Monthly Archives: October 2012

Pontiac Moon

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Pontiac

The battle of the basement is over, well all except the paying for it. On Friday, the plumbers finished off the last few loose ends. They even moved and hooked-up our washer and dryer, a nice touch.

On Saturday, Anne canvassed for Claire McCaskill (D), the US Senator who is running for reelection in Missouri. Canvassing involves driving to Claire’s campaign headquarters, getting a list of names and then driving and/or walking door-to-door. Anne was in Warson Woods, a tony neighborhood that I’m surprised even sports enough Democrats to be worth worrying about. Anne canvassed for four hours. Unfortunately, Sunday’s Post-Dispatch had a front page article that announced the latest poll. Todd Akin (R), mister “legitimate rape” has recently narrowed the gap considerably. The poll says that he still trails Claire by 2%, but the poll’s margin of error is 4%. What does that mean?

While Anne was being all civil minded, I went bicycling in the park. While riding around the traffic circle in front of the Jewel Box, I almost got flattened three times. The first two times was from the same SUV. While I was going around this traffic circle, this SUV comes up from behind, the husband-driver decided that I was going to turn right and exit the circle, except that I wasn’t. I then had to veered out of his way. He stuttered stopped, but since I had veered, he decided that he had the right of way and pressed on the gas. With no time to get out of his way, I just stopped.

Fortunately for me so did he. With both of us now halted, I proceeded to give him an earful. What diffused the situation was his wife. She had both hands up, palms out and was waggling them in submission. No harm, no foul, so we went our separate ways. I figured that she could much more succinctly express my opinions then any of my expletive laced bleats ever could. Later in this ride I returned to the scene of the crime. This time I was cut off by a New River Church van. At least this driver might have prayed over me.

Tonight is game four of the World Series. The Giants are up 3-0 over the Tigers, so the Tigers are fighting for their lives. Certainly my Michigan outlaws are rooting for the Tigers. Also for sure Reverend Carl, pastor of Church of Baseball is also rooting for the Tigers. He always roots for more over less baseball. Well, dear readers even my Bros are rooting for the Tigers to win tonight and tomorrow night too. These two native Californians have tickets to Game 6 and want to see the Giants clinch at home.

No Dinosaur After All

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Front Yard California Poppies

“Damn, I’m good!” That’s what Anne said, when I told her that she had in fact spelled correctly, the names of these two dinosaurs, struthiomimus and pachycephalosaurus. Later she added in all humility, that years ago our then six-year-old nephew Rey had to correct her pronunciation of these names. I had asked her to write them on a Post-It note for me, because as all long time readers of this little blog know, I can’t spell worth a damn.

It has been a tough week for Anne. It was report card week at school. This meant she had to additionally work two evenings, for parents and teachers conferences. Thursday night, she was so conked out on the couch that I could not wake the dead. Friday was an easier day; it was a professional development day. This meant that the students were excused from class and the teachers met to improve their educational skills. The subject of dinosaurs came up during these meetings.

The topic under discussion was complex text in reading. The teachers were covering the importance of complex text, when Anne spoke up, “Prior knowledge and subject matter interest often facilitates the use of complex text.” At this point the speaker said, “That’s a good point, save it for later.” Anne thought he had said, “That’s a good point, say it louder.” So she repeated herself, “PRIOR KNOWLEDGE AND SUBJECT MATTER INTEREST …” In Anne’s defense, all the teachers at her table had also thought that the speaker had said, say it louder too. Eventually though, Anne was able to complete her point, “Many children are so interested in dinosaurs that they learn complex words like struthiomimus and pachycephalosaurus.” The crowd laughed at the introduction of this vocabulary and the speaker asked if she knew how to spell those words, but he thought better of this implied dare and moved the discussion onward, smart man.

Unrequited Love

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Sunset Waters

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
Sonnet 116, William Shakespeare

Has ever more human angst been spent on love that is not returned? William Shakespeare wrote sonnets to his loves. He wrote them longhand in fourteen line iambic pentameter verse. Now a days, he might just tweet in 140 characters.

On this subject, you should consider me no more an expert than a man landing from Mars. I and my love have requited for over forty years, since high school. This week, we danced together in our kitchen, before six AM, to Leslie Gore’s recent PSA, You Don’t Own Me. I’m no expert on love, remember, I’m the man from Mars, but maybe the luckiest. I found my ideal woman from Venus. I’m just so grateful to have it, the love of a good woman.

I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts during my lunchtime, walk the engineer exercise. Dan, my usual walking buddy was on travel, so I automated him. This day’s podcast was Slate’s Cultural Gabfest, their article on the social dating website, HeTexed struck a chord. The following is an example of one of their most quoted he texted dialogs.

Hey
Sup
Thanks for last night.
Can we meet up again soon?
….
Okay, can you answer one question???
What?
Why did you give me that bag Skittles?

While there is a certain haiku to some of these dialogs, the entire website stinks of male misogyny. It preys upon the natural female habit of girl exegesis.  In return, this website only offers a yes, no or maybe crowd sourced response. In this example, “He’s into you” 9, “He’s not into you” 547. Really not very good advice to the love-lorn, much better sport for the mob.

In years to come, I may have to get back into the dating scene. I’m married for life, as is my wife and I pray that we both enjoy a long life together. In that event, the following scenario is our fall back position: 

An elegantly dressed, elderly woman walked into a bar. She must have been in her eighties. A little while later, a dapperly dressed old man came into the bar. Spying the lady, he saddled up next to her and sat at the neighboring bar stool. I overheard his pickup line, “Do I come here often?”

Zebra Lionfish

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Zebra Lionfish

Zebra Lionfish, Calene Luczo, Dendrochirus zebra, Watercolor, Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History

This species is a true natural work of art. It is a carnivorous ray-finned fish with venomous spines that is native to the Indian and western Pacific oceans. Now found in the Atlantic Ocean as an invasive species, their population density is increasing at a rapid rate and has become a significant threat to the marine ecology off the East Coast of the United States and in the Caribbean.

Almost Done

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Almost Done

Thursday was another big day in our basement. There was an extra signature on the permit notice that’s been taped to our front door, for the last few days. This signifies that both of the necessary inspections have occurred, one for the outside and one for the inside. Also on the exterior, straw was laid down.I guess that it will help with erosion, at the very least it announces, “Yes, we know that the yard is torn up, we’re working on it.” 

The big news is in the basement. All of the holes have been filled in, all of the dirt is gone and the basement hasn’t looked this clean in decades. The concrete is firm, but still damp. I probably could have walked on it, but danced over it instead. I am very pleased with the work performed and would highly recommend Cordia-Reich Plumbing.

They were able to save the downstairs shower, which does occasionally come in handy. They even dug out and patched a piece of concrete flooring that heaved from hydrostatic pressure, back before we put in working gutters. This work was totally out of scope, but much appreciated. About the only work that I could see that remains, is that the PVC pipes that stick up through the two floor drains need to be cut back. I guess the concrete was still too wet for that work.