Zuihitsu

[the mingo]

... the strange we got in spades -

[the mingo]

I don't give a damn
I'm jamming !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJi03NqXfk8

[the mingo]

Dave Brubeck you dead son-of-a-bitch ! Give me a bone & I'll take it home -

Welcome to jazz zuihitsu !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Qs1J612nZs

Glad ya got your pipes cleaned out, saw, it's all the bullshit builds up over the years - fuck 'em if we all don't need a good cleaning out

[the mingo]

HI JUDIH !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jcGY7NbaQw

got the blues going before dawn - I've got it shakin' up here to Tug Hill !

BYE JUDIH !

[judih]

HI JUDIH !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jcGY7NbaQw

got the blues going before dawn - I've got it shakin' up here to Tug Hill !

BYE JUDIH !

hey mingo, not so fast. let me just dust my broom.
that's better
see ya around!

[the mingo]

hey mingo, not so fast. let me just dust my broom.

I'm as old as yesterday
as unknown as tomorrow
gonna put some words together
gonna tear some words apart
gonna kick some words around

~ Hi judih ~

[sasha]

Several days ago, my neighbor called. He's not been well. He'd fallen asleep in his easy chair, and had slid out onto the floor. He'd been lying there for four hours, he said, and could I come over and help him up?

He's a big man, and it was very quickly clear that he was too heavy for a 5-foot-sixer like me - but he was adamant: No Ambulance. After a bitter feud with the town fire department, he'd been dismissed from the EMT unit, and wanted nothing to do with them. More likely, he was ashamed for them to see him in such a pitiful state. But after an hour's struggle, I'd only managed to get him sitting precariously on a rickety footstool.

So I told him - in no uncertain terms - that I just wasn't strong enough to do more, and was going for help. I summoned another neighbor, a retired forest ranger and 250-lb biker, who arrived shortly with his son. The three of us - well, the two of them with me steadying the easy chair - managed to get him back into position.

It wasn't until after I got home that thoughts of C19 elbowed their way into my thoughts. His wife is still one of the EMTs, and constantly at risk of exposure - and could easily infect him in turn. And I'd left the house in a hurry without a mask, and he certainly wasn't wearing one - and we'd not only been in close proximity, but in physical contact, as I'd tried getting him to his feet.

And so began an uneasy vigil, where every stray ache, every scratchy throat, and every cough were potential danger signs. Was that cough too dry? Is this the start of a sore throat? Are these night sweats from fever, or did I just forget to turn the heat down?

Two weeks later I'm still breathing easily, so I guess I can breathe easy. This time....

But what about him? I haven't seen or heard from him since.

To be continued...?

[sasha]

Was beginning to doubt it would ever happen in my lifetime, but I've just made my first legal purchase of recreational weed. Right now only the medical variety is legal here in N.H. (my ophthamologist has expressed a willingness to write me a 'scrip for my glaucoma), but it's fully legal in the surrounding states of MA, VT, & ME. And living in a border town, I'm barely 30 minutes away from a little shop in Athol MA. So a few days ago I paid them a visit and picked up two bags of edibles at $20 apiece. Plus sales tax, of course. I popped a little Necco wafer-sized chocolate on the way home and by the time I reached my Citadel, the onset had just begun creeping up on me. It was a lovely ride, spent strolling about on a warm, breezy late-fall day, serenaded by chipmunks staking out territory and jays squawking out in the woods. Went indoors & did a little mathematics (had to quadruple check my algebra!), fixed a long-standing bug in a computer program I'd written forever ago, and watched a YT vid on the evolutionary history of the armadillo.

I think this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship, one that's been a long time coming!

[judih]

life is good!

[sasha]

Several days ago, my neighbor called. He's not been well. He'd fallen asleep in his easy chair, and had slid out onto the floor. He'd been lying there for four hours, he said... He's a big man, and it was very quickly clear that he was too heavy for a 5-foot-sixer like me... [so] I summoned another neighbor... [who] arrived shortly with his son... [and they] managed to get him back into position.

...I haven't seen or heard from him since.

To be continued...?

Yes. I got a call from his wife this morning. He's in hospice, and could I sit with him while she went grocery shopping? I said, Sure. She and the dogs greeted me at the door and ushered me in. I noticed right away that they'd moved the dining table to let the hospital bed upon which he lay overlook the woods outside - just as he had done twenty years earlier when his first wife had died from ovarian cancer.

She assured me there was nothing I needed to do beyond sit with him - he'd had his meds, the dogs were already fed, watered, & walked, and the pellet stove had been loaded up. All I had to do was keep him company.

When she left, the only thing that kept us from drowning in silence was the muttering of a tv across the room.

What do you say to a dying man?

Do you bluntly acknowledge the elephant standing mutely in the middle of the room? Or do you dance around it? And just how do you dance around it?

What sort of small talk can you make with a dying man? "Hey, nice weather we're having!" "Gas prices still down, that's good, right?" "I hear Skip bought a new tractor."

It all seems so banal in comparison to the reality he's facing. And maybe that's what I should have gone for. Maybe I shouldn't have been so afraid of cracking the eggs underfoot. Maybe I should have told him about how Robert's been logging his land, and how Tracy's moved back to NH because her son kicked her out and now she's shacking up with Don Brewer here in town, and how it looks like another house is going up on Templeton Road. Maybe a touch of banality would have brightened his day, momentarily distracting him from the grim reality that's bearing down hard on him now.

But I didn't.

She'd given him a sedative before leaving him with me, and he spent most of the time drifting in and out of consciousness, an opportunity I seized a little too gratefully perhaps, to sit silently by his side and work the Sunday crossword while he dozed.

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my......

 

[judih]

crossword puzzles are also reality. Who knows what thoughts go through the mind of a sedated human on the way towards Bardo. Thanks for sharing your experience

[the mingo]

Roy, you could have put on some jazz blues -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Du9bcQ8KlkY

[the mingo]

A can of Molson's Canadian came into my possession a few days ago. I'm not a big beer drinker, what the hell do I know about beer? I thought, "so can these north-of-the-border motherhumpers make beer?" I popped the top on it last evening and drank it with supper.

ya know, not bad. There was a taste underneath everything, hard to describe, I couldn't pin it down - reminded me of apple cider somehow. Like I said, what the **** I know about beer? A bit of a different taste than any American beer I've had. I never understood the popularity of Budweiser among my countrymen, I mean that damn swill is made from rice for God's sake.

Rice.

Them Canucks gave birth to a lot of freckle-faced red-headed daughters up there, real beauties, running around freaky as loons. God bless 'em.

I've had the notion of moving to Canada from time to time. What stops me is the fact that I'd need even more blankets than I need now, at my age a man can never have enough blankets.

That Molson brewery has been around since 1787 or something. Hell, there was nothing but endless forest, bears, cougars, elk & moose here then.

I gave their beer a thumbs up.

[stilltrucking]

Shiner Blonde™ a Bavarian beer made from malted barley and hops.
Can't stand Budweiser. I think Vonnegut called it the worst beer ever.

I used to stop here during my time over the road, Last time I saw it was about 20 years ago and it looked pretty much like it did in this picture.

While conducting a search for obscure Japanese writers the following came up -

Mr. F____ B______ of Ohio has been appointed Court Dentist to the Sultan of Morocco's household.
Sept. 3, 1904 - I have no idea why this was brought up,
my search parameters weren't that spooky

love that bit about spooky parameters

[stilltrucking]

'There's no such thing as perfect writing, just like there's no such thing as perfect despair.'
search parameters



spooky weather parameters
May weather but I still got autumn in mind SAD and Spring is in the air and the live oak trees are green

spooky children
when she was a kid
her mother called he spooky