving on, and tired of splitting up possessions, too. I liked my possessions. I had some nice ones- an old brick house on acreage in wine country, just east of Lake Michigan, four dogs with three acres fenced for us to run and play on, an old barn that housed my antique woodshop, and a pile of old tools that I used in it. But for the last ten years of that marriage I had pondered ways to get out of it that wouldn't hurt too much. There weren't any. It was going to hurt. I finally realized that, and that I was going to have to bite the bullet and take the pain. Once I did I began looking at other women. I had never been a cheater or a philanderer. I always had an eye for a cute ass and even more an ear for a smart and entertaining woman, but I kept a lid on that and didn't fool around until I decided my marriage was over and not coming back.
I met a woman online- she messaged me ten years ago on Thanksgiving morning, in fact, and we met and then spent time together and had sex. She was a lot of fun, and I liked her. I didn't spend much time thinking about where that relationship was going, or whether it was even going anywhere. It was just nice to spend some time with a woman that wasn't all argument and recrimination, that was just fun. We saw each other when we could for a couple of months, but by then I was used to reading women's profiles on dating sites so I kept at it, and never found much that caught my eye, especially. Not that it mattered much. I had decided my marriage was done and all I was doing was killing time while I got my ducks in a row to file for a divorce. The woman I was seeing now and then asked me what was going to happen with us after I was divorced and I answered that I didn't see any reason why anything should change. We could go on liking each other and having lunch together and fucking once in a while. But I wasn't interested in having another wife or even a live in partner.
On the thirteenth of February 2005 I saw a profile on what folks here call a vanilla dating site for a Cat Owning Democrat, a woman in South Bend, Indiana, about fifty miles from the little town where I lived and seventy miles from where I worked every day. Not a real likely proposition- the logistics of a thing like that were bound to be tough. But I read the profile and she sounded kind of fun so I sent an email to her suggesting that we had a lot in common, just for the hell of it really. I never expected to even get an answer, let alone a response that would change my life, heal my bad attitude and result in the best sex of my life. She sent a response to my message: "We have a lot in common? Like what?" But she had also sent at my request a copy of a short story she had had published in a local literary magazine featuring local writers, "The Loosestrife Man". You can read it in this blog- The Loosestrife Man..... I loved it. I can't write like that. I don't think like that, but I loved that she did. It was Valentine's Day, as I recall.
So I replied by listing the things we might have in common: three marriages, an interest in creative writing and in thought provoking literature, a love of good movies and even sometimes bad movies and that we were both lefties down on our luck. I even like cats. I had three in my house and one in the barn. She told me that her requirements were not particularly demanding. She realized that no one falls in love with a fifty year old woman and she wanted someone to go to the movies with and maybe fuck her once in a while. I figured I could do that much. And every word she sent my way I liked her more. She was blunt and could be kind of a smart ass, at first. She wasn't really trying to shock me so much as laying it out for me that she wasn't suffering any illusions about what might come of this online dating thing. She had met and dated a number of guys she'd first encountered online and it was all over the map except for that one place where the guy wasn't just looking to tick off items on a shopping list of requirements he had before he'd do more than stick his cock in her. She told me it boiled down to "you have a pussy, I have a dick to put in it, let's get together." A question that came up a lot was how many dates they had to have before they fucked.
I told her I was married but planning a divorce and she asked me not to tell her that because she wasn't going to believe it. I could see her point. I'm pretty sure I'm not the first guy to tell that particular lie. In my case I wasn't lying and I'm also sure I wasn't the first guy to believe that either. But she decided that maybe we could have a date or two, what did she care? We lived too far apart for this to go anywhere except a couple of movie or dinner dates and maybe I'd turn out not to be a total loser in the sack, if she decided to go there. We made talk about meeting, and she joked that if I did anything weird like showing up with a donkey she was out of there.
So we chatted online and talked about ourselves and asked lots of questions and we made a date for early in March. We met at fast food restaurant in Niles, Michigan and it was a glorious Sunday that comes every now and then around here, with sunshine and sixty degree weather. I brought her a stuffed donkey, the Shrek donkey. You squeezed it and it made wise cracks in Eddie Murphy's voice. She stuck around anyway- I was wearing my most attractive black crew neck sweater. Neither of us wanted fast food so we drove to a Greek restaurant south of there, the kind with a ten page menu and terrific food but not fancy, where the families that were just getting out of church took Grandma every weekend. It was crowded and she and I did not notice that right off. I couldn't see much of anything but PD that day. After eating we drove to a lovely riverside park downtown and walked along the riverbank. She was an awful driver, and she told me that her hated riding when she drove. I lied and told her that she was doing just fine. In truth her driving made me nervous as all hell. She would stomp the gas and then let off like she was driving a Model T and there were no slow and measured stops- she stomped the brake pedal with the same enthusiasm that she used to kick the accelerator into submission. Her driving wasn't a deal breaker- I made a mental note that I would be driving during any future engagements. She had a couple of qualities that trumped automotive expertise. She had shining short red hair and beautiful round full breasts and was very pretty in a tight red knit shirt that I was sure she had found in an oriental boutique.
That afternoon was magical. We talked and walked and sat on park benches and kissed and people smiled at us when they walked by because we were oblivious to anything but each other. At our age, no less! We only spent a few hours together but we made a date to meet again in two weeks. This time she would drive to me. In our chats during the weeks following that date became a meeting in a motel. I had wanted to fuck her from the minute I set eyes on her and it was incredible to me that she was just as eager.
PD booked a motel in Kalamazoo for a Saturday and I got there early. She was late. She got lost and drove right through Kalamazoo and headed for Battle Creek, but she stopped and called me, and I managed to talk her in like an air traffic controller when the pilot and co-pilot get food poisoning and an exotic dancer has to land the plane. One of the bad movies.
Her birthday was coming up and I had brought presents. She gave them a perfunctory examination- one was a book on how to have an affair- and showed me the movies she had brought for when we were done having sex. Yep. She really brought movies. She thought we'd spend fifteen minutes fucking, if it was good, and that would be that. We didn't watch them and she didn't do any reading. We spent six hours in that shitty motel room with nail clippings on the floor and every minute of it we were touching. We didn't fuck like porn stars. NOBODY fucks like porn stars. We fucked like who were falling in love with each other, and that's how we both felt. PD was the someone I could talk to that I had never had. She understood me as if we had known each other forever. And when she talked I wanted to listen- she actually had something to say. It was like coming alive. It really was spring, and it felt like spring. Suddenly life had possibilities. I went from trying to extricate myself from a bad situation and maybe hooking up for sex now and then to knowing that I wanted to spend forever with this woman and that she would make everything worth doing. She had fixed me in about four weeks. PD gave me hope again.
I knew that there couldn't be any waiting. I filed for a divorce that week. It didn't matter if I was prepared or not, I knew I did not want to live without PD and that was the first thing I could do to show it. That decision cost me a lot, but it gained me everything. I could play it over a million times in my head and I wouldn't change a detail because I found the love of my life, my soul mate, and there's never been any doubt about that.
This was all random dumb luck. We each had a history of making bad choices in love. If you go over all the steps that led to us meeting it's obvious that it's just chance, and no one would have given odds on the two of us. We weren't even figured to place or show let alone win. Never give up. The experts and the statisticians know nothing.
At the end of May I moved to South Bend. It was a seventy mile trip one way to work in Kalamazoo. I had to get up at three thirty Indiana time to make it to work by seven Michigan time. But it was either that or spend the whole week without PD, and only see her on weekends. I made that drive for twenty three months, through the snow belt. Some of those trips took me three hours in a blizzard. I thought about transferring to South Bend to work and she looked for jobs in Kalamazoo. I'd have had to give up my nearly twenty years seniority in such a transfer, and they offered me a couple of supervisor jobs that I didn't want and turned down. I kept driving to Kalamazoo, a hundred and forty miles a day. Weekends were heaven, and a blur. We went to movies. We went out for breakfast. We had pizza at Polito's, and almond duck at Hi Ho Chop Suey…really, that's the name of it! I taught her to drive a stick shift- and we never argued. We bought second hand furniture for her empty house at the second hand stores. She bought sexy clothes to seduce me and we wrote erotic stories just for each other. We spent a lot of time in bed.
I was at the end of my rope after a snowy February in 2007 when every trip was taking me more than the hour and a half it should have. It snowed constantly, it seemed. Something had to change. I was seriously considering the transfer, when PD got a job offer at a big international bank in Kalamazoo. She'd have to take a pay cut for at least the first couple of years, but she hated her job in South Bend and she jumped on that job offer.
So that's how I reformed a lifelong Hoosier and brought her to safety north of the border. The rest is just trivia and details. She's learned to love it as much as I do here. But when I think back on that two years I lived in the decaying post industrial hell that South Bend is fast becoming, I don't see it as the rough going that it actually was, and I don't think of the place as a rotting midwest factory town. I have fond and warm memories of the place. It was only eight years ago but I have a nostalgia for the place as if it were the cradle of my childhood. For us it was like being drugged, we enjoyed each other so much. We cherished our time together and made the most of it and the most of it was quite grand. In our fifties we had done the impossible and fallen in love and that's all we acknowledged about our lives- how grand it was and how much fun we had together. It continues.
We're comfortable with each other, but we were never un-comfortable once we got past the "Like what?" phase. I told her very early on that I wanted someone who actually liked ME- not my steady job or my paycheck or my stuff. I wanted someone I could just hang out with and fuck around with and have fun with. I wanted a woman I could listen to, who had ideas about things and thought about something besides what color the drapes should be or whether someone at work got something that SHE should have got. I didn't care what had happened in her past- I wanted to know her but I wasn't about to start a checklist of thing she could and could not be guilty of having done. My own slate isn't exactly squeaky clean and I wanted us to start fresh because we liked each other in addition to loving each other.
I have never liked another human being the way I like my wife. I love her deeply and unreservedly and I still love seeing her naked. But maybe more importantly, I like hiking in the woods with her, and going to a movie with her, and I like just sitting inside on a cold winter night and shooting the shit with her. I like my wife and I like my life.
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Sweet Little Sixteen
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Posted:Jan 22, 2016 11:05 am
Last Updated:May 9, 2018 10:13 pm
41214 Views
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The Virtual Symposium Returns: Let’s Pick A Topic!
The Virtual Symposium Returns Lets Pick A Topic
They're really rockin' Boston
In Pittsburgh, P. A.
Deep in the heart of Texas
And 'round the Frisco Bay
All over St. Louis
And down in New Orleans
All the cats want to dance with
Sweet little sixteen
-Charles Edward Anderson Berry
Sixteen is another of those magic numbers for many of us. Leaned to drive, first job, first date, first base, first lost our virginity, first blowjob, or first blow- the list is long, but often there’s one event that sticks out and etches our sixteenth year in our memories. Every Symposium is like that. A certain post that sings to you, or a crowd of creations that make you want to dance.
The Sixteenth Symposium is coming. Quote: On the morning of Sunday, January 31 – just in time to clear one’s ears of holiday whining – I’ll provide a central landing page which will have links to all contributors’ offerings. No matter which topic we ultimately choose, I hope folks will warp it as wildly as befits their personalities. The more offbeat the interpretation, the better!
-humorlife
There are five topics to vote for, Superheroes and/or Costumes,Vocabulary, Friends with Benefits, Fetishes and the customary Other (Write it in below. Longshot, but… why not? One of these days a write-in is going to win!)
Dance yourself over to the post The Virtual Symposium Returns Lets Pick A Topic, humorlife and sing your vote.
I’m stumping (because that’s what it looks like when I dance) for vocabulary. My use of my vocabulary is somewhat more skillful than my dancing, but I use it in pretty much the same way. That meme “Dance Like Nobody’s Watching”…? I speak and write the same way. Sometimes I think that’s why I have watchers- they just want to watch a fool dance. “Dances with Words?” It’s a barn dance, and the barn needs to be mucked out now and then.
The chorus in my advertisements for the Symposia has traditionally been: Write a post for the Sixteenth Virtual Symposium. You’ll meet interesting new bloggers and fuck them- if you’re lucky. You can’t win if you don’t play. So strip off your clothes and dance naked in the moonlight- everyone’s watching!
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Eyes in the back of your head- COOL!
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Posted:Jan 20, 2016 11:26 am
Last Updated:Jan 23, 2016 5:45 pm
41670 Views
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It's our grandson's fourth birthday. PD bought him some gifts, stuff she figured a four year old would think is cool. She bought one that a sixty four year old thinks is pretty cool. These goggles have two little mirrors mounted on the right and left, just in range of your peripheral vision. If you swivel your eyeballs right or left, you can see behind you! Where were these when I was four? I might get a pair for myself. PD probably won't go out in public with me, but I think I need these. I'm not much interested in a lot of the toys like today, but these are sooo cool!
I am the Lizard King!
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The NPR White People's Introduction to Poverty by PD
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Posted:Jan 15, 2016 10:18 pm
Last Updated:Jan 29, 2016 8:31 pm
42989 Views
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The NPR White People's Introduction to Poverty by PD
According to several recent reports on NPR, middle class white people are falling into poverty at a rate unseen since the days when still worked 18 hour days in garment factories and men wore spats.
In 2016, expensive prescription opioids are being thrown over for cheap heroin faster than your grandmother can flip flap jacks; artisan meth manufacturing has become a growth industry; over half the US population takes anti-anxiety/depression meds (until they can't afford health insurance anymore); and the most suicidal group of people in the country are now middle-aged Caucasian men.
If you listen to a lot of NPR (I do), then there's a real good chance you already are a white person, and you might think, wow, this is news? You might think you'd damn well know if you were falling into poverty or not, thank you very much. Falls of any kind suck and most human beings do notice them, even white human beings.
But you'd be wrong.
Many of the universal features of poverty are more or less unknown to middle class white people, and the few aspects of poverty we do understand tend to get chalked up to someone else's laziness or lack of character. So when these things happen to US, after we feel we've been GOOD and done everything RIGHT, it seems that we freak out comically and reach for the hypodermic or start attending Trump rallies and taking over bird sanctuaries.
It's not that we are bad people. We are not bad.
It's just that many of us have never been poor before. We take it personally because it's new and we don't understand what it means. We think it's about us. Isn't everything about us?
We're just ignorant, that's all. But we can learn. I believe we CAN learn.
I personally have been poor more than I've been anything else in my life, and I don't let it freak me out anymore. All you really have to do to stay mellow is recognize that you ARE poor and that it just is what it is. It really isn't about you. It's about other people hogging all the goddamn money--something they won't ever ever quit doing just because you don't like it.
Once you realize this, once you learn to go with the flow and just lean into it you can even grab a chunk of serenity now and then during the giant lull between your shitty temp jobs, should you be so lucky to get any.
So if you are white and confused, please don't jump off a bridge or start foaming at the mouth at Mexican dishwashers just because new, unpleasant things are happening to you. Instead, check out the following list, and if you recognize yourself in more than one of these normal facets of poverty, take a deep breath and adjust your expectations to zero.
You'll feel a lot better, I promise.
So here goes.
You might actually be poor if:
You've ever pilfered toilet paper from public stalls or napkins from fast food places so you can wipe your ass until your next check comes.
You enjoy a filling Sunday meal composed of three different starches. (Noodles over mashed potatoes with biscuits! Beans with rice and cornbread! Boxed Mac & Cheese with white bread!)
Some of your favorite sweet treats contain no actual food.
You can't get a bank account and have to pay to cash your checks at storefront loan shops.
You rent sleeping space in your step-uncle's trailer but some other guy is always in your bed.
You shop for new furniture and household items on trash day.
You are an adult person and have more than four roommates.
Your TV only gets three channels and two of them are in Spanish.
Your last three jobs required a hairnet, a stupid hat, or a name tag that says "I like to help!"
You've ever taken expired veterinary meds instead of going to the doctor.
You've had your electricity or water shut off more than once.
Crack addicts won't break into your house because they are afraid you'll rob them.
You buy black market laundry detergent.
You sell black market laundry detergent.
You have four jobs and three of them are conducted out of your garage.
You dream of the day when you can move back into a luxurious manufactured home community.
You think the women shopping at Walmart are hot.
Your idea of a romantic evening involves a candlelight spaghetti dinner with canned Ragu sauce, Velveeta, and a fresh bottle of Wild Irish Rose.
You think that someday you really might win the lottery.
Your beloved is missing more than three teeth.
You consider ketchup packets and soda crackers to be versatile cooking staples.
I could go on, but I think you get the drift. Maybe none of this seems all that funny, or maybe you are still clinging to the delusion that "middle class" refers to any person making between $12,000 and $240,000 a year. If that's how it is, carry on, don't mind me.
But if, on the other hand, you are starting to realize that the other side of 'lonely at the top' is 'crowded at the bottom', then pull up a chair, pop a malt liquor, and pass the soda crackers.
Mumblety peg anyone?
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On snowshoes!
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Posted:Jan 15, 2016 9:49 am
Last Updated:Jun 30, 2016 9:10 pm
40493 Views
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We haven’t been on snowshoes for a year. It snowed for two days, sometimes fairly heavily, at other times lighter, but it piled up to eight or ten inches, and after a cold night, it was time to strap on the bindings. The air temperature had dropped overnight a few degrees, to eleven, and the snow had never really quit. The trails at Al Sabo had been broken by skiers, so we didn’t need shoes, but my fingers get cold putting the shoes on and taking them off, so we stepped into them in the parking lot and kept them on.
The main trail into the preserve was well travelled by hikers and cross country skiers, but after a furlong we branch off on a trail that leads to a switchback that takes us down to the southern edge of the marsh. The only tracks we saw there were those Gracie and I had made the day before. The snow had nearly covered those tracks, but I could see where we’d walked and Gracie knows the way anyway. I could probably do it myself in the dark. I’ve lost count of how many times we’ve descended that switchback. On the final turn, to the right and east, she always turns left and runs up the hill a way, and waits for one of us to tell her to get back on the track. It’s some unfathomable thing.
It was cold and very windy, but we were overdressed, as is usual when the weather first turns cold. In twenty minutes we’d worked up enough of a sweat that PD was pulling off her hat and I was unzipping my jacket. I pulled off my right glove too, so I could use the camera. Gracie likes a fast pace. If I were twelve years old I wouldn’t be able to keep up with her. We hugged the edge of the trail where the snow was soft and not so packed. The shoes give you better traction, but you have to pick up your toes to avoid dragging the nose of the shoe and shoveling snow. New high tech shoes often have crampons built in…but we don’t have new high tech shoes. These are traditional Michigan, Ojibwa shoes- bear paws. They’re a workout, but in deep snow, like knee deep, there’s no other way to go. We didn’t have deep snow but I didn’t want to miss a year of snowshoeing, so we used them anyway. With a little luck, there will be cold and powder snow, and drifts, but this is an unusual year, so who knows?
We took our customary break at the land bridge, sitting at the bottom of the hill, the north end of the Lookout Ridge, on the railroad tie stairs. We sit there til our butts get cold from sitting on the ice, and then move on. I spotted the muskrat again, swimming in the west pond, but he was too quick for me and swam out of sight before I could catch him with the camera.
I’m feeling a little old this winter. Snowshoeing is work, but it’s never worn me out like that day. We were both getting tired as we struggled up the hill away from the creek bed, and we took frequent breathers. Once we got up on the plateau we could go a bit more easily- there were no more hills! We almost always bypass the steepest hill, going to the east into a white pine grove that links back to the Tibet Trail and takes us to the meadow. We watched Gracie run amok there. I felt like that once- running crazily just because I could, and rolling in the soft new snow. It’s marvelous to watch, even if I can’t do it any more.
There are a few berries still hanging on, and the beeches will keep their golden leaves til spring, but otherwise we’re in the stark monochrome of winter now. The snow clings to branches and adheres to itself, drooping from limbs until it can’t hang on anymore and tumbles to the forest floor. The patterns and textures are unique and new everywhere you look. You have to stop and sit quietly to see it and take it all in.
On the main trail southwest, back to the truck, we finally took off our snowshoes and hiked that last thousand yards or so, shouldering our shoes. We were only a half hour from the wood stove and a beer and a bowl of zuppa toscana.
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Winter...finally
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Posted:Jan 14, 2016 8:27 pm
Last Updated:Jun 30, 2016 9:15 pm
39513 Views
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Winter arrived Tuesday. A cold front blew in, and the temperature dropped to fourteen degrees. We got six to eight inches of snow in the yard, and Gracie and I headed for the woods. PD was reading, and wanted to sit by the stove relax.
It was snowing hard- not a blizzard, but we’ll take it. Al Sabo is busier than it used to be, so there were a few cars in the parking lot. A few years ago we’d have been the only die hards out there, but people are starting to take more advantage of the place. We can find solitude still- but we’ve got to walk further to get there.
I love the forest when it’s like this- cold, blowing snow and a fresh blanket of snow on the trails. It’s cold at first, but it doesn’t take long to work up some heat hiking. When the cold first hits you in the winter, it takes some adjustment. You have to get used to it, and we’ve had a warm winter. I have to wear a heavier sweater in November at twenty degrees than I could stand in February. This year we’re behind a bit, but I warmed up pretty quickly that afternoon. When Gracie and I walk alone, she gives me a workout. She minds me well, but I have to pay closer attention. If PD is there, she takes the lead and breaks trail and I can linger and take pictures. When it’s just Gracie and I, I’m more picky about what I think I want a shot of. Of course, it’s cold so I don’t want to take off my gloves to use the camera, and when the snow is coming down everything looks unfocused anyway. Many of my shots look like impressionism- kind of fuzzy in the falling and swirling snow. Visibility is low.
This is the second heavy snow we’ve got, but the last was back in November and melted quickly. The forecast said we’d have at least a few days of cold. I figured we’d try the trails Tuesday, and if it kept snowing, we could let the snow settle and snowshoe Wednesday. The trails were pretty well used and the hiking was easy, but the snow was fluffy and not hard going anyway. In the white pine groves we saw maybe six inches, but along the Lookout Trail, in the beeches and oaks it piled up to ten. At times the marsh nearly disappeared in the haze of blowing snow. The forest closes in when that happens, but it’s comforting. I feel sheltered. we know the trails well, and Gracie always knows the way with her nose even when I can’t see.
We saw four or five other hikers, a couple of pairs of skiers and one guy on a bike. He was slogging along pretty slowly, that biker, but he was a gamer, and kept plugging away. We hiked three miles more or less, and Gracie ran wild in the big meadow. She knows she’s going to go off the leash there and always celebrates it by going crazy, shooting up rooster tails of snow in her wake. I love watching her run like that, with complete abandon in the pure joy of being quick- quick as in sprightly, saucy- alive! She buries her face in the snow to her shoulders and comes up capped with snow, and shoots off again on a new hunt. If there’s anything better than this, we don’t know what it is.
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Baby Powder
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Posted:Jan 12, 2016 9:22 am
Last Updated:Aug 28, 2016 8:16 pm
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My friend NaughtyInSO suggested I use my new picture as my profile photo, and trusting in her aesthetic taste, I’ve done it. She claimed I looked philosophical. joisygirl invoked Hippocrates, but I thought that made me sound fat. [blog Darling_Annette] joined in, making it sort of a Greek chorus.
mcmaniac admired my new photo. I was confused at first because he said it was a Greek bust and my spirits were flattened… but he made a reference to baby powder and a little light clicked on. So I ended up flattered. We’ve been friends for quite a while but apparently he’s ready to take it to the next level. So I went for the baby powder. The site does not appear to approve of the photo with the same enthusiasm as Mac, since I can’t upload it as a profile photo. They did consent to allow it as an “other”, probably suspecting that it’s been Photoshopped. It’s just Johnson and Johnsoned, people. The OTHER Johnson, the baby powder! I can’t manage to get the other Johnson anywhere near my face. No matter how old a gets he can always manage to lick his Johnson, but even thinking about it makes my back scream in agony. I’ve seen photos of human males performing the act and it’s NOT like a train wreck- I’ve not only always been able to look away, but did it in a hurry. Young have an urge to put anything they find right in their mouths, but I don’t think I could have done it as a three year old even if it had occurred to me. I had never heard of masturbation at that age, let alone jelqing, and self fellatio was light years from my ken.
I don’t even want to see a beautiful woman performing cunnilingus on herself. There’s a point where a thing is just grotesque, too unnatural to be more than a curiosity and not at all arousing, like Mick Jagger. You see that kind of thing in porn all the time- awkward positions that allow for close and clinical observation of penetration, insertion and thrusting but are likely to injure at least one if not both participants. I even worry that the camera operator will get hurt. Don’t try this at home, .
This post is just the kind of thing that can happen if you contemplate an ancient marble bust for too long. Don’t try this at home either, . I have years of experience and hours of practice at bullshit and I’m something of a pro. Always call before you dig, and wear eye protection.
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The Outer Limits
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Posted:Jan 11, 2016 3:14 pm
Last Updated:May 19, 2018 10:57 pm
37337 Views
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The Control Voice: There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We can reduce the focus to a soft blur, or sharpen it to crystal clarity. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to... The Outer Limits.
It is said that if you move a single pebble on the beach, you set up a different pattern, and everything in the world is changed. It can also be said that love can change the future, if it is deep enough, true enough, and selfless enough. It can prevent a war, prohibit a plague, keep the whole world... whole.
They're back. And they're watching us.
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Tuesday 5 January 2016- Asylum Lake
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Posted:Jan 6, 2016 11:31 am
Last Updated:Jun 30, 2016 9:18 pm
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Tuesday we hiked at Asylum Lake. It was cool- twenty five or six degrees and a bit windy, making it a little brisk on the prairie, but once we got onto the shelter of the forest, and down into the little dells in the east end of the preserve it got more comfortable. The cold wind also makes you want to hurry- to get out of it- and we were working up some body heat. That’s where I could take my gloves off permanently for taking pictures.
We headed straight east and down the hill, aiming for Little Asylum Lake and the Big Tree. That trail takes a hard left at The Tree and runs straight north along the little lake, which is now frozen over. There are some dark spots on the ice and it hasn’t been cold for very long, so I don’t think I’d want to walk on it yet. Following this path you end up at the creek that feeds the smaller lake from Asylum Lake. Gracie waded there, but it was cold and she’s already growing up enough that she called it good just getting her feet wet. Last year she’d bound into the creek in any weather and even lie down in the shallow water, but that water’s cold, and it’s a sign she’s maturing that she let discretion be the better part of valor. Puppies are tremendous fun with their exuberance but they’re a handful too, and you have to keep an eye on them all the time. Our hikes ought to get easier now, if less exciting. She actually hears our commands now- and listens. The training is paying off.
We struggled up the bank between the creek and the big lake and walked down to the beach. Asylum Lake had a thin coating of ice all the way across, and in the nooks and bays the ice looked to be about an inch, but it’s cloudy white and hard to tell. It supported Gracie but you could hear it cracking. It supported me too and I could feel it give under me when I walked on it, and it cracked even louder under my weight. I didn’t walk out far at all, just a couple of feet. It’s quite shallow at the beach but I really don’t like hiking with cold wet feet. It doesn’t seem to bother Gracie.
The sky was very clear and blue that day and it felt so good to walk and soak up the bright sunlight. Now that we have snow on the ground the forest has new magic, and I notice so much more in the winter sun against the snow. Everything seems at rest now, and the gloom of December has passed. We can already see the days getting longer again. The seed pods and grass have dried up and the big oaks have lost most all of their leaves in the wind. You can still see quite a few where they’ve fallen or blown. A heavy snow will blanket all that. The forest will get very silent, very white and very bright. I hope it comes soon.
And that was our afternoon. It was quiet and peaceful and the brisk walk made us hungry. PD made portobello ravioli with a beef and sausage sauce, and we had garlic toast to soak up the sauce. Life is good.
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Al Sabo 4 January 2016
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Posted:Jan 4, 2016 6:53 pm
Last Updated:Jun 30, 2016 9:18 pm
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It turned a bit cold today finally. The temperature dipped into the low twenties, we got a couple of inches of new snow and the sun came out. It’s been a gloomy month. We’ve had a few days of sunshine but little snow and it’s been warmer than usual. Any snow that’s fallen hasn’t stayed long. We’ve been hiking every day but grey weather is normal for December around here and it hasn’t been very inspirational for picture taking, so we just hiked and a lot of days I never took my camera out of the bag.
Yesterday we hiked Al Sabo on a two inch crust of frozen snow at the edge of the trail. We’d had warm wet snow on warm ground and it went to slush, which promptly froze when it got cold. The center of the trail was lumpy, slick and treacherous. At one point on the switchback down into the creek valley PD was down on all fours to keep from falling. I wanted to get next to her to help but I could barely stand up myself on the steep trail and all I could do was laugh. We were hugging trees and saplings all the way down the hill. I guess I could have taken advantage of her as long as she was down…but there were a lot lot layers of wool to peel off, and I passed on the opportunity.
It was still slippery in places today but with the two new inches of snow there was better traction so we trucked along with pretty good speed. The last heavy snow we got was the twenty first of November, and we may not get much more unless it stays cold to produce some lake effect snow. But we had sun, snow and cold today- a good day for hiking.
We usually take a break at the land bridge between the marshes, and sit and listen to the silence. This is pretty near the center of the forest that comprises Al Sabo Preserve and the boy scout camp, and it’s usually quiet there. We can sit at the bottom of the railroad tie stairs above the marsh. It’s a good place to spot swans, geese and cranes flying in during the spring and summer, and you can see mink and muskrats darting across the trail there going from pond to pond.
I hadn’t seen the muskrat in the water since late last winter, but I heard him today in the east pond. I stood at the top of the bank looking and listening and heard the splash as he dove in from the bank. I waited and managed to get ten or twelve shots of him swimming across the pool. When the light is just right you can see him swimming underwater, and he’s a different animal submerged. They can stay under for a good fifteen minutes and as clumsy and waddling as they appear on land they are very sleek and otter-like in the water, gliding and darting about effortlessly. You have to be very patient, and very lucky, to get a photo of that. I’ve seen it but never managed to get a good picture of it.
On the trek back there was a slight breeze, just enough to send snow falling from the upper branches of the white pines along the Tibet Trail. The trail heads southwest and with the sun setting a few degrees more to the the west we got beautiful light shows with the late afternoon sun sparkling through the falling snow.
It feels good to have the snow and cold back. I’ve been missing it this year. The forest and all the preserve are brightened considerably by it. I love the play of sun on the snow, and on the snow laden pines and spruce. This wasn’t a heavy snowfall, but I’ll take it just the same. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for six to eight inches more, and snowshoeing!
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Icebreaker
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Posted:Jan 4, 2016 6:44 pm
Last Updated:May 19, 2018 10:59 pm
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When we took our break today at the land bridge in Al Sabo Preserve, there was a pair of mallards swimming in the marsh pond west of the bridge. They had got separated by the ice, which isn’t very thick yet, and channels are still running through it in lots of places. The male had entered a channel taking him south, and she was stuck in a bay a few feet from the main channel. I watched, figuring she’d retreat and swim around the bend to join her mate, but instead she crawled up on the thin ice shelf, and immediately broke through. Again I wondered why she didn’t just swim around, but she knew what she was doing. She continued climbing up onto the ice and breaking through it in the direction she wanted to go. She never got more than a couple of steps on the shelf until it would break, and she’d repeat. Finally she had a clear channel broken from her bay to the main channel. I can’t remember ever seeing a duck icebreaker before. The Russians may have a lot more icebreakers in the arctic than we do, but we got ducks!
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Peabrain
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Posted:Dec 30, 2015 4:37 pm
Last Updated:Nov 13, 2022 8:25 pm
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I've concluded that if anything should ever happen to my wife PD, I'm gonna have problems feeding myself, at least at first. I like to cook, and I do OK at it. But she loves to cook and she's better at it. That isn't the problem.
The pellet stove shut off tonight so I gave it a quick cleaning, and then headed to the back of the house where the bathroom is, to clean up. On the kitchen counter were a couple of tupperware containers of stuff she had frozen, so I picked them up since the freezer is in the same direction I was going. I didn't really care what was in the containers, but I had given PD a sharpie to mark frozen food with so we could identify it later. It hadn't really been a big issue between us, but she had been of the "I'll remember it" school of thought and I was of the "Like hell you will" persuasion. So she accommodated me by marking stuff.
I looked at the container on top in my hands and it read "Peabrain Shithead." It's hard to write real small with a Sharpie, so I gave it a couple more minutes study, just to be sure. I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. I'm fond of the woman. So, after reassuring myself that it said what I thought it said, I turned around and headed back to the living room. She was already alert, no doubt wondering why I was bringing her work to her with that look on my face, that befuddled look.
"Does this say Peabrain Shithead?" I asked her.
It took her a minute. She studied it- not as long as I had, but it didn't register with her right away either, and SHE had written it.
Now she laughs. "No- it says "Pecan Shortbread."
I'm either gonna be eating out a lot, or having mystery meals at home. Another reason I hope she outlives me.
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The World in Black and White
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Posted:Dec 26, 2015 8:05 pm
Last Updated:Nov 13, 2022 8:35 pm
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Unknown
"Black and White" Is The Topic For The Fifteenth Virtual Symposium
The World in Black and White by Bill
When the Symposium voters chose black and white as the topic for the Fifteenth Virtual Symposium the first place my mind went was straight to race, as I’m sure it did for a lot of people. I have things to say about that, but I’m none too certain that I have anything new to say, and I’m even less certain that it would be anything very helpful- I mean, that has not been said before and didn’t help the other hundred times either. The second thing that crossed my mind was black and white photography.
I love black and whites, but I’m no student of the art. I don’t know a lot about it, I just know what I like. I was born in the age of the color photo, but it wasn’t available for casual users and still cost a lot more, so my family took color photos on special occasions as they became possible, but usually they saved their money and weren’t at all troubled by it. All the old photos we had were black and white, and quite a few were Daguerrotypes. I can’t recall seeing a color photo in my family’s collection that dated from before the late fifties. Kodacolor film came along in 1942 but roll film for shapshot cameras didn’t make an appearance till 1958.
That seems very strange to me now, in the time of digital cameras that don’t require film and computer generated images. In 1927 the great French filmmaker Abel Gance created a panoramic motion picture scene of Napoleon reviewing Le Grand Armee using three synchronized cameras that astounded and delighted moviegoers by recording the Emperor riding across the screen nearly seamlessly from one screen to the next. It was quite a cinematic coup. Gance used color filters too, that tinted the entire screen, but true color was a way off yet.
Looking at all those old black and white photos as a , and watching nearly every movie in black and white, I was aware that color film was a big deal but I wasn’t sure how or when it had come along. I was also a bit confused by it. I had developed the idea that life had once been in black and white, and I remember asking my mother when color had first made its debut, and how excited had she been. It took a bit of discussion for me to make myself understood. She began by trying to remember the first color films she was aware of, and said that of course she marveled at them , and was excited to go to the theater to see them. But eventually I made myself understood- that I imagined that life itself was black and white and that as in “The Wizard of Oz” mankind had suddenly emerged into a world of color that was as astounding to them as the advent of color films actually was- as astounding at the first automobiles and airplanes. She looked at me as if she had given birth to a moron, but she patiently explained- after the shock of what I was asking had worn off- that yes, life has always been in color for most people, since the beginning of time.
Black and white photography is now limited in its use to artistic types. It’s employed to make a statement, to lend a certain ambience or render a film or photo somehow antique. It can soften an image or make it more harsh than a color rendering. The world today is in color. But looking at the old family photos takes me back to that mythical time in my childish brain when the past was in black and white, and my forbears did not enjoy the blessing of green apples and red lips, and had not yet beheld the wonder of an azure sky. It seems contradictory, but that time feels somehow warmer and safer to me still. Some childish things are apparently never completely put away.
Nathan Hunt circa 1850(?)
Sarah Hutson Denton Kilgore circa 1870
Eli and Hattie Wetherholt with Rex and Rena in 1902
The adult of John D. Wetherholt about 1912
Pietro Gallinatti with Costanzo, Giovanni, Margarete, Teresa and David in 1916
Margaret and William Brooks 1920(?)
My grandparents Fred and Winnie with my infant Uncle Bob 1926
The Hutson Brothers in the late thirties
My grandfather Costanzo in Italy, possibly Anzio 1944
Me 2015
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