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Low Car Challenge
Every September Columbia has a No Car Challenge where participants agree not to drive or ride in motorized transport that is not the bus. I’ve wanted to do it since I got here and this year I was able to do the Low Car version where I still I still got to drive for a weekend. I didn’t think it would be much of an issue as I ‘ve been car-less almost half my adult life, i live a block from my work, and Columbia is a very bikable city.
I didn’t decide to do it until the night of September 30 so I couldn’t stock up on stuff ahead of time. Right off the bat I wanted to get some stuff for my Labor Day trip to Detroit but couldn’t rustle up the energy to ride my bike across town. I put it off once after a hard day at work, was rushed the night before and wanted to mow the lawn before leaving as well. I decided I’d stop by there on my way to pick up Trevor to go to the airport but it wasn’t open yet. Couldn’t lay hands on a 3 oz or less tube of toothpaste and so was forced to throw away a brand new 4 oz tube on the flight back. It really set the stage for the month with a lot more going without, a little bit more of doing things in a wasteful way, and very little actual bike riding.
On the way home from the airport on the final leg of the trip the truck crapped out on me on the highway and I had to leave it a foreign auto repair place in Wentzville and have Dad pick me up. That forced me to later go pick up the truck (the alternative of paying storage for a month seemed ridiculous so i considered it an extension of my original weekend allowed driving). We didn’t deduce what was wrong until me, the mechanic and the truck were all in the same place. Alternator brushes were shot leaving to come and go electrical problems. It was too late for him to fix it so i had to limp home hoping it would make it and driving through dusk with no headlights. it was all good and the mostly inoperable truck would be less of a temptation to drive.
The Challenge got me to break out my bicycle for the first time in 2010. It was good to ride and Sarah rode her bike over for our usual Farmers Market trip. It was fun to ride and we noticed we spent about twice as much time and were much more social because neither of us were eager to get back on our bikes to ride home. On the bad side I only bought about half as much stuff. No mum this year and I missed the last two weeks of sweet corn. All of my purchases were made with a lot more consideration for weight and volume since I only had what I could put in my backpack. I also wanted to get a lot of food because I couldn’t easily run by the store. I ended up only getting half as much as normal which was my first clue that not driving might not be an unmitigated good anymore.
I did some bike riding for fun rode to the market and the bank a couple of times. I was getting into it a bit but it was also making my back sore. One of my physical therapists had ID’d long distance bike riding of how I’d bulged my C-6 & 7 in my misspent youth when i was biking 150 miles a week. Mostly I skipped going to the store so there was less groceries. So we started walking to the Country Kitchen a lot and even resorted to eating at Bandanas.
Dad’s truck crapped out and still won’t start (hope its just batteries) so we were without a reliable vehicle. I couldn’t externalize my driving to the popster as I’d hoped he’d pick up the slack on the grocery shopping but instead stopped being able to do it all. I broke out the bike to go to the market and the tire was flat. So no farmers market at all. We needed stuff: food, ensure, booze. So I walked down to Mosers got a back pack and some bags worth and humped it all back. That was cool, nostalgic from when I was living in Berkeley and shopping by back pack.
I was bushed though and couldn’t muster up the energy to walk across town to get to Trevor and Lisa’s potluck. I decided to try to get my rewards card for the free flat tire fix rumored to be on it rather than walk down to Klunks. I also got to skip the bank by using the cash back option at the grocery store.
At this point a bit of a depression set in, short on stuff, dad rationing his ensures cuz he can’t drive and get more. fretting on him on how he’s going to get to walmart when his blood pressure pills run out. I tried to walk to the PedNet office to get my rewards card after the most difficult morning of my professional career but couldn’t make it down in time on my lunch hour and they close early. I got some taco bell instead and decided, fuck it, I’ll wait until i can drive.
I gutted it out but not with a lot of joy. Mostly I learned my truck is pretty decent. I get good mileage bundle my trips, don’t routinely drive and maybe put on 5K a year these days. I would’ve used it to go camping, build some trails in the Overland Bottoms, perhaps go to the EcoArt Fest down on the river. I would have bought three times as much market products in the month. I would have eaten out less and not at the soulless chains that are by my house. On the plus, it got me riding, it set an example, it focused me on my own locale. It showed me what driving means to me. Next year I expect to do it again.
potpourri with hummingbird
Its an extremely beautiful day, high 82 low 58. Its dried out some from yesterday’s rain. a hummingbird comes and eats at one of my flowers out front. just magically beautiful and i am still inside. lions and tigers and bears oh my. orioles as well. couple of one point games. i also have pumpkin stuff (my front yard volunteer pumpkin, fresh ground cinnamon, allspice, clove, star anise, and nutmeg, pet milk, bake at 300 for an hour, sprinkle with honey and bake another hour) in the oven plus a mess of hot peppers roasting to be frozen for winter consumption. That with the load of laundry on the line its alright to be inside. after the games and the oven planning on biking my overdue books back to the library. I rode to the market yesterday. I was observant to how it was different then driving. I bought have as much stuff and spent more than twice as long there. I was more thoughtful in how much i wanted something and conscientious not to forget anything. Sarah rode her bike over and we rode together and we walked our bikes til where our paths separated. Rode back along Again Park and it felt good to be riding again. I’m 7 miles towards getting my recumbent. If I can demonstrate I am going to ride a lot it would be better for my back. My most thoughtful physical therapist thought bike riding was how i bulged those two discs. i also don’t want to put out the money and space and then not ride.
I haven’t finished the tale of the detroit trip. On Labor Day the neighborhood came alive, there was a union headquarters near and a lot of folks with signs and t-shirts showed up for a while and we realized we were there on the one day a year trumbul comes back to life. We got the great coffee and i had a pretty authentic ham sandwich at Le Petit Zinc. The bees were back but bothering others. Tre’ and Jeff enjoyed their crepes.
We drove down Trumbul to the Trumbulplex. No one seemed around and the flyer about the political poster exhibit didn’t have times. Trevor flagged down a hipster in black leather pants and matching lipstick who claimed to be a neighbor but said she would get somebody. Somebody turned out to be Ashley who had met Jeff at the bakery (Farmington anarchists is a small pool, I think we had both of them present). The NIRS no nukes bumpersticker caught my eye and took me back to the ’95 fermi protests, I remember picking and dropping off stuff here, might have caught a show but i don’t think so.
The exhibit is cool. An Emma Goldman flier is probably my favorite. Ashley is very friendly, the only resident involved with the theater. she gives us the garden tour: bees, chickens (used to be more til a bunch got heisted), there’s a huge rain catch (500 gallons?), and a great garden plot, orchard, more garden plots. I have an apricot. its yummy but a little early. Ashley’s plot looks great. Awesome cruciferous veggies, better than you can grow in como.
After the tour we drove back grand river to hang out in farmington. met the littler kids and chilled out a bit. learned a friend is an internet meme (note to self: need to check on that). relaxed. walked down and got ice cream. said goodbye.
pleasant flight back and goodbyes to trevor at the airport. some shuttle mishaps but am finally delivered to my truck. on the road home, what a great trip.
The warning lights that had come on in the drive out were on and stayed on. In Wentzville the old truck lost power had it on the floor 65, 60, 55…on the side of the road just in front of a junction to another highway. I tucked my laptop behind the seat (key broke off door at KC airport & can’t lock it anymore) and took my backpack. I walked up the highway and then along a fence until i could squeeze under the fence near a washed out area.
I walked towards a motel not begrudging my lack of a cell phone. adds a little adventure to life. I walk into the lobby the desk is unattended. there is a note to ring bell or call a couple of numbers. I ring the bell. no one comes. I ring again no one comes.
I walk out on the service road weighing my options. I start walking west on the service road it curves away from the highway and i take the first right and walk in the dark country road. I walk 4 miles and get to a gas station. she lets me make a local call on her dieing cordless and gives me the number of a tow company.
He picks me up and takes me to my truck. He grudgingly lets me make a call on his cell and i leave a message for dad asking him to pick me up in Wentzville if he gets the message. He tows me to Dan’s Foreign Auto and I write out a note on what happened and he drives me to the Super 8. He declines me a second call so i don’t tip him. The hotel clerk begrudgingly lets me make a long distance call. Dad is enroute.
We get home late and I am glad I took the next day off work. Slept in and mowed the lawn. was glad to be home where its not so cold and the landscape is not so haunted with sadness and loss. after some days Dan reports he can’t find anything wrong with the truck. Dad runs me out there right after work on Friday and we are rushing to beat the 6 o’ clock close time. We make it and talk to Dan. The warning lights come up and Dan has me show him. Its the alternator brushes. That’s why it comes and goes. i am now rushed to get it home before dark so because the car is questionable with the lights on.
I drive. I am uncomfortable with my rush of thoughts with the abbreviated overwhelming work week. I risk some radio to share the cab with NPR. Until the warning light comes on. then i am left alone with wild thoughts. I note my 20 oz pepsi impulse buy. it was for comfort in a maybe the truck will make it maybe it won’t. I think about neil stephenson’s comments on sugar water in “Anathem’. I decide to write and come up with:
I’m going to drink a bucket of sugar water
And yak into my new jeejah,
And drive my old fetch across the highways of life
Remembering the fuel trees.
And when my journey is finally over
And I am safe at home at last
I’ll think about the present future
What the world will be when it’s past.
Will our numbers keep on growing
While our resources start to where thin
With less and less of god’s creation
And more and more with sin.
I like the start of it and hope i can go further with it. The lions just lost a heart breaker, should’ve been a game winning touchdown. At least the tigers won there’s. win or lose its time to wrap this up and get out and enjoy some perfect day.
sublime detroit part 4
there’s a lot of other stuff i want to write about so i am going to try to knock out the detroit trip so i can move on. its dark so the capitals are off. dad has dinner in preparation so we may not finish in 4.
Sunday we woke and enjoyed some cable and melon from the market. It was pretty good, the melon not the cable. Although on a note the porn was a unique addition to cable tv from my usual hotel stays. i guess that’s what you get with that second star. flipping through channels it would come up every 46th flip and it appeared to be big ass porn. i couldn’t remember if that was what it was yesterday and i wondered if that’s all they played. “popping the trunk” was my expanded horizon but i can’t say i was a better person for knowing that. interesting nonetheless.
We decided to venture out and see the world around us, see what ephemera might be cast about to be noted, collected. Right around the corner was the memorable Cesar Chavez Middle School gone feral. i had never heard that term but Tre’ explained there was a whole culture of folks exploring and documenting feral buildings. “urban spelunking”.
Coincidentally there was an open door on Cesar Chavez Middle School and an exercise bike caught Tre’s eye. We walked in and things were largely intact and empty with a musty smell. A coupe rooms back there was a room full of Alpo cans and there was burned area and a pile of picture encyclopedias. Tre grabbed up the one that included Missouri in spite of the undertones of urine in the room. Huddled up with your dog, i hoped, burning picture encyclopedias for warmth. What a picture for the death of civilization.
We wandered up Trumbul and its environs seeing the grassy lot that was Tiger Stadium. I told Trevor about coming up to see games from when i was a kid to ’95 when I was living in the ‘D’ fighting nuclear power. What decline, closed yuppie restaurants. the old parking signs in yards but no one’s coming to park, free shuttle or not. sad and neglected i have never seen this kind of decline. ghosttownification right before my eyes.
We wander and look and walk-about in wonder at the change. more sardonic than sad seeing some hope in the possibility if we stopped being dumbasses. stranger things have happened. We talk about food deserts in the urban wilderness. in our neighborhood we have a cool looking cafe’ ‘le petit zinc’, french.
We sit on the patio and decide to have coffee. its a crepe and sandwich place with a bar. in france the hole in the wall bars had bars of zinc and hence the name. there are a lot of honey bees pestering the patrons. there’s a bit of garden, so i don’t begrudge the bees. flowers, some ‘maters, and a functioning herb garden. they use a lot of basil, rosemary doing great but they don’t use much.
the coffee is first class. small cups for america ginormous for a french cup but tasting like theirs. nice. friendly and laid back. we head back to the hotel. i pulled the trash out of the ‘mater patch, its doing pretty good. going in the clerk who checked us in gave us a message that Becky had called and let us use his phone so we didn’t pick up a charge. made plans to see Jeff at 7. trevor checked his email on the lobby comuter, as did i. it was quiet on the electronic universe.
We walked down to the festival and caught some jazz. sounded good. i brought my book and Doris Lessing goes good with jazz. its a bit warmer and we never break out our jackets. we get full of jazz and hang out in the park. i tell trevor about hanging out there in ’90 while my buddy chad osborne volunteered at the Focus Gallery. one day they tried to count me as a homeless guy in the census three times, trying to keep their million. didn’t happen. 700k i hear now in a city built for 2 million. we listen to more jazz. a big band. you can do a lot with 17 people. it is the largest jazz group i have seen except for schools. the school band was perfunctory.
we saw jeff who told us his friend Ed would be joining us. they are re-enactor buddies 18th century french explorers. jeff is pretty into it, quite a kit and bakes 18th century. we grab some beers and go back to the hotel and get to know one another. Ed has his partner with him whose name is escaping me. they live up in hamtrammick just bought a house.
we talk and trevor fades and the rest of us go out for more local beers at a barbecue place whose kitchen just closed. so we top it off at a coney island (my third if your counting and far and away the best). i get a first class gyro, man i wish i could get one close to this good anywhere in missouri. its a weird scene out late in the urban coney. a cook gets agitated. he sits down with us and takes our orders right after after a long long wait. the food is excellent and snappy when it happens. its a great evening of great fun. jeff crashes over, what a wonderful day.
sublime detroit part 2 –
Woke up Saturday morning at the Burns-Pavlik demesne specifically in the princess room. I had slept hard and needed it going on a few hours of light sleep the night before. The heavy curtains were nice as sleeping well into the morning was a nice change of pace. Trevor was out for a run so i curled up with Doris Lessings “The Golden Notebook” which is just a heavy and brilliant novel. Dense with meaning she has literary talent, a piercing political consciousness, and rare insight into the human condition. its sweet.
After Trevor returned I made coffee and had some of Jeff’s most excellent cinnamon roll I explored the backyard. I remembered what it was like when they first moved in, typical suburban fenced in grass box, the green rectangle endlessly repeated. Now there’s a nice patch of prairie wildflowers looking very Autumnal to my Missouri eyes, looking very sharp in its benign neglect. I was envious that i couldn’t let my plot be and have it still work.
It was a just beautiful morning and I was glad to have lingered. We drove back to Farmington and went to the farmer’s market. Very cool, very lively lots of great stuff. We got cucumbers and a couple of melons a cantaloupe and something similar and some apples. Besides stuff we could eat in detroit i also looked for stuff to take home. I was delighted to see some Michigan maple syrup and I excitedly picked up a big bottle then remembered that i only had a carry on bag to get home and there’s a 3 oz rule for michigan maple syrup (can’t get it at home). I put it down and said “i’m flying and i can’t take it back. the terrorists have won. i conceded, i admit defeat, please now can i fly with michigan maple syrup?”
so i bought nothing, my innocent glee in the beautiful day of seeing all these folks marketing tempered.
but only for a moment. then it was lunch with rosie, jeff was baking and becky was slinging bread but rosie was up for some chicken chili. tre’ and i had the reubens, good but the french dressing kind which i like a bit less, but really good. i can’t remember the name of the place but rosie thought highly of it.
after lunch we said goodbye to becky and rosie and after stopping to look at discount books and by a map we were off. we decided to drive up 8 mile to most appreciate the transition into the city. for some reason we took grand river instead, a cool street that runs across the state. i’d ridden my bike on probably the first 100 miles coming out of grand rapids getting in shape for my trip to Mexico.
This stretch got shoddier and vacant buildings started to increase until we were in full on city. we stopped at a ghetto mart and stocked up on food: bread, mega sized jar of peanut butter, chips, salsa, cheese, plastic ware, perhaps other things. We were in line behind an older african american guy buying a nice stock pot at $5.95 and a mess of greens. I commented quietly to trevor that that was a good buy on the pot and was pleased to see the guy straighten up. everybody likes to get a good deal.
sublime detroit part 1 – getting there
I am glad I took the extra day on the mini-vaca, it was nice to get ahead of the game instead of jumping right back into it tired and coming home beat down on my first day back. Things started out last friday way too early. i had lost my watch and didn’t own an alarm (i like to get up naturally instead of jarred awake at a set time [picked it up from O’ Henry]) so i slept poorly afraid of over sleeping. I got up, packed and drank almost the last of the coffee (sorry dad), tried to go to Wal-Mart for a couple of essentials but they weren’t open yet (i didn’t know they closed), went to Hi-V instead for amongst things a 3 oz or less toothpaste. Hi-V has about 14o square feet of toothpaste on display. All of it a variation on 4 brands none of them less than 4 oz. wtf. Hi-V customers don’t fly, or they know you’ll have to throw it away and buy another one. I hate that our society is organized that everyone is potentially planning to rip you off, makes me paranoid. I pass on the 2 oz training toothpaste because its fluoride free. I love fluoride, i’m 42 and still got all my teeth. I got the age defying brand for the liquid calcium. calcium carbonate has been shown to fill in microcavities, its worth the extra bit when you can find it. starbucks wasn’t open yet but trevor had coffee waiting. we drove to the airport like a couple of kids way early on christmas morning. we had been waiting and we were ready to have fun. the flight was pleasant, trevor let me have the window and i could see the exurban sprawl and farms sprawl and farms sprawl and farms across the midwest. we got a budget rental car, never have i turned down so many offers for the add on sale, extra insurance, nope, no deductible, nope, insurance rephrase, still nope, gps, nope (but now you don’t give me the map i was counting on, jerks), sattelite radio five dollar, nope, car upgrade nope, come on now not even one class for 5 dollars, nope. It got ritualistic and quick. I hate dehumanizing as a survival skill. Why do we set up the world where its peoples job to rip you off? Boom, off to Monroe. Flying is weird. I woke up in Missouri and I was having lunch in Monroe Michigan. Went to Pete’s Garage, but didn’t sit in a car. Both my sisters came and the one with the husband and kid brought there’s. It was nice to see everyone even though we’d just seen each other a month ago, still. We ate way too much bar food because we had already had coney island (gyro and fries, not the greatest but better than you can get in CoMo) at the airport. We drove up 275. I reminisced about riding the bike trail in its entirety when i was 19 (15o miles or so). I remembered riding with dad in the truck and him telling me about it and me saying some day i would ride it and i did, my last big ride before i bought my first car, when i seriously rode (when i likely bulged my 2 bulging discs). hardly any of its open now. they let it go to shit because they didn’t want to pay for the upkeep. looking back on it now that was the theme of the trip. decline, loss, frenetic remnants. then it was just appreciating the glory days. this makes me want to get a recumbent and really get back into riding. I am on the low car challenge this september, pledged to only one car trip this month which is completed. Tomorrow i’m forced to take my first bike ride of the season riding my bike to the bank, hopefully at lunch. I think I will pay myself a dollar a mile to ride my bike and put it towards a recumbent. that’d be fun and might work exercise back into my life. that’s part of what vacations are for me, to give me some space to step out of my life and see where it needs changing. Then though we were just driving and bullshitting. we pulled into farmington 15 minutes late. we saw jeff and becky and rosie leaving the bakery and followed them into the burger basement. nice place. the owner came out and said howdy, make your own combo on a check off sheet. I had 8 oz beef with jalapenos, olives, tomato, mixed greens, grilled pineapple, and swiss with barbecue sauce. nice. though mayo might have been better. It was great getting caught up with the burns-pavliks. rosie had turned into quite a prepossessed little 8 year old. she took us on the scenic way to their home in farmington hills and was quite the tour guide. She called us Uncle Mike and Uncle Trevor. I used to be Uncle Mike Trapp because she has a real Uncle Mike whose a bit of a character. I told her I was glad we were still fictional kin. Jeff picked up some first class local brews. Detroit Dwarf stands out as yummy and an interesting tale. Look it up its too late for me to regale you with it but its a tale worth telling. also had a smores beer, syrupy and over the top but a little glass was good. Both jeff and i dozed contentedly after we got caught up. It was one of those 20 hour days where you really suck the marrow out of your daily bone. I slept the sleep of the just. I was in Michigan. I was home.
drinking mead and pensive thoughts
this week it shifted. i have been tired of struggling, of feeling like i can’t do it and i will soldier on nobly until i am ultimately destroyed is not a good plan for life. this week i consciously decided i would be happy and competent and that as far as it depended on me it was all good. only took a couple of days for that thought to invade my feeling world and by midweek life was good.
today was a challenge. painfully busy, whooosh. i am asked to be in three places. i jam all day without cease and fall painfully behind. my good mood is unassailable is my motto, my watchwords. I hit the wall when i get home. i go upstairs and change my clothes and i can’t push on to garden, get some exercise, play with the dog. i lay in bed and crush my genre fiction. after much travail and uncertainty even against long odds the protagonist is successful.
it is all good, i’m just tired. so much stuff. then i fight on facebook with the anti-mosque people. i am strident and harsh but don’t delete it, soften it or apologize for it for my Muslim friends. For Allah. Brother John read the Koran and when I asked him to sum it up he said “god is great”. what are you gonna do? Me I’m gonna drink the beverage of the gods and write some poetry, plan on going to bed early, and largely letting it go. I’m gonna write a blog post to hide the poem from casual readers. they don’t deserve to know where i’m at tonight like you do faithful reader:
I’m drinking mead and thinking pensive thoughts
Telling a work anecdote that requires so much exposition
I am left more feeling alone.
I’m drinking mead and thinking pensive thoughts
Wondering why poetry demands loneliness
A melancholy thoughtfulness not devoid of energy.
I’m drinking mead and thinking pensive thoughts
Spark shower madness the electrical cry of the cicada
Humming loud like an electric fence then…
The deafening silence of freedom
Oh that I was trapped here
To justify the loneliness
Honey sweet on the lips
Warm in the belly
Something at least
Fit for the gods.
long week part 1
Its been a long week. Work continues to be frenetic and i was just coming back from being sick so i was trying to take it easy. Tuesday I met with Cori who was asked to officiate at one of her childhood friend’s weddings. We met at Lakota and I sat in the rocking chair and drank a really good late’ and told Cori all the stuff about weddings I wish someone would have told me. I hadn’t had a lot of experience with them and was in fact dubious about the whole concept when i did my first wedding. the biggest surprise was the necessity of your role of running the rehearsal. Why someone asked to say a few words should be laying out when the flower girls come up the aisle and how long the music plays and all kinds of other stuff. I talked to her about the workarounds for misogynistic artifacts in the ceremony like the pronouncement and you (you action oriented being who acts on the world) can kiss the bride (the passive thing akin to all the other things to be acted upon). I talked to her about honoring your own sense of the divine but presenting from the perspective of the bride and groom in a way that is inclusive to all present. I talked to her about weaving the best language from several translations when quoting the bible which allows you to drop male pronouns (we both like replacing it with god). Pointed out the classics 1 cor 13 & the verse out ecclesiastes i believe, “two are better than one, for how can one be warm alone? And if one should fall into a pit who will pull them out?” sweet. the sacredness of laying together you can’t better than that.
I picked up some Kaldi’s coffee while i was downtown. Lakota roasts there own but they’re more second wave with everything really dark (good for Lates’). Kaldi’s is third wave and has lots of single lot beans, in season, from all over the world and roasts them light. I got a Honduran and the Ecuadoran Single source they’re hyping on their coffee of the world program. They’re both excellent but the Honduran is better. Best of all the popster picked up the coffee tab this week.
Thursday was a big night, I did my last ever batterer intervention group. I have worked part time for four years doing a group a week, a couple years two, for over 250 groups. Its been fun, actually work I enjoy quite a bit. Its just one more thing I have to do so I decided to drop it as part of my de-stressing my life. It was an OK group, exciting for what it was, two years of non stop good groups, nice run. Afterwards I met up with Sharon, Nance, Erika, and Kristin four of my co-facilitators through the years. We had beers and I had cheese fries and we got caught up. It was nice. Its helpful to feel appreciated when your struggling a bit, seeing people recognize it and that they care about you and are glad you’re doing it. The family reunion, the surprise birthday party, and then the MEND thing has all reinforced that message.
detroit jazz festival
I and the intrepid Trevor Harris are flying to the the Detroit metropolitan area for Labor Day weekend to see some jazz and some old friends. Friday night we will be at Jeff & Becky’s in Farmington Hills after flying into Detroit Metro and renting a car. We plan on catching some shows: Listed is time/performer/stage name. Shows with a * are can’t miss:
Sat Sept. 4:
1:30pm/Muruga Booker/Carhadrt Ampitheatre
5:15pm/Danilo Perez/Carhardt*
7:30pm/Terrance Blanchard/Carhardt**
9:45pm/Mulgrew Miller/Absopure Waterfront*
Sun Sept 5:
1:30pm/Johnny O’Neal/Mack Avenue
2:00pm/Maria Schneider Orchestra/Carhardt**
7:45pm/ray Brown Tribute w/Christian McBride/Carhardt*
9:45pm/Mambo Legends/Chase Main Stage
Mon Sept 6:
1:30pm/Roy Haynes/Carhardt
3:15pm/Branford Marsalis/Carhardt*
We will be staying saturday and sunday at the corktown inn on Trumbul. its not my normal type of vacation but i am looking forward to it. If you are in the area you should come up and catch a show.
on the occasion of the 42nd anniversary of my birth
My 42nd year has begun well. Friday the 13th again and captivated by rich symbolism of life the universe and everything. I really started to get into it in the evening before. I started getting facebook greetings and I decided to respond to each. I got excited about the birthday horoscope when i remembered with an evening paper like the trib it would be there now. last year i hung it on my refrigerator and pondered it all year: “question your need for a more universal commitment”.
the day itself started like most do with coffee then off to work. i had been struggling through a cold for a couple of days and working anyway because the state auditors were in reading charts, sitting in on my groups (good feedback there) and giving me a test of knowledge quiz on one of my clients (nailed that too). But its a big deal and didn’t want my work to wash onto my colleagues who were dealing with that stuff full time.
So even though i was tired with an occasional hacking cough and runny nose but i was feeling better. work was ok 2 no shows so i actually got to pick which of my back log of duties i would knock out. that was twice this week that’d happened.
i told everyone it was my birthday, enjoyed the folks i had sessions with, and the day passed quickly. after work i did a bit of weeding in the garden and a lot of responding to facebook birthday well wishes. a couple of them had questions so i had to respond and some were really sweet from people i don’t see enough so i decided to respond to them all. it was very heartwarming.
harry drove and we stopped by to pick up amy and the cake. dad hadn’t seen the house so we all went in. Amy answered the door and Olive ran out and we corralled her and walked in and as I came around the corner, “Surprise!”
There was a whole party there with my best friends. i was totally caught off guard. it was so sweet. Belen made gazpacho which was really good, there was humus, cucumber salad, Christina made a gluten free pasta salad, and there was gluten free beer. i was touched by everyone’s thoughtfulness. I got a trappist beer from Nancy, 11% and since i’d already had 2 beers i split it three ways, figured that made it a beer and three is plenty at42. Michael grilled burgers, 6 oz patties stuffed with blue cheese or a 4 oz wrapped in bacon. they were both excellent.
it was great to just get to chat, see old friends, meet some people, and just hang out. maybe i shouldn’t have been so easily surprised when people had asked me what i wanted for my birthday i’d said “a party where i didn’t have to do anything”. thanks people.
old dog, new dog, feel alright
Its been a strange time, very busy lots of changes, lots of talking to very bright people whose first language is not english. it stretches your mind, as does the new job at work, as do the canine changes at home. Wednesday I met Belen downtown and we went for icecream at sparkies. it was good i had a wafflecone. we stayed for 4 hours talking about psychology and metaphysics. its been ages since i’ve had such an intense talk about stuff. i didn’t get home til after ’10 and if you know me lately that’s my bed time. going to bed at the same time is one of the things that keeps me sane, but sometimes there are higher purposes than mere sanity and i headed for bed at 11. i was devastated to see oni had pissed in it. thursdays my long day, jamming from 7:30 to 8:30 and i don’t mean an hour.
i stripped the wet stuff off, the good news badnews was she had hit the comforter, and tossed it in the hall, grabbed a flanel sheet and closed the blinds in the living room and laid down on the couch. sometimes when i can’t sleep rather than do progressive relaxation i take the easier route of zoning in front of the tv to manage rushing thoughts. but after asking dad to turn down the tv and turn off his lamp i explained his dog had pissed my bed. he seemed mad at me about it and turned off his movie right before the end and went to bed.
said he was taking oni to the humane society and i didn’t tell him not to. just tired of it. lowering the quality of my life. it had come that close so many times before i couldn’t get up the motivation to give her a final farewell goodbye but knew it was happening so i said something. “take care now” or something.
they were both gone at lunch. didn’t mean anything. enjoyed the quiet.
after the day job dad was subdued. dog was nonexistent. i was apologetic and sad. for 10 minutes and then i had to go. i was already 10 minutes late. my life is too hard.
group was alright but last week had been super great. therapeutic and meaningful, cool because we had an intelligent observer who gave good feedback, a therapist from Taiwan in a PHD program in an exchange program. this group was not quite perfunctory but more educational and less deep. but had made it through a long day.
friday, work was work. its new reality is do one thing after another from the time until you leave and leave some things undone. jamming all day. home, change clothes, weed the garden for 10 minutes and go downtown for the 100th anniversary of the wabash station. toured the artrageous gallery 1st floor which had been a storage building for supplies. its a cool old building with a neat rehab into studios. train art and toy trains. no tour of old underground train repair space in the catacombs as promised. there was a ’26 model t, they had three petals i learned from dad and an old dude who’d wandered up. brake, clutch and shift. never noticed the windshield was two small windshields on pivots. i added the fact they got better gas mileage than the ford explorer.
we met amy and some friends of hers at sycamores, we sat at the bar. christina was one of them and we talked about her friend the harvard professor whose study that showed happiness and sadness followed disease models of contagion (you’re 11% more likely to be happy if you have a happy friend, twice that for a sad friend). more people showed up and there was a shortage of bar stools and a surplus of weirdness so we split. probably should have just got a table.
dad and i were going to go to the casino but we had words and i said i didn’t want to go and didn’t. mowed the lawn and ordered pizza and felt a little bad. i was deadheading the roses when he arrived and pointed out the beautiful sunset i was oblivious too and what it was doing to the tiger lillies til he mentioned it and asked to take a picture. i said “sure, in the sweet light”. and we talked about that, the hour before sunset and the hour after sunrise when light comes in obliquely and makes for better photos. softer, less glare. he hadn’t heard of it but had sorta discovered it. sweet.
today was up and do dishes. drink coffee with sarah and talk about sociopaths. i think its a curable condition if they’re motivated. we went to the market. they’re awesome this time of year. melons are out and got a nice little watermelon, plus peaches, concord grapes, this and that.
home to meet the new dog. dad had found one in the free classifieds. a cockapoo four months old. named him fido. he’s barking at the cat right now, first peep i’ve heard out of him. he’s a little black and white fuzzy guy with big paws and goofy eyes. shy and charming. i put away my stuff and left (after having swapped vehicles with sarah) to pick up the girls from taiwan.
we went out to devil’s ice box trail at rockbridge state park. more of its open and everyone enjoyed climbing down to anderson cave where it was cool and very cool. watching the little ones play, the real little ones sitting down on rocks because they didn’t want to cross the underground stream.
after stopping by the Pierpont Store we went back and hung out while dad smoked a pork loin and grilled some chicken breast on the grill. we had the watermelon as well as red potatoes and corn on the cob. they took almost as many pictures of the meal as they did the cave.
needless to say i was bushed and coasted through the evening. through it all i’ve been re-reading neal stephenson’s anathem. brilliant book, i’ll post on it.
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