Dancing with Myself

Let's Go, Canada!

"I'm leaving on a jet plane, don't know when I'll be back again, Oh baby, I hate to go."  That's from Peter, Paul and Mary many years ago.  I'm off this morning for Vancouver.  A buddy is meeting me and then we're off to the mountains.  I'll check in from time to time providing I can find an internet cafe.  I'm not traveling with a laptop this trip, so I'm more limited for posting and pictures.  I doubt anyone will go into withdrawal because of the lack of posts. 

The contractor will tear out the old kitchen while I'm away and install the new cabinets, appliances, floor, etc., upon my return after July 11.  The countertops will go in as soon as the contractor finishes his part.  With luck and no surprises, I should have a kitchen by July 23.

I think everything has gone rather smoothly.  My back hurt for the past month from stress and tension, but I didn't lose it and get into any conflicts and there were a few temptations.  I stayed in forward motion and didn't have any attacks of ennui.  I still haven't touched my grief over Beauregard's death. I've put it in one of the little neat boxes in my mind somewhere and I'll come across it one day when I'm least expecting it, and it'll find a way to express itself.  I miss him more today than I did three weeks ago.   Until then, it'll just have to take a number, and I promise to call on it just like I've called on all the other numbers. 

Hi dee ho!  I'm off to the rodeo!

Women's Novels

5.  I no longer want to read about anything sad.  Anything violent, anything disturbing, anything like that.  No funerals at the end, though there can be some in the middle.  If there must be deaths, let there be resurrections, or at least a Heaven so we know where we are.  Depression and squalor are for those under twenty-five, they can take it, they even like it, they still have enough time left.  But real life is bad for you, hold it in your hand long enough and you'll get pimples and become feeble-minded.  You'll go blind.
    I want happiness, guaranteed, joy all around, covers with nurses on them or brides, intelligent girls but not too intelligent, with regular teeth and pluck and both breasts the same size and no excess facial hair, someone you can depend on to know where the bandages are and to turn the hero, that potential rake and killer, into a well-groomed country gentleman with clean fingernails and the right vocabulary.  Always, he has to say, Forever.  I no longer want to read books that don't end with the word forever.  I want to be stroked between the eyes, one way only, 

Margaret Atwood's Women's Novels from the collection Good Bones and Simple Murders. 

Oh just because.  Maybe because I'm going to Canada next week  Maybe because I grok Margaret Atwood.  We go way back, Margaret and I, way back. 

I don't expect others to understand, just to accept.

Let's Get Physical

Republicans play politics like it's a contact sport.  Their money machine has wrecked havoc in California.  They took advantage of the energy crisis and recalled Gray Davis.  Schwarzenegger came on the scene like one of the movie characters he has portrayed in the movies.  Too bad he didn't bring better script writers with him to Sacramento, cause the role he's playing now sucks.  His approval ratings have tanked: 37% approve of his job, 57% disapprove.  There should be a recall of Schwarzenegger on the ballot with the other measures.  Won't somebody hear my plea?  Let's make Schwarzenegger the issue, just as the Republicans made Davis the issue.  IMPEACH SCHWARZENEGGER!  or at least recall the bastard.  California needs a competent governor, not a Hollywood windbag.  Our problems are real, unlike the villains Schwarzenegger faced in the movies. 

Who's on First?

"Who's On First" -- new version

George:   Condi!  Nice to see you.  What's happening?

Condi:   Sir, I have the report here about the new leader of China.

George:   Great.  Lay it on me.

Condi:   Hu is the new leader of China.

George:   That's what I want to know.

Condi:   That's what I'm telling you.

George:   That's what I'm asking you.  Who is the new leader of China?

Condi:   Yes.

George:   I mean the fellow's name.

Condi:   Hu.

George:   The guy in China.

Condi:   Hu.

George:   The new leader of China.

Condi:   Hu.

George:   The main man in China!

Condi:   Hu is leading China.

George:   Now whaddya' asking me for?

Condi:   I'm telling you, Hu is leading China.

George:   Well, I'm asking you.  Who is leading China?

Condi:   That's the man's name.

George:   That's who's name?

Condi:   Yes.

George:   Will you, or will you not, tell me the name of the new leader of China?

Condi:   Yes, sir.

George:   Yassir?  Yassir Arafat is in China?  I thought he's dead in the Middle East.

Condi:   That's correct.

George:   Then who is in China?

Condi:   Yes, sir.

George:   Yassir is in China?

Condi:   No, sir.

George:   Then who is?

Condi:   Yes, sir.

George:   Yassir?

Condi:   No, sir.

George:  Look Condi.  I need to know the name of the new leader of China.  Get me the Secretary General of the U.N. on the phone.

Condi:   Kofi?

George:   No, thanks.

Condi:  You want Kofi?

George:   No.

Condi:   You don't want Kofi.

George:  No.  But now that you mention it, I could use a glass of milk.  And then get me the U.N.

Condi:   Yes, sir.

George:  Not Yassir!  The guy at the U.N.

Condi:  Kofi?

George:  Milk!  Will you please make the call?

Condi:  And call who?

George:  Who is the guy at the U.N?

Condi:   Hu is the guy in China

George:   Will you stay out of China?!

Condi:   Yes, sir.

George:   And stay out of the Middle East!  Just get me the guy at the U.N.

Condi:  Kofi.

George:  All right!  With cream and two sugars. 

Happy Solstice!

This is humankind's second major holiday, right after the winter's solstice.  I learned to celebrate this holiday during my years in Alaska.  Now there's a good place to play on summer's solstice.  It's amazing what 22 hours of sunlight will do for your energy. 

Contemporary urban society doesn't seem to pay much attention to the solstices.  Our days are evened out by electricity, leaving us with a rather rotten monotony.  Just as we celebrate half of our holidays on the most convenient week-end, we celebrate the solstice on another chosen date:  July 4th in the states, July 1st in Canada.  Call it what we will, it's still the pagan in me that wants to dance naked around a bonfire, whirling and twirling into a state of ecstacy.  I guess I'll have to settle for line dancing in cowboy hats.

Happy Solstice.

Busy, Busy, Busy

I've been busy.  My buddy, Fragile Industries, has been in town for the past 10 days, three of them spent with me.  Houston's mother, Dorothy, has been here for the past couple of days, en route home from her grandson's high school graduation.  Fragile Industries mother is also named Dorothy.  Our friend, Kaiser, also had a mother named Dorothy.   Years ago we formed a 12-step program for Adult Children of Mother's Named Dorothy.  I adore Fragile Industries' mother as much as I do my own, and she adores mine.  I never got to meet Kaiser's Dorothy. 

I got another bid for my kitchen.  This first bid came in at $19,000.  The second bid was for $5,500.  Both bids are based on the premise that I'll be buying everything myself.  The first cabinets I priced were Kraftsmade, and they came to over $8,000 for the configuration I want.  Saturday I went to Sincere Plumbing in Oakland and they sold me an even better configuration of cabinets for $3,200.  Okay, I think we have winners in the first two categories.  The only things I have left to buy now are (1) a stove, (2) a dishwasher, and (3) a hood.  I'm going with the Sears Kenmore Elite Dual-Energy stove which I can pick up for $1200 at the Sears Outlet.  I've tentatively decided on a Bosch dishwasher for $950, and the hood will run about $600.  Let's see, what's left?  Oh yeah, countertops.  I'm going with granite which I'll buy from Sincere for about $2,000, and also my kitchen floor, which will cost about $300 for the tile, and about $1,000 for the installation.  This leaves me with enough money to do my bathroom and recarpet my bedroom.  I'm a happy camper.

This next week is Gay Pride Week in San Francisco.  I'm pretty blase about it.  I think I got turned off by the nitpicking that took place back in the 80s and 90s between the various Gay and Lesbian groups.  Gays are exactly like everyone else in the world, in that there is no one single idea about who we are as a community.  Anything you've ever heard about the complications arising from political correctness run amok is accentuated and compounded by the various groups who wish to sit in the shade of the Gay political umbrella.  We used to have to have two co-chairs, one Gay and one Lesbian.  Then, of course, we had to make room under the umbrella for people who identify as Bi-Sexual.  Then there are the transgendered people who did not wish to be invisible members of the coalition.  So the Gay-Day Parade became the Gay and Lesbian, Bi-Sexual, Transgendered Celebration and Parade.  I always thought that was silly.  Why did I think it was silly?  Well, because the word Gay can include all of that if we say it does.  Gay does not mean "White Male Homosexuals."  It doesn't mean anything except happy and cheerful, but that's just my opinion.

There will be a few parties next week-end, and I'm all for that.  The parade on Sunday I'll skip, and on Monday I leave for Vancouver.  I'm meeting up with a buddy and we're taking off for a nice, leisurely drive up to Kamloops to meet up with another friend, and then we're off to Calgary by way of a pleasant drive through the Canadian Rockies.

I'm not due home until July 10th, at which time roommate leaves for the Canaries and I get to supervise the destruction of my kitchen and its rebirth from the dust.   I'll also be celebrating my 58th birthday on July 17.  I'm told that 58 is the new 40.  Yeah, right.

Age doesn't really mean anything to me these days.  My mother is 78 and looks and feels great.  She drove to Oregon and back by herself.  Roommate is 70 and is off to an exotic vacation at the expense of a young admirer, and I'm almost 58 and I'm off the a huge party in Calgary.  I don't think you have to become boring just because you're older.  I'm not ever going to become boring. 

Friday night I saw the new Batman movie.  It was much better than any of the previous Batman movies.  The young man playing Batman is a real cutie-pie hunk.  Tom's new girlfriend that played the female lead had about as much depth as scotch tape.  I came close to yelling out "Scientology sucks" as the movie began, but resisted.  Who among us thinks Tom's going to marry this young starlet without a prenuptial agreement, despite his professed love (on Oprah, no less) for this young thing?  I read that he's hired a Scientology keeper for his young fiance.  Is that creepy or what?

Still, Scientology is  no more creepy that Christianity as practiced by most Christians, and certainly isn't any weirder than Islam as practiced by most Muslims.  I'm not even going to talk about Mormons.  I think the newest cult on the block, though, is celebrity worship.   Did you see the weirdos at Michael Jackson's trial? 

Hey to everyone.  I'm closing down so I can go read.  I'm finishing up an Allan Eckert book, Wilderness Empire.  I'll check back in later.

Best Line of the Day

"Beware, whoever you are - you may be next, because some awfully bitter juice can be squeezed from the fruit of the Bible. " - Michael Fox, Time to Mess with Texas

Why I Hate Texas

I noticed that both Senators from Texas, Cornyn and Hutchinson, are missing in action on the Senate's apology for refusing to outlaw lynching for one hundred years.  Considering the last White on Black lynching took place in Texas seven years ago, almost to the date of the Senate apology, it just adds to their shame.  No surprises here.

This Guy is Going to Burn in Hell

This ain't right.  Oh, it's funny, but it's not right.  He's going to burn in hell. 

Howard Dean Speaks for Me

I read in the paper this morning that VP Cheney thinks Dean is "over the top" and that he was never elected to anything.  How can you tell when Dick Cheney lies?  Answer:  his lips are moving.  I guess Dean's doing something right if the Republicans don't like him.

Diane Feinstein probably doesn't care for Dean either, and I bet that asshole in Nebraska that voted to confirm J.R. Brown to the Court of Appeal doesn't like him either.  Me?  I like him just fine.

While visiting friends in the Blogosphere today, I noticed that there's a petition going around to show support for Governor Dean. I signed it with pleasure, because Howard Dean speaks for me.