like the song says...like some forgotten dream

we still go visit mom every day. for me, it's getting more like these lyrics: "we don't talk much more" "she sits and stares" "what's new?" "like some forgotten dream" "nothing, what's with you?" "nothing much to do."



i guess that's why i take awol with me. that mutt has it down. in his own way he goes to every single person and says, "helloooo in there...hello."

i keep trying not to blog because i don't like to whine. at least not publicly. but the truth is it's been a trying few weeks, i guess. now that i have a relatively positive mom anecdote...i still feel the need to get it right, to put it in context, to be honest in the telling.

so maybe i'll just copy and paste a few "mom reports".

no. the family has already read those emails and responded. and this blog is essentially for them, anyway. no. i need to come up with a reason. some sort of universal truth, some epiphany to make it worthy, a literary device (a gouge... hahahhahahahha.)
i'm thinking of a deciduous tree. could that work? both the cause (mom's well-being) and the effect (my reluctance to write about her) are cyclical. deciduous.

yes. i'll work on that.

until we meet again... Read more!

Read more!

the good, the bad and the ugly

from today's news:

the good -
whether you like barack obama or not, i hope you will appreciate this story about his mother's character as revealed through her life's work. she's the good guy in this world of ours.

the bad -
this is actually mostly good news. i only call it "the bad" because it seems unconscionable to me that it took so damn long. it seems bad to me that industry; for reasons of either greed, ignorance, misplaced loyalty or all of the above, allowed themselves to go bankrupt, become 60% government owned and worst of all, create Massive unemployment and chaos while the technology now "suddenly in place" has really been damn near in place for decades.

the ugly -
in case you don't click and read the news stories here (highlighted in red), i'll tell you a bit more about this one. last week the courts awarded the recording industry a $675,000 judgement against a man for downloading and sharing 30 (thirty!) songs online.

now that's UGLY. in my opinion, i think the rule should read as follows: if a record label or artist has already made a million bucks, all their stuff is fair game for anyone savvy enough to share it for free. end of soapbox.

for more rant...

i'm pretty sure the following is all three, the good, bad and ugly , and includes TWOD (the word of the day). the word irredentist is new to me and can be found in the last sentence of the above article.

OH! & one more good!...
i gave away the last of awol's pups today.
the brown one with the paul newman eyes, the one most like awol now has a new home with one of the aides who works on mom's alzheimer unit. she will bring him to work with her. and THAT is a very very good good thing.

(i have pics, but i can't upload them on my connection, but i will as soon as i am able.)

Read more!

roadtrip to armadillo - IV, random pictures

i know...this post is way too fucking long, too convoluted and too full of my screwed up sense of humor. suck it, trebek. it's my blog.

on our roadtrip to and from amarillo, we took several sidetrips down obscure farm roads to see what we could see*. on one of the more profitable of those meandering excursions we saw the coolest thing. this low flying barn cresting a hill just the barest bit above the ground as it skimmed, star wars style, over a hay field.

who knew barns could fly?**

i took over 300 pictures on the trip to and from amarillo. i won't bore you with all of them, or all of my silly ramblings about them, but here are a few.


these next 3 were taken at a roadside strip mall just outside of henrietta, texas. it was a sunday and the place was closed, so i have no idea how much they wanted for the steel and tin sculptures, but they were kinda cool. they'd make good yard art or beer garden decorations. the store name in the background is "cadillac cowgirl." i can't help but wonder if it's owned by the same person who lives about 50 miles back, here.



this headless cowboy is next to a coral with a couple of horses that awol didn't exactly make friends with. when one of them came out to take a leak awol's jaw went slack at the size of it. (oh wait, maybe that was terri's jaw...) anyway, much barking ensued. (i'm pretty sure it awol doing the barking.)



this is my favorite piece they had. being near the town of henrietta it reminded me of a chicken i once had named henrietta. when my ex and i first moved to dallas back in 1975 we brought our one remaining chicken with us. one day soon after the move she got out of her pen. the next thing we knew she was chasing our cat down the middle of velasco street in broad daylight! it was a sight to see. ahahahahaha. henrietta. she was a real hoot, but i don't think she ever totally made the transition from free range country chicken to being an illegal city-chicken.




these here are 19th century saloon doors in Saint Jo, texas.

(did ya notice how i hit the shift key there? that's because Saint Jo is an extremely awesome name for a town. it's a shout out to all you Jos out there!)

there's also a bit of irony in those swingin' doors still being there. it seems the name of the town is due to a town founder guy named joe, nicknamed SAINT JO, being such a zealous prohibitionist.



later on in the trip, while stopped to check out a historical marker, (it's about charles goodnight and will be featured in a later post about all the historical markers we saw and might just bore most of you to sleep)...

awol found these 2 dung beetles moving their goods across the plains of the panhandle of texas. actually only one of them was doing the moving. the other one just hung on for the free ride.

hmmm...come to think of it, that sounds kinda like me on our roadtrip. just along for a free ride, no real responsibility, other than acting as navigator/tour guide.

would you believe we spent at least 30 minutes watching them do their thing?(pun intended) well, we did.


now this is a pretty famous roadside attraction. it's called cadillac ranch. i will have to admit i consider it the most boring/least interesting thing i saw on our trip aside from an ill-advised stop at a sonic drive-in in some podunk town. and even there we saw a guy hauling a freaking airplane*** behind his truck with the plane's wings tucked back like a downhill racer.

this is what it looked liked when stanley marsh 3 installed it back in the day...

and this is what it looks like now. well, almost. that was 2-3 weeks ago and in the single hour we were there, about 5 cans of spray paint were unloaded on the cars by the visitors. sure, it was still kinda cool and the artist doesn't seem to mind the graffiti, but i give it about a 2 on a scale of 10 compared to other stuff we saw.



for instance, palo duro canyon at sunset is very, very cool. it's a 9, at least. (ok, so i got camera happy and took too many dopey pictures here, but if you looked at that web album...did you see all the hoards of wild indians on the ridgetops? i sure did.) we only stayed an hour, but i would very much like to camp out there for a few days. you should check it out some time if you ever have the chance.



i know i'm rambling on too long to be showing this next one. it's just a car we saw on the highway. it's a "versa." i'd never heard of that model car and was just wondering if they shouldn't have a bumper sticker made that says, "my other car is a vice."

but then, they'd probably never be able able to decide which car to take, would they? "vice?, versa? - vice? versa? - vice?..."




*to see what we could see... ****

**if you believe that, i've got a flying pig i'd like to sell you.

*** ****also one of the funniest novels you'll ever read.

Read more!

free haircuts

i heard it was 108 here today. hah! take this, you dickhead weather man, you...

haircut

did you click on the pics to view the videos? did they make you want one of my free haircuts? if so, be forewarned - i only know how to give one kind, but it's very, very cool. Read more!

free food

speaking of free food, check out the fun we had today...


the news was on at mom's when i was there yesterday or i would never have known about this, but it seems today is cow appreciation day. (that's according to fast food restaurant, chick-fil-a, the guys with the funny *eat more chiken* ads.)
this was the deal: dress up like a cow, head to toe, and receive a free, full meal; just wear a cow hat or whatever and receive a free sandwich.

informed that i could get a free sandwich just for acting up a little, and... well, what do YOU think???

note: the following link to a web album will be replaced with on-site pics when i get to a connection that will allow me to upload to blogger. (my home connection is sooo lame.) in the meantime, check these pictures out.

terri had the most creative idea. she had me cut some holes in an old, white, rally, t-shirt and wore it over a black t-shirt for the "cow look." then she painted a black circle around one eye, painted big red lips on herself, put her hair in pig tails for "cow ears" and voila!

i'm pretty sure chick-fil-a should hire her for their next ad campaign.
(she had another really funny idea, but i'm not allowed to talk about it... and i deleted those pics, anyway.)

me, i strung an old cow skull i happened to have lying around and wore it as a necklace.

and awol?...he just went as himself, of course. (black spots on white dog = fake cow in my book.)



now you may be asking yourself, "did they buy that shit?"

they sure did = 3 free sandwiches and a whole lotta fun.
hahahahahahahaha, i bet you thought we'd get 2 sandwiches at best.

(so did we.)

Read more!

roadtrip - III

signs, signs, signs & more signs...a story about signs of life, signs of entropy, hand carved signs, hand scribbled signs posted on barricaded doors and windows, signs of past glory and signs of 4-napkin-hamburgers*... the following is a quick tale of signs of all kinds.


at 50 mph it literally took about 30 seconds to pass through estelline. if we noticed anything at all, it was a few boarded up buildings and a liquor store.

scrrreeeeeeeeecch!!!!!!!!!!!
(hard braking action, mouths in full agape position) say WHAT?!



get ready folks. it's U-turn time again...

btw, does anyone know to keep a web album where i put it, behind the cut at the end of the story, rather than on the front page?

with a billboard like that on the outskirts of town there's just GOT to be something of interest in this near ghost town. the question was not IF we should turn around, but what hidden gem(s) were waiting for us when we did. as it turned out there were a few cool old buildings, but they were all vacant.

there is a very cool 1950-ish diner that had us both salivating just thinking about all the greasy burgers burgers burgers served there at some time in the past. ok, i was drooling. i can't speak for terri.

the original, extant at least, city hall/fire department, housed in a very fine 1910/1920-ish red brick building with hand carved limestone signage are both boarded up now,
but a "new" city hall was added on to the structure some time later in estelline's past.

alas. even this cedar clad hall is now little more than an abandoned building. (click on any picture to enlarge)

a funny sign on the door directs you to the current new city hall - it is now housed in a trailer parked just behind. (next to the police-station-trailer, of course.) hahahahahaha.

practically the only signs of life to be found in town were in this grubby trailer park. and even those signs were circumstantial, faint and yellowing, in the form of a bicycle or two, a few old pickup trucks and one clothes line with a half dozen pair of yellowed, stained, whitey tighties hanging from it (insert leonard cohen's "bird on a wire" for dramatic effect. just imagine an indvidual's quest to be free, to be free.) signs of life, indeed.

but wait! maybe there IS life in rural estelline, after all. it appears in the form of one(1) liquor store and one(1) beer & wine store. by god!, there are even cars with current license plates parked out front of them! together these two package stores seem to be the only signs of viable mercantile concern in town.




which brings me back to my original assumption that there MUST be something of interest in a town that boasts a gigantic "SATAN SUCKS" sign as its most visible landmark while the only signs of life in town are where they buy their booze.

and that point of interest, that gem of Estelline, is???

the IRONY. and i freaking love it.
lots more signs and even a true ghost town in upcoming "roadtrip" entries. y'all stay tuned now, hear?

* - according to the rikipedia: "...without any doubt, a 4-napkin-hamburger is a sign of true hamburger greatness. ie: how many paper napkins were used while shoveling said burger into the old pie hole? for the record, i have had a few 5-napkin burgers in my time. and maybe one 6-napkin, but a 4-napkin hamburger is about all anyone should hope for in this life. cross your fingers. maybe in heaven things will get even better..."

click below for more pictures in and around estelline...

estelline

Read more!

roadtrip to armadillo - II

clear out in the middle of nowhere, texas (actually just 2 miles southwest of saint jo, texas), out in a cow pasture among the cow patties and jack rabbits, off a country road, are a bunch of crazy wood and metal sculptures. check 'em out by clicking on the web album cover below...

ladybugs and sunflowers...

the highway for about 300 of the 350 mile trip went right through all the little towns. the other 50 miles skirted the towns rendering a sterile, interstate-like ride.

but wait a sec...what in the cornbread hell is this?

in an otherwise stark landscape sits a house right by the side of the highway. a cadillac convertible is parked in the front drive. two bikini clad women are sitting parade style in the back.

quick! find a place to turn around! we have got to check this out...










hahahahahahahahaha Read more!

roadtrip to armadillo - I

a friend had a job interview in amarillo last week. she asked if i'd go along for the ride and for moral support. i said i would on one condition. that we could stop at every historical marker and any roadside attraction i could find.

we proceeded to turn a fairly boring 6 hour drive through west texas into a 9+ hour trek full of all kinds of crazy/interesting shit.

an hour or so and 2 historical markers later we noticed a homemade-looking billboard that said, "GLENN GOODE'S BIG PEOPLE. TURN RIGHT. 2 MILES."

i'm here to tell you, that was a side trip well worth the taking... 2-25 foot tall "big johns", 1-22 foot tall reconstructed "muffler man", 1-17 foot tall "uniroyal gal" who bears a striking resemblance to jackie o., and a life-sized calf are right there for the gawkin'. and the collector/artist, mr. glenn goode himself, came out of his air conditioned house to tell us all about them in the sweltering heat. (truth be told, he loves to talk and more than just kinda likes visitors.)

said he paid 300 bucks each for the big johns. cut off their arms to get 'em there and reattached them himself. they're apparently from some defunct grocery chain. the bags they used to hold are in his back yard.
he paid 5 bucks for the muffler man. it was head, hat and armless at the time. goode, pronounced like "dude" but with a "g", did the fiberglass reconstruction himself.

my favorite story was about the uniroyal gal.
when he got her, she wore a pink bikini, a low cut blouse, and a mini skirt. he told me, "i just had to fix her up a little. had to give her some respectable clothes to wear. so i lengthened the skirt over 2 feet and put a decent shirt on her."
(phew!! thank god for that!)

i think i still have a myspace page somewhere out there in digital land. anyway, a photo i found on the interwebs of the 2 middle figures was my profile picture for quite a while. i called them mr. and mrs. muffler man. i never knew anything about them until now. cool!



oh, and the calf? someone just gave it to him.
one day sometime later, he got a call from a neighbor. said his cow got loose and would he come get him? mr. goode said he didn't own any cows. turns out some kids had stolen the fiberglass calf in the night and it must've fallen out of their truck making a turn not too far away from the scene of said rustling.

here's a link to a web album of some photos of the big people outside of gainesville, texas. click and enjoy the madness...

big people

stay tuned for more roadtrip pics and stories.
...just don't hold your breath. Read more!

happy father's day, AWOL

gigi and awol had puppies a week ago today. that would make this awol's 1st father's day. videos of the pups after the cut...

i have no idea what rupert is really talkin' about in this 12 second video, but it sounds like he's talkin' about the puppies. ahahahahahahaha



here's another short flick of larry, curly and moe. they kinda look like mole rats, don't they?



Read more!

for sure...

it's a subjective point of view, but i believe it's true. thanks, annie. you expressed it perfectly.

at least for now. for my mom. Read more!

yeah, yeah. i know. i said, "cornbread out."

and i meant it, but this is just too fucking stupid not to comment on.


ft. worth, texas.
nickname = cowtown.

any honest dallasite recognizes cowtown's superior cultural presence. from the world class museums, concert halls* and saloons to their (soon sadly to be defunct) newspaper, ft. worth seriously & easily out classes dallas.

so what's up with the ft worth independent school district closing down all 147 schools for a week?

oh, that's right. the swiiiine fluuuuuuuuu.
so...what's a fella to do??? 

hey, i know. let's send 80,000 kids home. home to single parent families and 2 parent working households. 3.18 children per family are suddenly WHERE? doing WHAT? for a WEEK?!! brilliant.

while you're at it, why not suggest they not be sent to day care. (parents, please try to forget you have a job. and NO SLEEPOVERS while the kiddos are on vacation!!)

while you, fwisd, do WHAT? sterilize the schools????? did you suddenly go fucking braindead? did a bit of kryptonite get stuck in your panties? did someone sneeze on you? did you forget to wash your grubby hands? sheesh. it's the freaking flu, dude! do the math. (it's not the plague.)


Kingsford goes to the beach - Watch more Funny Videos

can you believe the cat didn't slap the shit out of that pig?

while you're at it, please advise those 10s of 1,000s of families not to eat pork. give them all kfc coupons so they can contract their salmonella honestly.

and in the meantime, i'll be enjoying the ridiculously cheap pork chops and pork ribs from my grocer.

*[click on one of the pics in that link to see a monumentual stone carving. it's awesome. it's angelic. it's ft. worth at her best.] Read more!

4-22-09, brand new alzheimer's research reported

"Taking a new approach to the treatment and prevention of Alzheimer's disease, a research team led by investigators at the Mayo Clinic campus in Florida has shown that druglike compounds can speed up destruction of the amyloid beta (A-beta) proteins that form plaque in the brains of patients with the disorder."

i think there really is hope for many of the rest of us...

-----------------

we took the alz residents back to richland college for a picnic lunch and concert yesterday. it was mostly awesome.

the only unawesome thing about the deal was mom being an asshole.

while waiting for the bus mom says:
"what the hell are we doing?"
"i'd rather go back to bed."
"what the hell are we doing sitting here?"
"this is stupid."

so i did the ignoring thing. when we got on the bus i mentioned what a beautiful day it was.
"harumph," says she.

ok. be that way...(she can be so exasperating)

we ate our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches by the lake. [picture would not upload]*
it was 75-80 degrees with a nice breeze. i asked if she was enjoying the day. i asked if she was enjoying being out in the real world in such nice weather. she agreed it was very nice. she might have even smiled.

we went in to the concert hall where the music department of this small junior college was going to do their monthly performance. *

there was a jazz band.*

and a jazz choir.*

& another lab band...*

it was all really surprisingly good. better than good.

the choir was backed up by a drummer and an electric bass player.* they also did an a capella number providing their own percussion, etc.* (i have a video of that, but my internet connection is apparently too slow to let me upload it to a web album.)

both bands were good. the second one did a thelonius monk song* and a charlie parker tune.* pretty damn good stuff. especially for a bunch of kids. i'd give 'em all an A.
well, except for that one kid in blue jeans.* (dang nab it! those videos didn't upload, either.)

-----------------


leaving the performance hall, i asked mom if she enjoyed the concert.

"not one damn minute of it!"

i looked at her in astonishment. i was flabbergasted.
i gathered myself, and said, "then next time maybe you and i will just stay outside by the lake and skip the music."
and she agreed to that. almost cordially.

we walked back to the bus.* on that walk, i held my hand on her shoulder thinking about how lucky she is to have full time caregivers who are not so emotionally involved...

-----------------

"exasperating" is an understatement. sometimes she just flat-out pisses me off. the whole ride back, everyone else went on and on about how much and what they liked about the music. the old-timey-ness of it, the big band sound, the youngsters, it made them wanta dance!, etc.. the alz god had given them a momentary break from their ungodly stupor. it was an exhilarating experience for all of us and for different reasons.

...almost all of us. mom was all piss and vinegar again. "not one damn minute of it."...

-----------------

when we got back up to her room she astonished me again by having the wherewith all to apologize for being such an old grump. and we hugged.

meh.
i guess that's hope enough for me.

==================

* but i have little hope for this blog if i can't upload a video. much less a freakin' picture. i'll see y'all on the flip side. cornbread out.





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in remembrance of sam.

i never knew you all that well, but i sure as hell know some people who did. we miss you very much.

i will always remember you as the free spirit on the soccer field playin' in the dirt with that devil-may-care attitude.

peace to you and yours, sam. Read more!

call me easy if you must, but...

i think this is about the coolest thing since parmesan focaccia bread.

thanks, josephine. Read more!

2 related news stories for your inspection

FDA switch OKs hospice pain killer

Recession Stalls State-Financed Pre-Kindergarten, but...

if you read them, you may be wondering why in the cbh i consider them related?
because they both give me a renewed sense of hope in our gummit*.

*Molly Ivins-speak for government, just in case you don't know. Read more!

family is a strange beast, indeed

it's 6:59 a.m. tomorrow kiwi time.
do you know where your children are?
do you cherish them?

...the mom move went well yesterday.

well, except for the mom being such a bitch towards my sister. i don't know why she does that. and it disgusts me. the sister i'm referring to is the backbone of our family. the one who deserves the best, deserves and does the most.

don't get me wrong...the mad as a hornet thing i understand. i think it's a normal reaction to a change like this. especially for someone in her mental state.
but to take it out on that one person is bewildering to me. and it pisses me off.

anyway...we moved mom to a different room on a different floor in the same building. several of the aides went with her for the transition period. we did it for financial reasons. the new room is in a suite. (there are 3 rooms and a common sitting room in one apartment. omg! SUCH DEPRIVATION...)

- "why the hell did i have to move here?!"

- "because the pavement outside is kinda hard, mom. and there's no artificial air conditioning or heat other than whatever the weather man doles out. besides, they don't cook for you out there or bathe you. or treat you like the pampered queen you've become used to."

- "harrumph!" ((i can take care of myself!))

- "yes, ma'am." ((riiiight...))

too many funny/snarky stories to tell for now, but soon as i get the blogness back more fully into my system, i may relate a few in later posts.

bottom line:
mom is happy as a lark today.
ok...maybe not quite a lark, but she's at least as happy as a grackle can be.
and tomorrow will be even better.

mockingbird happy would be good. Read more!

dia mucho grande, mañana.

(please excuse the poor grammar...i'm just a white boy sayin' hello.)


moving mom in the a.m.
hope you've all been well. we're doing just fine. i'll check back in, in a few days time.

really. Read more!

my funny valentine (neighbors)

so this morning my neighbor rupert and i go krogerin'. we get to the flowers and he starts mumbling. then he walks over to the flower lady and asks, "where's the cheapest flowers you got?" "well, sir, these are all $(whatever she said.)" and rupert says, "i am not spending that much money on that bitch. can't i just buy one?"

and the flower lady says, "did you just call me a bitch?"

and rupert says, "no ma'am my wife's the bitch."
"well, that's not very nice."
"you are right. and if she'd quit ACTING like a bitch she'd be a whole lot nicer!

(ok, i made the last part of that dialogue up, because i was already laughing too hard to hear what was actually being said.)

so rupert buys some daisies and i ask him if he used to watch the addams family.
"sure, why?"
"do you remember what morticia always did with the flowers gomez would bring her?"
rupert laughed and said, "she cut the flowers off!"
"yes, and gomez would always say how much nicer they looked then."

at that point i could see the wheels in rupert's mind spinning as he fingered his pocket knife.

but he didn't do it.

....................................

fast forward a couple of hours...

...i go over to rupert's to see how things are going. pablo, the son, comes to the door. "he's not here. he and my mom went to luby's for lunch."

me: "say what!??
pablo, laughing: "i know! that's exactly what i thought."
me: "it's this crazy holiday, pablo. maybe it's not so bad after all."
pablo: "I'LL say it's crazy. I'M here alone and THEY're out?"

ahahahahahaha. it's so true. pablo's always off with some hot girl or another. he must have forgotten to take someone flowers. hmm...i forgot to ask if the flowers were still connected to the stems. and it's probably a good thing, too. knowing pablo, if the thought had occurred to him, he'd have had those daisies decapitated in a new york minute.

what i don't know is whether he'd have taken the stems or the flowers... Read more!

today we celebrate a national holiday

"it's better to have lusted than never to have lusted at all"


[update: doh! but why didn't anyone tell me it wasn't feb 14? ah well, at least i missed friday the 13th.]


"The U.S. Greeting Card Association estimates that approximately one billion valentines are sent each year worldwide, making the day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year, behind Christmas. The association estimates that, in the US, men spend in average twice as much money as women." -wikipedia

he was a fucking martyr, for christ's sake...ahahahahahahahah

...and this is his skull. (or so *they* say.)



happy valentine's day, y'all.



oh. & for your holiday pleasure here's a pretty bad (good) and possibly ironic painting ..."a change of heart" -oil on canvas, by scott brooks:

Read more!