You Make Me Feel Like Dancing

Do you ever have those days when everything just seems perfect?  Of course you don’t.  I mean between global warming and the U.S. financial meltdown and the fact that you might come down with swine flu and the fact that you ran out of AA batteries and your TV remote control won’t work, life totally sucks. 

No wait.  Of course you do.  Some days you wake up and all those things are still happening, but you’re like, What the hell!  What pretty leaves that tree has!  Oh look–there’s a frog!  That cloud up in the sky looks like a fuzzy little lamb!  Is that cute or what? 

Okay, that might be exaggerating but I am pretty much having a fuzzy-lamb kind of day.  First of all—no, let’s start with second of all–I didn’t have to go to work today.  I took an officially approved day off.  Don’t get me wrong, I like my job, which some people find completely incomprehensible, but who cares?  I get to use my brain, I have a lot of freedom, I get to meet a lot of people, I get to learn things.  But sometimes you just need a break. 

So third of all, it rained.  Which considerably cooled off the spot on Earth I inhabit, and after two weeks of enduring a record heat wave with air conditioning in my office that is limping and on life support, that is nothing but net.  Not to mention that however hot it remains, I’m not there.  I’ve soldiered bravely, and given more breaks to the people who work for me than I’ve taken myself, but you know, sometimes you just have to take a break yourself.  You’re no good to them or yourself if you collapse.

So the combination of all the above has put me in a this-is-a-great-day-to-be-alive sort of mood.  And I came up with the perfect song to express it.  Try not to focus on the details!  This video is 33 years old.  I didn’t even know they had video in 1976.  Okay, just kidding.  Kind of.  ( I refer you back to my previous posts regarding being digitally challenged.) Let’s dance!

Old Dogs…Part 2

I haven’t figured out the knack of inserting photos into comments, ergo, Part 2.  Many thanks to my friend (and Troughton’s friend) Sue in Canada for this picture of Troughton when he was 4 1/2 and in his prime. 

Look at those muscles in his back legs!  Compared to that picture, he looks postively frail these days.  Also see how intently he is staring…probably has detected a mink in the rocks.  Here in Tallahassee he had to give up minks for squirrels, but he can still scare the whiskers off a squirrel! 

Goodbye Michael, The Pain is Over

I probably shouldn’t have been, but I confess I was shocked when I learned of Michael Jackson’s death.  What has shocked me more, however, is the massive amount of media attention it received and continues to receive.  Even today, the NY Times online had two, if not more, Michael Jackson stories on the front page.

One of those was an interactive one…choose your favorite MJ song out of the eight choices given, and tell us why.  Picking a favorite MJ song is like me trying to name the top ten books ever written.  The real answer is, “whichever one I’m hearing now”.  You can tell I’m right by the comments, which included a lot of “Why didn’t you include (pick a title)”?  But it just so happens I’d been thinking about that already, and my favorite was one of the eight. 

I’ve always thought of Michael Jackson as the perpetual Little Boy Lost.  As he got older, he just became sadder, more pathetic, and more bizarre.  He had no frame of reference about what it meant to be a kid, and therefore how to act as an adult.  He’s like a figure in a Greek tragedy, so what I’m not surprised about is that his life ended so soon.  Can you picture a Michael Jackson at 70 years old?  Being a mentor?  An elder statesman of music, so to speak?  Like his own mentors Berry Gordy or Quincy Jones? 

It seems to me that his escalating weirdness, and his inability to grasp reality made him the saddest person in the world.  He so wanted to be happy, and to make others happy, but he had absolutely no idea how to do either one.  It’s my theory that that’s the source of our continued sadness about his death.  We all so wanted him to be happy too, but we kind of had a clue that would never happen.  That chance is lost now.  But truthfully, that chance was probably lost about 45 years ago. 

So here’s my favorite.  It’s my favorite because I think it says who Michael Jackson wanted to be and couldn’t, because his head was full of snakes.   

Old Dogs

Troughton the dog will be 10 this year, and in the last few weeks I’ve noticed changes in his behavior.  He sleeps more, as you would expect, but he no longer is the first one up and out the door in the morning.  He has to be coaxed to go out.  But the big change is that when it’s time to come in (there’s always been a mad dash between all three of them to come in at the same time) he holds back.  And I believe he’s forgetting why he’s at the door. 

You know how you go into another room to find something you left there, and then when you get there, you can’t remember what you were looking for?  So then you go back to the first room to try to jumpstart your memory?  Okay, if this hasn’t happened to you, please keep it to yourself! 

But that’s exactly how Troughton acts.  He gets just to the step and stands there.  Then he turns around and goes back out in the yard.  Only moments later he will be back at the door.  Each time I tell him to come in, but it’s as if he either doesn’t recognize me, or he doesn’t understand what I’m saying.  Eventually, of course, he figures it out, and comes back in. 

Things scare him more than they used to.  He’s always been afraid of thunder and of gunshots (we have a lot of those in my neighborhood during duck hunting season, because I live near a lake).  But last Tuesday when it stormed, briefly, he went into the bathroom to escape.  It stopped storming at about 10:15 that night, but he never came out of the bathroom until 6:00 the next morning when I insisted. 

He’s often startled out of an apparently sound sleep by something happening only in his head.  Tonight I was watching TV, sitting on the couch, and he was lying by my side, when suddenly he had one of those startled moments where he started to leap up out of a sound sleep and run.  This time I caught him and touched him and spoke to him, and said, You’re okay, you’re safe, I’m right here.  And he looked at me as if he recognized me this time and understood, and he put his head in my lap. 

Dobermans have an average lifespan of 10 to 12 years, so he’s at the beginning of that curve.  But I know, as everyone does who lives with a dog, that he has changed.  Physically, he is in relatively good shape.  He’s thin, because he’s losing muscle, but he shows no signs of arthritis (the deadliest dog disease) and he does not appear to be in pain.  It’s just his brain that has become the issue. 

But this is what I signed on for.  ‘Til death do us part, Troughton my friend. 

The singer/songwriter Tom T. Hall has a ballad called “Old Dogs and Children and Watermelon Wine”.  Which are, he says, the onlythings “worth a solitary dime”.  The watermelon wine part is self-evident, but the lyrics say, Old dogs care about you even when you make mistakes; God bless little children while they’re still too young to hate.  I can say an amen to that. 

I’m in that horrible period where you’re missing them before they’re gone.  It’s like pre-grief grief.  But I’ve been there before with a dog, and I volunteered for this anyway.  Because with dogs, it’s truly No Pain No Gain.  You could spare yourself this–and I know many people do–but you also spare yourself the joy and companionship. 

I take the good with the bad for you, Troughton.  You’re okay.  I’m right here.  I will always keep you safe.

The End of Life as We Know It

First, let me say that I don’t read about celebrities (okay, I read their obits).  I don’t read gossip magazines or websites, even the relatively respectable ones like People.  I really don’t care who celebrities are dating or sleeping with, and I don’t care about their opinions either.  When I want titillation, I just try to hack into Mark Sanford’s email account. 

Second–and this may seem like an unrelated issue, but I’m going somewhere with this–I’ve recently been corrupted by eehard http://eehard.wordpress.com/ and am now watching the Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow shows on MSNBC.  So in a totally casual IM conversation with ee yesterday, I said, Do you think Rachel Maddow is gay?  I could practically see ee’s eyes rolling back in his head through the realignment of electrons on my computer screen–no webcam needed. After a capitalized “duh”, he said, “Rachel Maddow is as gay as Anderson Cooper!”

Oh Wait a minute.  What.  Did.  You.  Just Say.  Don’t tell me Anderson Cooper is gay.  Nooooooo! If I were in the habit of making lists like “Sexiest Men on TV”, AC would have been first on my list.

I first really paid attention to him when he was the host of a short-lived reality show on TV called The Mole.  I haven’t seen him that much on CNN, but who hasn’t seen his emotional coverage of Hurricane Katrina?  I’m more likely to see him during his occasional guest episodes on 60 Minutes.  In other words, it isn’t like I follow his every move.  Still.

A quick Google search does bring up speculation on some websites about who his boyfriend used to be and who it is now, which is no proof at all.  His bio on Wiki says that he does not discuss his personal life, and that that was a decision he made long ago.  Well that is a little more troublesome.  I’m not saying he is gay, but that’s what that usually means.  However, in his case, he’s the son of Gloria Vanderbilt, who was very, shall we say, active, and very vocal about it.  I can see where that would affect him, and cause him to make the decision that he would never be that way.  Plus, let’s face it…once you admit you’re gay, it’s like that becomes the adjective you can’t escape.  You’re no longer a news anchor, you’re a GAY news anchor.  You can’t be just an Olympic Gold Medalist, you’re a Gay Olympic Gold Medalist.  We don’t diminish the accomplishments or blame the failures of heterosexuals on their sexual orientation.  It’s just bizarre. 

So believe me, I really don’t care.  I’ve always admired Anderson Cooper and still do.  But I’m going to have to revise that Sexiest Men list.  Oh, in case you were wondering, I won’t be replacing him with Mark Sanford.

Another Edition of Reading With Fakename

Today I finally finished Schindler’s List, but won’t do a review of it, since as I said earlier, I must be the only person on the planet who neither read the book nor saw the movie.  I hope now to one day see the movie.  The only thing I will say is that even Thomas Harris could never imagine a villain like Amon Goeth, the sadistic Commandant of the work camp in Cracow, Poland, where the story begins.  He once saw two women through a window, a mother and daughter, peeling potatoes, and he thought they were doing so too slowly.  So he leaned in through the window and shot them both dead.  He shot and killed an orderly because he found a flea on one of his two dogs.  He was the master of random cruelty, whereas the Reich itself  was the master of plodding, relentless cruelty. 

This week I went to the libary to choose my next books, and selected Robert Parker’s Brimstone, the third in his series of Westerns that began with Appaloosa, which was followed by Resolution.  Hitch and Cole (lawmen for hire) are on the trail of Allie, who ran off with another man at the end of Resolution after stealing Cole’s heart. 

Second I picked up a book, on the recommendation of ptfan1, by Lee Child.  I believe this may be his latest, it’s called Nothing To Lose.

Third, I picked up a book called The Cure For Grief, by a first-time novelist.  I very much like first novels.  Sometimes you find that the novelist runs out of steam afterwards and never quite matches the brilliance of that first try.  The description of its plot rather reminded me of something Anne Tyler might have written.  Tyler’s The Accidental Tourist will probably always be on my Top Ten Books list.  I really ought to make that list…

Finally, a Dana Stabenow crime novel called Whisper To The Blood.  I’ve read many of Stabenow’s novels before.  For the most part they take place in Alaska. 

Sometimes, given choices as good as these, it’s hard to know where to begin.  This time it’s a no-brainer.  Given a choice between Robert B. Parker and anyone else, anyone else comes in second.

I Wish It Would Rain

I thought I heard distant thunder during the 10 minutes I spent outdoors today, but it must have been the sound of entire neighborhoods committing suicide by cannon.  It is soooo hot.

Dropping by the grocery store after work, and stepping out of your car onto the asphalt parking lot is like voluntarily stepping into a giant oven. 

At my office, the air conditioning is not up to the task of meeting temperatures of 100 degrees or higher for a week and a half every day. The temp inside my office today was 88.  That’s one degree higher than it’s been since last Monday.  I have permission to get an estimate to install more AC, but they can’t even be there until Thursday to even give me an estimate. 

It’s verging on abuse to have to be there.  I decided today that I’m going to start giving my employees a day off with pay, at least one during the week, and we will fill in for each other.  I’m not going to tell anybody, I’m just going to do it.  If I get caught, what are they going to do?  Execute me?

Oh no…it is now 9:50 P.M. and it is storming!  Omg….thank you to the rain gods.  The Temptations may have been gloomy for lost love reasons, but I’ve been pretty gloomy myself for the last two weeks because….it is soooo hot. 

Just To Underline My Point

If you somehow didn’t get the picture by reading my update on Flirting With Fakename, here is my girl Bonnie Raitt spelling it out for you. 

Faithful reader ptfan1 says that it appears I have a one-track mind lately.  I totally deny that, because I always have at least two tracks going.  On the other hand, it’s possible that one of those two tracks has the upper hand at any one given time.  It just takes a while for me to admit it. 

Update: Flirting With Fakename

On May 30th I did a post called “More Flirting With Fakename”, in which I predicted that “Brian” would ask me out for a drink.  Well it now appears that I was wrong.  I mean, it’s been three weeks. 

The good part about that is that it saves me the trouble of coming up with an excuse not to go, which also spares me from having to pay eehard $10 for predicting that I would come up with an excuse. 

Still, you know, a person hates to be wrong.  That’s the trouble with flirting.  It’s so damn, well, ambiguous! 

In these past three weeks, I’ve actually spent more time with “Brian” than ever before, and I’ve gotten to know him much better.  Which isn’t to say that I know that much.  I would say that he’s very protective of himself, as far as his personal life and feelings go.  But like all of us, he reveals more about himself than he might wish, just by what he does choose to talk about. 

We’ve mostly talked about books, and politics, and construction.  He’s been explaining to me the intricacies of concrete–for example, the curing process.  He says I must have been asleep during Concrete class. Ha ha.  But by this you know he is very, very funny.  In other conversations I’ve learned that he is also very, very moody.  He can go from the depths of disgust to the height of satisfaction at the drop of a hard hat.  One of his major issues has been that without exception, all the employees of the subcontractor working for him, are Hispanic.  Only one of them, their supervisor, speaks English, and he doesn’t speak English very well.  “Brian” is not racist about it, it’s just that he can’t communicate.  As he puts it, there is an adequate way to do a job, and then there is a good way to do a job.  But because he can’t communicate, he can’t get across the finer points. Might be a good time to learn Spanish.  And from this you know he’s a perfectionist. 

The funny part is good, but the moodiness and perfectionism make him a very poor candidate, in my book, for a relationship of any kind beyond the superficial having-a-drink sort of relationship.  I’m just picky that way. 

As for the books and politics part, the books he likes reveal the most about him.  I’m presently reading Schindler’s List (I must be the only person in America who never saw the movie or read the book; “Brian” has done both).  His opinion of both the book and movie are that they are awe-inspiring, revealing a certain sensitivity that I suspect he would prefer remain hidden. 

As for politics, he describes himself as a conservative, which he rightly points out is not the same thing as being a Republican.  (And I think:  Why me?  Why do I seem to attract these people I have nothing in common with?)  Don’t answer that question.  I really already know the answer.  People interest me.  I like listening to them, and trying to discern their motivations.  What makes you tick?  If you’re paying attention, you’ll know that I just told you something very important about myself.  There’s a certain bloodlessness about that.  I have a unique ability to get people to talk about themselves, because they think I care.  When I don’t.  But don’t get me wrong.  There are people who matter to me greatly.  The people I care about, I care about deeply.

Next week, the construction project ”Brian” is in charge of will wrap up, and he’ll be moving on to his next project in Panama City.  He can’t wait.  He’s sick of this job already.  Like weeks ago.  He’s bored.  Time to move on.

So Thursday, he says to me, Have you made any plans for a vacation this summer?  Oh, give me a break!  I think the translation of that question is, “You know, Panama City isn’t that far”.  Friday he tells me he would like to meet with me one day next week to see if I have any lingering concerns about the outcome of his project.  Because, he says, once he leaves, he doesn’t want to come back to Tallahassee…unless it’s to have a drink. 

Oh no.  Really, I can hardly believe he said that.  So technically, he hasn’t asked me out for that drink.  He’s just walking around it in a circle big enough to drive a truck through.  Like I said, most men always want to know the answer to the question before they ask.  And to those men I say, get some courage.  You don’t even have the guts to ask?  What does that say about how you would be if I actually accomodated your fragile ego and asked you myself?  Answer:  that is never going to happen. 

Since I am a master of the straight face and the ambigous reply, when “Brian” said he didn’t want to come back to Tallahassee unless it was to have a drink, I said, “I can understand that”.  Fakename scores 1, “Brian” scores 0. 

In conclusion, if you were paying attention, you now know the secret to successful flirting with Fakename.  Just ask, already.  I might say no, but I might say yes.  Happily for me, there are men with the courage to do just that.

Global Cooling

I’m personally hoping for that right about now.  I mean, I’m not looking for another Ice Age, I would just like for the planet to cool off by say, 15 degrees.  This minute. 

On Thursday evening at 6:15  here in Tallahassee, the temperature was 99 degrees with a heat index of 106.  Yesterday, the actual temp at 6:15 was only 98, with a heat index of only 104 or so, but at some time during the day, it made it up to the projected high of 101.  It’s been like this for a week. 

Apparently there is a ridge of high pressure that has parked itself over the entire southeastern U.S. and it resists all efforts to budge it.  I’m like, can we just break it down with a missile of some kind?  I mean, we are all prepared to shoot down any rocket the North Koreans care to fire, so if we have that kind of technology, what about a little domestic help here?  You know, cloud seeding or something. 

I will grant that we here in the South are a bit more prepared for record heat waves than people in, for example. Chicago.  Still, I have to tell you, we are suffering.  It really is hard from one year to the next to remember how hot it was, how cold it was, how bad the storms were, etc., but I can say with confidence that I’ve never been through an extended period of heat like this. 

Now enter the Global Warming Deniers.  There is a guy right here on WordPress whose mission seems to be to debunk any suggestion of global warming.  Anthony Watts, whose blog is called Watts Up With That?  Cute name.  Weird attitude. 

The GWD’s always, it seems to me, aren’t so much about denying that the planet is warming, but about denying that humans have any role to play in it.  Not so with Watts.  It just isn’t happening.  At all.  For any reason. He cherry-picks scientists who agree with him.  I guess what it will take for him to be a believer is for the ocean to rise up to Omaha or wherever the hell he lives, at which point he will either drown or be smothered by dead polar bears.

The planet is just going through a phase, they say.  It’s always gone through phases.  Oh, good point. But around here, it looks like record high temperatures for a long period of time, and more frequent and severe hurricanes probably mean something.