Incredible Atmosphere At This Bar

The minute I walked in the room, she could tell I was a man of distinction.

I was dressed like usual, including your usual brimmed cap. Leading the solitary woman at the bar to ask me if I'd been fishing. Oh, baby, with a come on like that, I love it! "No," I said, "I haven't been fishing for years. Why, do I smell bad?"

"Maybe you do but I can't tell from here," she was direct, "it's just the cap made me think of fishing, that's all."

"No, and I'm not really a cap guy, but my doctor thought I needed to wear one, you know," (I gestured at the ceiling where the sun would be if we were outside and it was daylight), "the dangers of skin cancer..."

Right away, I thought, no one mentions skin cancer, that's crazy, and I'm not -- I'm probably not -- in any danger of skin cancer. But that's what most people think, then, WHAM!, the doctor lays the bad news on them.

I looked around. This bar had an incredible atmosphere, small, cozy, a sweet little place that no one ever goes, except for a group of people out on the fire escape, a few people in the front room, then off to the side a few more, then me, then the bartender, and finally the solitary woman at the bar.

The bartender told her, "I'm cutting you off." She didn't seem sloshed, but she was loose enough to ask about my cap.

She clinked her glass a little, giving the ice something to do. I looked down, thinking this would be a great time to share a laugh if only something funny would happen. The bartender needed to go to the bathroom, so who would he trust to watch the tip jar? It was just her and me. I knew he could trust me; we've met before, whether he realized it or not. But she was telling him he could trust her.

He unzipped his pants and went off to the bathroom, perhaps not in that order. That left two people in the actual barroom, me ... and her. This doesn't happen to me very often, like this is the first time. I told her about the community event I'd just come in from. Then she got a call and complained that her phone doesn't work very well if her fingers are wet.

At that point, I got up and made my way to another room. To be, as it turned out, by myself in the dark. In the room you see in the picture above, with the three dim lights. Incredible atmosphere at this bar!

The bartender came out of the bathroom and was spiffing up the place. He wondered aloud whether the woman at the bar had bothered me. I said no, that I just wanted to be in this other room for a while. I needed to get the picture of the three lights for this blog. So there I am, arranging the tables, propping up the camera. This is one of those cameras where you have to push a virtual button (iPod) to take the picture, so that's what I did. It's a lovely picture, isn't it?

Then I dialed a service I subscribe to, a labeling service, and told them the caption I wanted to put on it, "INCREDIBLE ATMOSPHERE AT THIS BAR." I sat there nursing a Guinness while they worked on it. Then they messaged me right away, so I had to pull the Guinness away from my breast and confirm that I got it back.

I couldn't help thinking later, in one of those reveries that men have -- even well-established, safe-living men like me -- of what might've happened with the solitary woman at the bar. "Hey baby, do you date younger men?" "What do you mean younger men? You're pressing 60!" "Yeah, but with just these three dim lights, I have to look 20 years younger!"

Then, let's say I was married. She'd go, "Are you married?" And I'd go, "My wife! God rest her soul!" "So she's passed on?" "No, I'm just saying God rest her soul!"

How's My Driving?

If I asked for a show of hands, probably most of you would raise your hand if I asked if you've ever seen a "How's My Driving?" bumper sticker. Am I right? Most of you have to have seen one of these stickers, right? I mean, really, surely you have. Come on. OK, let's have a show of hands. Yes, that's most of you. As for a few of you who didn't raise your hand, you've got to be lying, don't you? Let's have a show of hands, how many of you are lying?

I'm thinking, If I have a bumper sticker on my car and someone's writing down the number, I'm thinking, "Oh crap, they're writing down my number!" Then they'd be calling it, and hopefully they'd get one of those "Press 1 for English, Press 2 for something else" machines, get discouraged, and hang up. Or the number would need some complicated information off my vehicle, like my vehicle number, to which I've added eight extra digits, and they'd hang up.

Still, you can't depend on people. They can be very persistent with a genuine gripe. Like if I ran them off the road or even something not quite that egregious. Speaking for myself, then, my own constant anxiety might make me a pretty good driver if I had to have the bumper sticker.

But then we have those who've had the bumper sticker for years, and it's not too tough to imagine they get complacent. They know the actual truth, that hardly anyone is going to call the number even if they do something wrong. People don't want to get involved, or they're nice and don't want the guy to lose his job. That's my problem. I've seen them do all kinds of things wrong but I've never called.

And I doubt it really makes much of a difference anyway. Although, who knows? Maybe they're on it like a ton of bricks. To the point of having a big control center with a big huge TV screen and satellites tracking the vehicles and matching up with real time stats, speed, adherence to the road, etc. They might have a guy who's living dangerously. Just one more call and they guy's done for!

So they're tracking him. Then a call comes in. And the operator completely bypasses the "Press 1 for English" stuff and takes the call. There's just a few words of complaint from the reporter and the operator's sending the word upstream: "Uh, we have a problem with 113482, another complaint ... Cut his power!" So wherever he is, the truck, the car goes dead and he pulls it over to the side. A light flashes on the dashboard: "BUSTED!"

I go both ways on this. I like efficiency, but that might be too efficient. He ought to have a grace period till he gets to a rest stop, at least.

Just another word on the anxiety this could cause for drivers, having the bumper sticker. In their case, it might make their driving less safe, because they're so worried about every offense. So they're over-thinking their driving and their instincts are dulled. Or they might notice someone writing down their number and become erratic, even criminal, trying to chase people down and run them off the road. They go over a cliff and the guy runs down to get your notepad. How many have died because of the bumper sticker?

Roger, Copy? No, I'm Not!

On this day of days, if you're into radio, since it's 10-4, I want to turn to the interesting story of Roger, your typical fourth grade schoolboy, whose experiences, as it turned out, were anything but typical.

His troubles began at recess one day when a swing in motion lurched back and knocked out his front tooth. There was no way to reattach the missing mouth appendage, so the dentist had to replace it with a big shining gold tooth. So far, so good. Except for one thing, from time to time he was picking up radio signals, and if the expertise of radio technicians is to be believed, by some miracle he was also transmitting!

To make a long story as short as possible, since we know our readers can't be bothered to spend more than a few minutes on a backwater site like this, the whole thing of him receiving and transmitting radio signals caused a lot of grief.

One day, a day very much like any other day -- trees were well anchored in the park, deer frolicked in their country solitude, accountants were busy balancing checkbooks, and iTunes came out with another update -- Roger sat down at his desk and prepared to take an exam.

They had a substitute teacher that day who didn't know that Roger was an honest child who would never cheat. At the very same time, there was an unusually high level of airplane traffic in that area. And the atmospheric and solar conditions were just right for the maximum sensitivity regarding his gold tooth and its radiophonic capabilities.

Roger sat taking the test, but was bummed out at the constant chatter in his head, the pilots complaining about engines going out, propellers falling off, and so forth. Finally he had to open his mouth for relief, right when one of the pilots said, "Copy?" and the other said, "Roger." Making it sound to everyone like someone was saying Roger was copying.

The teacher came over and checked out the situation, with Roger protesting, "No, I'm not!" She separated him from the others by a few feet. Pretty soon the whole situation built up in the same way, a passenger in one of the planes had some box cutters and was trying to break into the cockpit. The pilot asked, "Copy?" with the response being, "Roger." Other students were covering their papers, while realizing this was out of character for Roger. The teacher separated him even further, moving him very close to the window.

The trouble on the planes overhead seemed to be reaching a fever pitch. Air marshals were engaged in one "helluva" tussle with the terrorists, there was a lot of confusion on board, and many voices were jamming the radios. No one could seem to get a clear channel, with one air marshal now sitting on a terrorist who was trying to ignite a shoe bomb and underwear bomb both shouting into the set, "Copy?! Copy?! Copy?!" All radio decorum was out the window. The control tower wanting to emphasize their presence shouted back, "Roger! Roger! Roger!"

All eyes turned on Roger, who threw up his hands. "I'm not copying!" Can't you see that?" But the class and the teacher were an uncontrollable mob, moving in on him. Roger moved outside on to the edge of the building, on one of those ledges like you see in old movies, and started shouting, "I'm going to jump if you come at me! And I'll take you all down with me!" He shouted that and many other threats, being extremely desperate. All this was being transmitted over the same signal back to all the planes.

The pilots and air marshals believed the control tower was also taken over by terrorists and all hope was gone. But just to be sure they were crying out things that couldn't be understood, except for "Roger?!" and "Copy!" Over and and over, "Roger, copy! Roger, copy! Roger copy!" With Roger there on the ledge by now thinking God himself had condemned him.

Such confusion reigned, it was like ... insane.

So we have terrorists in the skies, desperate pilots, air marshals who were threatening to take early retirement, the control tower not knowing who was talking, and a little boy on the ledge freaking out, and a substitute teacher and a classroom of irate children lighting torches for the final showdown with innocent Roger.

Roger didn't know what to do! All life was conspiring against him and he did what had to be done, he leaped to his death. From the sky then, three planes were coming in for a crash landing, smacking into the school, destroying the facilities and destroying the teachers and other students. The only thing not burnt up were some desks that were thrown clear of the flames. And those were already so badly marked with graffiti they were barely worth saving.

I said Roger leaped to his death. I'd love to spare him somehow with a happy ending, but once you've leaped to your death, it's too late for that.

Rats Eating Through Your Stomach

I enjoyed a recent visit to the Museum of Dungeons and being able to see some of the enhanced interrogation methods (torture) of the past. It was like going back in a time machine, all the way back to the Middle Ages, or, more recently, to the Bush Administration. We forget, or I forgot how bad it was. Although I don't think I ever knew.

This was certainly a new one to me, proving that the cruel mind of man has never rested. What we have before us is a display showing one very drastic method of getting a confession. A cage with hot coals is set on the guy's midsection. In the cage there's hot coals, live rats, and one exit straight down. Straight down through the guy's stomach, meaning the rats can't go anywhere unless they eat right through the guy. How would you like that?

Yes, it sounds bad. Almost like being tied up and forced to watch 'Ghost Hunter' types of shows on TV. But I think it's worse. As for me, I would have long before confessed to whatever they wanted to hear. Then, presuming I ever got free, I'd immediately move somewhere else, anywhere else.

Best Burger Anywhere

One of our local bars advertises that they have the "BEST BURGERS ANYWHERE." A fact like that gives me a lot of pride, knowing that right here where I am, without having to leave town, I can eat the best burgers in existence.

I've actually had one of them, so I can attest, it was passable. I'm a generous critic. I recognized it right away as a burger, with the distinctive shape of the bun, a piece of meat in the middle, and some other things like mustard and ketchup. Then biting into it, knowing it was the best burger anywhere, I was totally psyched, believing I would really like what I tasted. OK, it was good.

I'm not doubting it's the best burger anywhere, by any measure. I can't make a determination like that, really, given that I don't have unlimited time and money (or inclination) to travel the entire world looking for one better. Still, the TV is occasionally on, and there's usually a marathon of food shows where the guy is in a different city every half hour, chatting it up with professional chefs, then digging into big baskets of tremendous looking food and experiencing on-camera climaxes. So, if I were given over to doubt, it might be an open question. Because when I ate my burger that time, there were no lights, no bells, no angelic visitations. It was all actually quite routine.

What would it take to have the best burger anywhere, if this place hasn't got it? Well, for starters, succulent ground beef done to perfection, not too dry, not too thick, not too thin. Notice I didn't say "not too wet," although of course if it gushed out blood that spilled down your neck like Niagara Falls, that would be much too wet. But really, I'd rather it was more on the wet, juicy side, than on the dry. I've had burgers on the grill that might rival this place for the best burger anywhere, but it's very tough to judge.

Presentation would be part of it, too. Not looking too fancy on the plate (or basket), and not looking too shabby. I don't like a plate that says they put more into the presentation than they did the cooking. And I'm equally turned off by one that shows there's no pride in the product because the presentation sucks. If they make it with a smile and present it to me with a proud waitress, cleavage optional, I'm happy.

And that goes for whether it's the best burger anywhere or not. I don't really need the best every time. Good enough, a nice mid-quality burger is usually good enough for me!

You've Been Fantastic

We've all watched comedians on TV telling the audience that they've been fantastic. That's good, because a comedian wants a fantastic audience, folks who are going to appreciate them and laugh. We might say, What's the difference, if they're being paid? You could hire a comedian, send them out to a bunch of stiffs, he could go through his routine, and end it, and it'd be just as good.

Just thinking of it, it looks like it's just a decent way to end the routine. You're going to thank the audience, and since a lot of comedy is just talking anyway, you may as well compliment the audience. Plus, the audience's response is a key part of the whole thing for comedians. It can be different for a musical act, who are just there to run through their songs. Bob Dylan, as an example, might not say a word.

It's nice to hear it, that you're a fantastic audience, or you've been fantastic, even though it doesn't mean that much. Because it's being told to you in the aggregate, so it's not really a compliment you can claim and put on your resume. But it makes you feel better when you leave than it would if he said you were deplorable, like the school principals used to tell us.

I was at a restaurant that was getting a fresh reboot and the owner (or manager) was there in the first days, acting all funky anxious. (As it turned out, he had good reason to act anxious. I went back a few times, getting consistently bad service, so I haven't been back again.) So he's all stressed out, and his inclination was to come to the eaters and let them know they're fantastic for eating there. Of course they're just there to eat, not be told how fantastic they are. They're thinking, "Hey, dude, leave us alone!" But at least he wasn't singing Happy Birthday table to table!

It's good that a place has an owner who's cordial. But I prefer those who stay in the background somewhere, so you don't even know who the owner is. He's just a guy somewhere, counting money and parceling out the tips. With no feedback whatever table to table.

I'm thinking of the great artists, who simply labor alone, with no feedback from anyone. Like Van Gogh, who didn't get fame till he was dead. He didn't have to periodically step out and tell us we've been fantastic, a beautiful audience. "You've really been quite lovely!"

Closing Out September

I'm closing out September with a few trifles. 30 days hath September, and today's the day it hath them!

I spent most of September on other projects -- note to self -- hence my lack of posts here.

It was actually one project, involving photography, and it's amazing how consuming it was for me. But it had a definite lifespan. I can't say I didn't see it coming, because I felt it coming as sure as anything.

Most things that I become extremely interested in like that have a lifespan. The arc is natural enough, starting with my first discovery, my first steps, a few tentative moves, then I become more interested. Soon I'm an old hand, showing what I have, in this case thinking I have a real eye for it, and I believe I do. Now I'm evaluating it, but only periodically, thinking occasionally of the vanity, yet persisting in ever new variations of participation. Midway through, I'm really able to produce, like the long distance runner. There's still enough avenues to run down, so I'm thinking I'm doing something useful, but the nagging in my mind is getting louder all the time: Why? I keep going, I double down on my efforts, I set goals and meet them, and soon I'm such an old hand it's like I've been doing it forever. I'm established, I'm even respected. But I start seeing the arc as an arc indeed and know that I'm getting toward the end. I make a resolution: I'll just be this interested in it, self limiting. Except I know that will never work. Because when I've pierced through to the full realization of the vanity -- knowing its true worthlessness -- I start casting about for something tried and true, something that does have value to me.

That is a funny paragraph, and every word is true!

The good news about a life pursuit like this is that I didn't make a large investment in it. I didn't make any commitments. There's nothing I have to be ashamed of. No one got hurt. And it was even kind of fun, while also serving as a cautionary tale to me about whatever my next consuming interest is, to look for the arc early on.

The Stick Figure Artist

He sits alone in his artistic citadel. (Hallelujah, that's a great sentence!)

You might call him an alone kind of guy. Something of a social clod. Perplexed by the madding crowds, the jostle and bustle of too many foreign bodies. (Wow, I'm really fleshing this bastard out!)

(Sorry for the parentheses, I know everyone hates them. I'll try to keep my own delight down to a minimum. On the other hand, who am I trying to spare? You, certainly, who are my lovely guest. Let's get back to the stick figure dude...)

There he is, and that's a self portrait you see, alone in his artistic citadel. He's sort of like me in several ways, thinking he is artistic without there necessarily being any evidence to prove it.

By citadel, I mean he's not sitting on the floor. He's up at the kitchen table or at his desk, sketching out his pathetic little sketches in a sketchbook, a regulation sketchbook that he got at the stationer's store. It's run by an English chap, well known for his accent. He, our artist, spends too much on sketchbooks, more than his sketches probably deserve, but the English chap's accent is seductive.

So there he is, once again, hunched over the sketchbook, using his imagination, digging deeply into his thoughts to come up with yet another stick figure sketch. There's a lot -- a hell of a lot -- of straight-on views like that, since profiles don't come easily. Mostly straight-on views, that in my opinion aren't going to appeal to anyone.

(Pardon me while I pause to think. I'm thinking, Who am I to judge such an one? Nobody, really, except maybe ... I could be the stick figure artist. His sketches and mine are straight-on. And too much for anyone to bear. He likes to think maybe the madding crowds will see his sketches. That's a natural inclination, perhaps, although it has a social component, too. End of my thoughts. He needs to think, Why do I even care?)

One of the stick figure artist's great projects, great to him, was to fill a tablet with little drawings at the edge, so he could flip them and see his work in motion. It took a week of meticulous drawing, and what he finally came up with was a stick figure picking his nose. The piece he entitled, "Everyone Does It."

Let's say someday, like when he's on his last stick, he might become famous. Suddenly his tablets and sketchbooks are in big demand. A museum somewhere heard the buzz and decided to jump on them. Now, as his life's breath is on the wane, suddenly his figures are going for big money. Like one figure for four figures or five.

Fahoup Fahep Fitzguh

"This is the Randy Track Show, and I'm your host, Randy Track, and today we're welcoming Larry Stine to our studio, from the group Fahoup Fahep Fitzguh. They're in town, and they've got a really big show tonight at The Unmentionable. What time is it?"

"Uh, I think it's 9 o'clock. We'll be rehearsing before that, no doubt. And a couple of our 'roadies' will be setting up the speakers and all that stuff so we can put on the best show we can give for the money."

"So it's 9 o'clock, huh?"

"Something like that, yes, I believe so."

"OK, we're going to be playing a little bit of Fitzguh coming up here, since you have an album or two out."

"That's right, each of our albums has several 'cuts,' or musical selections, all played in our own distinctive style, according to the genre that comes natural to us. And if you play a few of those, whatever time allows for, it might gin up some support for us, with more people then hopefully coming out for the show."

"Sure, Larry, our listeners are very keen on your group and your music, so believe you me, I'm sure there will be quite a few warm bodies in attendance tonight, each one grooving to your great sound. You have a drummer, right? And he's well practiced?"

"We do have a drummer. Exactly how much he has to practice, that's a matter for him to decide. As for me, you probably know I play the six-string guitar."

"Of course. Anyway, Larry, welcome again. I wanted to ask you as my first question how you guys got the name Fahoup Fahep Fitzguh? It's quite a mouthful, causing a lot of us in radio -- and I think a lot of your fans do the same thing -- to shorten it to just Fitzguh."

"Ha, ha, we knew that would happen. We could've called ourselves The 3 Fs, but, I don't know, there's reasons why we went with the name we have."

"OK, that's what we want to get to..."

"OK ... A few years ago my wife -- my old lady -- and I, my old lady and me, were doing all this spittin' and sputterin', just on a lark, trying to 'one up' each other with it. Imagine it if you had Sylvester the Cat just going into this whole routine of being amazed about everything and not being able to get an actual word out. He's just moving his lips and spitting. You can't even spell what it'd sound like: "Futz, fitz, splick, etc.," like that. Now multiply that out for like an hour or something! It's hilarious!"

"I see."

"Anyway, my old lady and me, we're talking it over later, and I'm like, 'How would you spell that?' And that's how we narrowed it down, or crystallized it as a short phrase, 'Fahoup, Fahep, Fitzguh!' It's been a long time, and my old lady -- my wife -- sometimes she thinks we had an extra 'Faheep' in there, but I know we didn't."

"Oh, LOL, that's very very funny! I've heard the story before, of course, and it gets to me every time. So thanks for running through the whole spiel again!"

"Ha ha, you're welcome. It cracks me up, too. I love telling the story, it's so great!"

"OK, I'm going to play one of your 'cuts,' and I'm going to say the whole name -- I hope I don't get too much spit on the mic! Here they are, Fahoup! Fahep! Fitzguh!

Words Of Advice

I'm old enough now to be able to give good, serious advice to younger people. Whatever it is, I've been there, done that. In general, I know what works and what doesn't. I know what regrets are all about and what you need to do to have fewer of them.

When you're young, it's not always obvious to you what all possibilities you have. Mom and Dad are there trying to make things safe for you. They have good reasons for you to play it safe, because all kinds of terrible things can happen. Maybe they want you to fit in the family mold and carry on for them.

Plus, you simply don't know all your possibilities because no one's told you. Well, I can't tell you either, because the possibilities are so vast, everyone's got to see them and imagine them for themselves. It's enough to say, If you think your possibilities are really limited, chances are you're wrong. Because you can launch out and do all kinds of things.

I have this in mind because we've gone out for breakfast and had the same waitress a couple weeks in a row. She's come by the table and talked about more than our order, like what she might do. She's living at home, at her parents' place. Grandma and Grandpa live in the same town and they want her to move in the trailer with them. But she might like to move away and do something else...

It seems like I told her last week she ought to "Go for it." I can't remember if I did or not, but that would be my usual advice if I happened to be in the advice-giving mood.

Really, though, it's OK to stay in your town, just stay wherever you are, if you're happy with that. Like it says in the Tao Te Ching (and is quoted in a Beatles' song), "Without going out of your door, you can know the ways of heaven." It's somewhere near the end of the book, that the people in this one place never need to go anywhere. They never even visit the town nearby. I believe I know what that means. Everything is the exact same in terms of the Tao.

But practically speaking -- and I don't like the sound of that phrase entirely, because practicality isn't always the way to live -- you don't know that your life's happiness is going to be found in your own backyard. You might need to get out and go to school. You might be better off traveling, seeing new things, etc.

The advice that really came to me, which I didn't say, is the most famous thing Joseph Campbell ever said, which is, "Follow your bliss." Look it up, it's an interesting concept. It's different from crawling in a hole, covering yourself, and hoping to die, a lot different.

Then I thought, I don't want to have to tell her, "Follow your bliss." Because how am I going to explain that without my eggs getting cold? And you really don't want to seem too profound, because how are you going to be a regular customer next week?

Buttocks

I need to get it out of my system, my intentions to write about buttocks. I've had it in my notebook for a few days. I don't feel that I have much to say about it at this present moment, but I'm not going to let that stop the attempt.

I was driving today and saw a young woman walk by with just the barest hint of her "cheeks" showing, which was noted by my passenger. I had to say I also noticed, and since it was just the barest hint, in my opinion, that's usually better than the full intensity of shorts down around your knees.

It all served to remind me of the subject. I looked it up at the library, "buttock." And just a word about the word, I don't really like the word in its fullness, with the clumsier sound than just the shortened "butt." Why we have to suffer the more clinical "tocks" on the end of it, I guess it just goes along with the history of words, even though we've more or less managed to dispense with it in day to day conversation.

The dictionary says, "Usually, buttocks, a. (in humans) either of the two fleshy protuberances forming the lower and back part of the trunk." That sounds about right, although my own way of looking at things is that the butt isn't so much the back part of the trunk but the upper part of the legs. If we were turkeys and you were parceling out the pieces of a human, the butt would be the top of the drumsticks, not the bottom of the trunk.

Just look at a person walking by -- and you can do this with yourself as well -- and you can see, if it weren't for legs we wouldn't have a butt. The legs go up, then poof out, with the butt proper being simply the joining of the legs in a kind of mashup. Perfectly proportioned, usually, with the crack down the exact middle being nothing more than the accident of their joining. The excretory opening (look it up) is not so much a part of the upper leg complex itself, but is indeed more properly classified as being part of the trunk. I know all this and I'm not even a doctor!

The butt serves several purposes, for which I am glad. It gives us something to sit with. It fills out our pants. And it gives us something to spank if someone's been bad (or it's their birthday.)

Where I come from, also, buttocks are meant to be a private part of the body. You don't go around with your butt hanging out, even though they are really nothing more than "fleshy protuberances." But it's come to my attention over the years that not everyone looks at it that way. Sumo wrestlers, girls in bikinis, and the kids from The Family Circus, all have been flashing their butts for years, and probably always will. That was a source of great humor for us as kids, to see The Family Circus kids' butts hanging out. Because it was different than what we expected.

Butts. They're really OK as body parts go.

Four Kats Are Following Me

I woke up today to a pleasant surprise, four more rabid followers for my blog. These four join the other six, making them now the Terrific Ten!

(Following this blog has certain benefits besides the editorial red meat I throw out on a regular basis. One benefit, in fact, was just yesterday, before I gained the four Kats, last night, when we had the wiener roast and hayrack ride. And, two, sometimes we get together at one of the coffee places downtown and hash out ideas for future posts. I've had to stare down a couple of them with some harshness a time or two for crossing me, meaning it hasn't always been pleasant. But I can also be easy, like if they bring cookies.)

You have to admit, having six followers one day, then 10 the next, demonstrates exponential growth. At that rate, let's say every day I got four more, that'd be 28 in a week, and that's not even counting the very realistic expectation that some of them might tell their friends, then there'd be five, six, maybe even 100, new ones everyday. Wouldn't that be wild?

Yes, in fact it would be wild, so wild I couldn't stand it, and it actually might kill me. I love the traffic, don't get me wrong, and I love the cookies they bring, of course, but that'd be a lot of pressure to know there were that many people hanging around. The way it is now, being fairly small and few, it's easy enough to remember everyone's names. And with the four Kats, that's no problem.

Let's see. I'll try to recite them from memory. It seems like there was Katherine, Katherine, Katherine, and Katie. I'm just double-checking my notes, and, yes, that's them. My mom used to have a dear friend Kathleen, so she might be coming by. We could get someone from Katmandu, go out hunting specimens of katydids, get some drinks at the Kit Kat Club, then come home and take a  ... catnap.

The actual truth of the matter is that Katherine is one person, one brilliant person who somehow broke the code of how to follow the same blog four times. The scientists just the other day proved Einstein wrong about light being the fastest thing around. And now Katherine has done this! Amazing! I'm grateful for the extra hands with our shared responsibilities, all eight of them, or I guess it's probably just two.

Anyway, we send out a BIG Grandma Slump welcome to our most recent followers: Katherine, Katherine, Katherine, and Katie! You're very nice people and we're glad you're all here!

The Fish I Saved

I just wrote about a fish I saved.

I didn't waste any time getting it back in the water. But later I was thinking about it, that I seemed to remember some mythology, or some fairy tale, about a fish that asks favors or grants favors.

Let's say the fish does a little of each, asks and grants. This might be like a transcendental story, the fish wants to become more than it is, so it seeks a favor, then it becomes a princess. Or it might be one of those depth psychology fish, where it stands for your hidden, repressed qualities, but if you minister to it, you are transformed.

I wasn't going to wait around to find out, because this fish needed to get back into the water, pronto!

Later, then, I'm reflecting on it, and wondering what I would do if the fish had asked me a favor or offered a boon. But my basic psyche is set to do this, to say, "This is no time to be asking favors or grant boons, you need to get back in the water, now!" "But, but!" "No buts about it, back in the water you go!"

Let's say it happened that way. Then, even later, I'm reflecting again, going, "I really screwed up big-time, I could've had a favor!" You remember, Jesus and St. Peter found a coin in a fish's mouth. Look it up in your Jung book!

I'm veering this toward a happy ending for me, in case you can't tell. Despite my later rumination, what I did in the pressure of the moment is what counts, that's where my true character lies. I did the right thing, eschewing any benefits that might have been mine. Because, obviously, the fish needed to be in the water.

Here's what might have happened. A beautiful queen shows up at my door, telling me the incredible story that she had been a fish and had suffered greatly. An evil magician, let's call him Sqerlin, had hexed her, for whatever reason, and the only one who could restore her would be an honorable man. Sqerlin of course doesn't believe in honorable men, so now he's governing her land and doing a piss poor job of it.

So she shows up at my door, decked out in gold, silver, and a long silk train, stretching from my front door all the way to the garage. Telling me a fish story that -- hmm, it's awakening some recognition in me -- and that she now knew an honorable man. I say, "Who is he?", being of course very humble as well.

She touches my forehead, bringing me instant recognition -- a series of flashes gives me the whole truth. She was the catfish on the bank! A parade of dishonorable men had passed her for centuries! She was literally down to her very last minute of life -- after centuries! -- when I showed up, miraculously.

It really is miraculous that I showed up, because I'd never been there before -- it was one in a trillion.

And instead of waiting for a boon, I had selflessly put her back in the water! How honorable I was!

She falls into my arms, we hug and kiss, then we come up for air before falling into one another's arms again, hugging and kissing some more. It goes on like that for a while, until I take her out to Long John Silver's for a nice fish dinner, before retiring back to my ... private quarters. Where she is anything but a dead fish! In fact she's quite feisty, putting up a play fight and making me really work at it to eventually land her. Like anyone, once she's had the best, she's hooked for life...

Then she explains to me there's no time to lose. If we don't get back to the palace before midnight -- and it's five till now -- Sqerlin will officially be king. As if in a dream ship, in no time, we're there in her realm. I pound down the gates, we rush into the palace, I kill Sqerlin, the queen is restored, and I am proclaimed King of the Realm!

All this ... because I was honorable enough to save a fish when I had the chance...

I Take Life, I Give Life

It's forever ago that I've had to kill anything (excluding the occasional mosquito or ants). I don't like killing at all. I'm like the old reflective gunslinger who's simply had enough of bloodshed.

But lately there's been a mouse at my place, terrorizing me, ripping into bags of Oreos and corn chips and who knows what all. One night I was sitting there and heard a noise but just figured it was my dog Underbrush, but when I looked, she wasn't there! That's when I discovered, there's some other life form in the house!

Since then I had been trying to catch it. The first time the trap just set there for several days, nothing. Then, because this is one of the newer mousetraps that don't work as well, the mouse ate the corn chip but didn't get caught. Then a couple days ago I reset it and made it more sensitive, with the mouse finally getting caught this morning.

I got up and looked to where the mousetrap was but it wasn't there. Just a little more looking and I discovered it with a mouse in it that was still alive. His head was under the bar but he wasn't dead -- O crap! There'd surely be no releasing him in the wild, because the bar had to have done severe damage.

This is very unpleasant for me to say, but it was simply out of mercy, that I had to take the thing outside and kill it, as quickly and mercifully as possible. That was a terrible way to start my day, and I could barely think of anything else afterward, feeling very sick.

Later in the morning, then, I went out to the country, taking pictures. I have my iPod camera and I like some of the pictures I get. I was messing around at this bridge, a place I've never actually stopped before. So it was a one in a trillion kind of thing that I happened to be there.

I climbed down the bank, went down below the bridge, saw a cool shot maybe 50 yards to the east, near some dead trees with water way up them. I went over, took my pictures, then headed back. While going, then, I saw a good sized catfish on the ground, some bloodiness on its mouth area, but it was still moving its tail.

There was no one around, yet someone, maybe an hour before, maybe 10 minutes, whatever, had left a catfish behind. How terrible, because a catfish is a desirable fish, nothing to leave to die on the bank. Unlike, say, a carp, or something worse, something that is technically illegal to throw back. A catfish is far from that category!

So I got a hold of its tail and put it back in the water. It started moving and swam slowly away. Of course I have no idea what will become of it, whether it will survive, but you have to admit its odds are better in the water than on the bank!

I don't know why I had this kind of morning. I haven't seen a dead mouse in years and I don't know that I've ever come upon a live catfish on the bank before. Anyway, the bottom line is, I both killed and preserved life, all in one morning...