Monthly Archives: December 2012

Sanskrit

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Love Is A Lie - Love Is A Big Pile Of Fun

Love Is A Lie – Love Is A Big Pile Of Fun

Anne’s family cabin is a 1920s era log cabin on the shores of Lake Superior. Situated at the eastern end of the lake, Canada is a mere two miles across the water. When Anne’s mother was a little girl, she and her siblings would play revenuers and rum-runners instead of cops and robbers. The cabin sits near enough the center of a beautiful half-mile long sandy beach. In year’s past, the lake water was frigid, even at the height of the summer. Now with global warming, on some summer days, the water is almost balmy. At the far end of the beach is the old Doelle’s place, a former lighthouse keeper’s house. In year’s past, with a cabin full of relatives, a degree of privacy could be found by walking down to this Empty Quarter. This sense of privacy was always more illusion than fact; an accurate census of high-powered binoculars on the beach has never been compiled. In recent years, further development at this end of the beach has shredded even this illusion.

Last summer, on one of our after supper strolls down the beach, we came upon some sand script on the beach. “Love is a lie” was scrawled in the sand. I suspect that the author was one of a pair of beach fellow denizens, young girls vacationing at a neighboring cabin. Jay and Carl were walking with Anne and me when we found this text. Altering the original message, Carl wrote, “Love is a big pile of fun”. If memory serves, “fun” was an editorial substitution for what was originally written. Ah, young love with all of its joys and pangs. I’m sure that the original authoress did not appreciate the meddling of a pair of old married couples.

Should I Write My Congressman?

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African Daisy

African Daisy

Should I write a letter to my congressman? Son, your congressman has two ends, a thinking end and a sitting end and since, his whole success depends upon his seat, why bother friend.

– E.Y. Harburg

The fiscal cliff is a Republican problem. They own it and it is about time that they man-up and fix it. Man-up is apt, because almost all of these recalcitrant Republicans are men. The Republican congressional delegation is so cowardly that they are willing to launch this county into another recession just to save their own damn seats.

Why are they so afraid? Well every election, only about sixty of the House’s seats are in play. The rest are all ‘safe’ seats. By safe I meaning that any given congressional district is either safely Republican or safely Democratic. Decades of gerrymandering have put paid to this outcome. Safely Republican though does not mean safely incumbent. In recent years, the Tea Party movement has accelerated the radicalization of the Republican right. Angry white men have elected these fools and now they are more than satisfied to see our country careen off this impending cliff. Maybe then they can realize some return on investment for all of their guns?

Leading the House is John Boehner, the cowardly lion. Cry me a river, John. He is the biggest scaredy cat in Congress. He is more afraid of losing his Speakership than to he is of governing our nation. I would be happier having Toonces drive than him. At least there is a cat with the courage of its convictions. I’m guessing now, since even Boehner’s Plan B has failed, we can all consider ourselves officially knocked-up. You all know what I mean. I don’t believe that we’ll see any Cliff Note’s quick resolutions this week or next. That’s too much reason to hope for in this ever-present political silly season that we now live in. Come January though, when all of our paychecks have been lightened, then is when we’ll see some heat on the seats of our US congressmen.

Women, if it weren’t for them, there would be no civilization.

UPDATE: To make matters worse, on Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Geithner announced that on New Years Eve our country will hit the debt ceiling. We all remember how much fun that debate was last year. Its so called resolution is now part of the current fiscal cliff debacle. This whole scenario reads like a B-movie thriller. Just when you don’t think that it can get any worse, it does.

Tennessee Tree

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Tennessee Tree

Tennessee Tree

To survive after severe fire damage is one of the remarkable characteristics of the sequoia. The living tissue or cambium layer of a tree lies just under its bark. So long as some of this thin, loving tissue connects the leaves above with the roots below, the tree will continue to live. If undisturbed by people, or more firs, this living layer will eventually heal the fire scars so evident here.

Christmas Day and Boxing Day

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Red Cabin Sunset

Red Cabin Sunset

Boxing Day is traditionally the day following Christmas Day, when servants would receive gifts from their superiors. Since they would have to wait on their masters on Christmas Day, the servants of the wealthy were allowed the next day off. In Britain, it was a custom for servants to collect “Christmas boxes” on the day after Christmas as thanks for good service throughout the year. – Wiki

Our Boxing Day started all too early. Anne’s ducks started a-quacking just when I thought that I had another hour or two. I had gone to the dentist last week and took the opportunity then to schedule appointments for the boys. Unfortunately, the only time that was available was at 8 AM on Boxing Day. I placed their appointment cards in their Christmas stockings. Our snow never really materialized, except for a light dusting. If it had snowed like it was originally forecasted that would have provided legitimate cover to cancel, rollover and go back to sleep. So, the boys and I trooped out to West County. Afterwards, I felt so bad that I sprung for breakfast at Bread Co. There I apologized, but Dave said, “I don’t blame you, Dad, I blame Mom.” He probably said that because she wasn’t there. Dan chimed in with, “I blame Obama.” 😉

As tough as it was for me to haul myself out of bed, it had to be tougher on the boys. They were heading out to a midnight showing of Les Mis, when I was headed to bed. We had all enjoyed a great Christmas dinner and the four of us, plus Joanie had sat around the TV and watched my Christmas DVD, Premium Rush. This is the Joseph Gordon-Levitt bicycle messenger movie, set in Manhattan. It was in theaters last August and Dan, Anne and I had seen it then, but I really wanted to see it again. Joanie hadn’t seen it before, but kept asking for plot developments to be explained before their time. We ended up playing with her.

Anne had a couple of doctor appointments of her own this morning too. They were a visit with the knee specialist and some hand PT. This is some of the continuing fallout from her bicycle accident last month. In the movie, Premium Rush, numerous bike accidents are dramatized. Without exception all of the accident victims are up and riding again, often within seconds. Even Gordon-Levitt’s climatic crash doesn’t slow him down. His real life accident, where he had crashed through the back window of a taxi during filming didn’t stop him either, although, he did have to go to the emergency room for that one.

Speaking of the emergency room, the bills for Anne’s initial emergency room visit are in now. It is a good thing that we have good health insurance. In addition to the medical bills, several letters have appeared, all offering to pursue liability claims on her behalf. Some computer program must have scanned Anne’s accident report, found in it the keywords, “bicycle”, “car” and “accident” and decided that there might me a case to pursue here. It was a parked car.

Our Christmas was lovely. We were all together, we all received nice presents and our dinner was quite the success. This year, we decided to kick it up a notch. Anne found a Emeril Lagasse recipe in the Saturday Evening Post. We made a turkey roulade with peach and sage gravy. Our deboned turkey was stuffed with the recipe’s dressing, rolled together and tied up with string. Accompanying this dish were sides of roasted potatoes and a pomegranate and pear salad. Joanie brought a delicious selection of cheesecakes from the Cheesecake Factory. Yum!