All posts by djones

dryness, hell hound, static, weather

The Hell Hound Returns

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Anyone who has spent much time reading mythology has heard of the Hell Hounds. (If not click and be enlightened.) However this is not about the mythical hounds of hell. This is about mortal hounds emulating the famed hounds. It is also an excuse for a rambling discourse that finally meanders to a point. Just so you know.
It is dry around here. We have had very little snow or precipitation this winter. It is so dry and the air is so dry that walking down the hall and then reaching for the light switch is a death defying act. One will often get an inch or longer static electricity spark from the switch plate to the nearest part of your anatomy. Not a weak arc either, a bright blue audible snap type arc. The kind that hurt. After a while, you see people doing the static electricity mambo to flick the switch without getting shocked. In my younger days, it might have involved using the socked foot to do the deed. Unfortunately, age is making that a harder and harder trick to carry out without running the risk of conking ones head on something hard, like the floor. I have started pulling the sleeve of my sweatshirt over my hand. (Don’t laugh, it works!) In any case, you get the picture: it is dry as a bone and static electricity builds with every motion.
The other day I woke up at around 4am. I rolled over so I was sitting up on the side of the bed when Molly came over and put her head in my lap. She knows that if she catches me before I get up and mosey down the hall, she can get her head and ears rubbed for a bit. So I fulfill my part of the bargain by gently rubbing her ears and mentally going through the list of things I need to do. It is pitch black because I haven’t turned on any lights. Preparatory to telling Molly that we should get going, I start rubbing her back, from tail to top of head. And it suddenly feels like I am being stuck with little needles. I look down and Molly is completely outlined in a blue nimbus of glowing static electricity which stands out about a half inch from her fur. I rub a bit faster and harder and the glow gets to about 3/4 inch and starts making little popping noises as it shocks Molly and I. Needless to say neither of us cared for that and the rub was over. Molly was still glowing with static electricity as she headed down the darkened hall, but the charge was obviously leaking off and the glow decreasing as she walked.
Watching Molly walk down the hall put me in the mind of the Hell Hounds. (See, I told you there was a point!) Remember in The Hound of the Baskervilles when Sherlock Holmes finds the fake hell hound created by painting the its mouth with white phosphorus? Well, I have a glowing dog without the phosphorus. My own personal hell hound. The only bad thing is that you are supposed to die a sudden and mysterious death if you see the hell hounds three times. I’ve seen Molly a lot more than that. Could mean I’m in real trouble.
One of the local papers mangled a joke this week. It is important to tell a joke correctly. (And it drives me crazy to see or hear a joke mangled. I think it comes from being married to a chronic punch line mangler. L will tell a joke, get to the the punch line and say “I can’t remember the punch line but it was really funny.” and walk away. Don’t do that to those who love jokes!) So here is the corrected joke:
Morris the 82 year old man had a physical. A few weeks later, the doctor saw Morris walking down the street with a gorgeous young woman on his arm , grinning from ear to ear. A few days later the doctor had a chance to talk to Morris alone.

Doctor: “You’re doing great, aren’t you?”
Morris: “Sure am. I’m doing exactly what you told me to.”
Doctor (with confused look): “What was that?”
Morris: “Get a hot momma and be cheerful.”
Doctor: “I didn’t say that!” I said, “You’ve got a heart murmur and be careful.”
Off to await the arrival of L for the delayed valentines and birthday celebrations!
ASIDE (Repeat #2): I plan to remove and recreate anew the feed for this site sometime Saturday to try and clear up the reported problems with the site not showing up in dashboard and/or some readers. The problem seems to be related to having two feeds as a result of some template changes a while ago. So on Sunday (or Monday), please resubscribe in your reader after deleting the old subscription and/or if you are a follower, unfollow and then follow again. Hopefully this will clear up all the problems. Thanks.
bad writing, bulwer-lyton, contest

Bad Writing for the Slightly Literate

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Jenners is running a tribute game ala the Bulwer-Lytton contest of really really bad writing fame. She even has a button:


(Just click the button to find the rules and the linky to the participants.)

So forthwith and forsooth are some really really bad starts to novels from the minuscule minds of that infamous trio of writers: me, myself, and I.
It was a dark and stormy night, which wasn’t all that surprising considering that the last 9,871 nights had been dark and stormy and the forecast was for still more dark and stormy nights, continuing on into the dull and dreary evenings of the future like a foul blot upon the blackness of yet another dark and stormy night.
— It Was A Dark and Stormy Night: A Tribute to “Paul-Clifford (1830)” by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton (The first novel to begin “It was a dark and stormy night.”)

Ned the Vampire had just opened his mouth in preparation for having a little midnight snack before getting on with the evenings festivities when the thought struck him like a blow to the family jewels:  a little mustard would make this one of the tastier bits he had nibbled on in the last ten centuries, ever since he had been caught roasting that pilfered pig on the fen in Scotland by that fancy schmancy Dracula feller – he really must remember to have Igor pack a jar of Grey Poupon in the cape for just such occurrences as this in the future.
—A Vampire’s Life for Me: The Adventures of Ned the Pig Man

Suzanne began to feel she might be just a little overdressed for the occasion, her overcoat with it’s fleece lining making her feel like the victim of an apache ant mound ceremony in the Arizona summer, her Uggs boots making her feet sweat and emit that certain pungent aroma, and all of it coupled with the floor length wool worsted gown that felt like it weighted a hundred and fifty pounds and was so hot that she was suffering visions of being cooked in Torquemada’s iron maiden as it heated over an open fire – why had no one told her that this was a pool party.
—Valley of the Dulls

Danny reminded himself that it was important to concentrate on the task at hand because the detonator was very delicate, subject to going off at the slightest provocation, somewhat like his wife now that he thought about it, at least every four weeks or so, it seemed, and he had to wonder if his wife was somehow involved in these bombings, because after all she did go on a bit about almost every headline in the newspaper, so maybe he ought to write a memo mentioning his suspicions and – Oh Bloody Hell, that was the fifth pair of pliers he’d dropped this week and what in the heck was that darned ticking noise that was so anno….
—The Short Life of Danny, The ADD Bomb Officer

Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind. — Rudyard Kipling

ASIDE (Repeat #1): I plan to remove and recreate anew the feed for this site sometime Saturday to try and clear up the reported problems with the site not showing up in dashboard and/or some readers. The problem seems to be related to having two feeds as a result of some template changes a while ago. So on Sunday (or Monday), please resubscribe in your reader after deleting the old subscription and/or if you are a follower, unfollow and then follow again. Hopefully this will clear up all the problems. Thanks.
sibling rivalry, writer's challenge

How I Broke …

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It is time for Mama Kat’s Writer’s Challenge once more. This week the prompts are:

  • If you were starring on American Idol TONIGHT and HAD to sing, what song would you choose and why.
  • Take a picture of yourself right this minute without primping and explain to us why it is you have not washed your hair today.
  • I just asked Pat to help me with a writing prompt so here’s his: “What do you think about the NBA All Star game”…blech.
  • What’s your number one pet peeve? Develop a punishment for anyone caught in the act.
  • Write about something mean you did to a sibling growing up.

I chose to write about being mean to a sibling. It’s the obvious prompt for a pair of brothers. But first a bit of background:

My brother and I survived childhood without once killing each other. That was a miracle in and of itself. We were OK with battling each other to the death over trivia but were there for each other when someone else tried to horn in on the fun. Pretty much the standard sibling stuff carried to the extreme. Part of the issue was that my brother is only slightly younger than me. We were close enough in age to practice sibling rivalry as an art form. The other was that we were diametric opposites forced to share a room as we grew up. He was a slob, I was a neatnik, etc. Because we both were very bright and enjoyed games, we were competitive to the death with almost any game. We’d quickly eliminate the other players and then concentrate on getting each other. That led to Mom banning many a game from our use because it led to spats between us. It wasn’t until I had been away at college for a bit that my brother and I became closer. That distance and freedom from each other was important to both of us in becoming more tolerant of each other.

With that dose of background, you are ready to hear

The Story Of How I Broke My Brother’s Arm

One Sunday we were out playing in the yard after a family event. There were a few cousins and others about, even my friend G from here and here. My brother and I have never lacked for the ability to come up with some new game utilizing the items we found at hand, especially if it was a bit off-beat and allowed head to head competition. This was to be no exception.

We invented a game using a couple of cinder blocks and some lumber sitting around the yard. It amounted to a game of see-saw chicken played on top of the concrete slab in the yard. We put the lumber across the cinder blocks like a teeter totter and then the two opponents stood on each end of the wood beam that formed the teeter and gyrated to make the other player fall off. One of the “legal” moves in our set of ad hoc rules was that you could jump off the wood beam and if your opponent then fell, you won. However, if the opponent rode the wood beam to the ground and didn’t fall, you lost. We didn’t like to leave victory to a chance vagary of rule interpretation, so we covered all eventualities in a similar manner.

Of course my brother and I were eventually matched as opponents. Through the first few rounds we were about even, one or the other of us touching a foot to the ground from time to time and losing the “joust”. Finally it came down to the final joust: my brother versus me for the championship. We both wiggled and feinted and jerked and faked. Then I made the fateful decision to dismount and see if my brother could ride the beam down. He tried valiantly. Unfortunately he lurched off the beam crookedly and fell hard on his arm. Really hard. Really really hard. On concrete. Not good.

None of us kids wanted to get in trouble, so we were trying to convince my brother to hold it down as he is sitting on the ground howling. After a while that plan of action was dropped as futile and we journeyed into the house to expose all to Mom. (Or at least the minimum amount of information we could get away with. Pain and injury was one thing, being in trouble with Mom was an entirely different beast.) Off to the hospital Mom and my brother went. Broken wrist was the emergency room diagnosis.

There you have it. How I broke my brother’s arm without really trying. Don’t you wish you had boys like us?
(And you don’t even want to hear about the episode wherein my brother ate a minnow cooked over a match in the outhouse on a dare when we were aided and abetted by the older neighbor boys.)

Edited to Add: Mom reminded me that it was not a Sunday, but Thanksgiving day the this transpired on. She remembered because we were supposed to go to Uncle H and Aunt O’s house that evening and instead of the ER. Even better.
ASIDE: I plan to remove and recreate anew the feed for this site sometime Saturday to try and clear up the reported problems with the site not showing up in dashboard and/or some readers. The problem seems to be related to having two feeds as a result of some template changes a while ago. So on Sunday (or Monday), please resubscribe in your reader after deleting the old subscription and/or if you are a follower, unfollow and then follow again. Hopefully this will clear up all the problems. Thanks.
first bicycle

My First Bicycle

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It was Christmas time in the rural Nebraska town where we lived. Snow covered the ground and it was our first Christmas there. We had moved, following Dad’s job on the railroad, just in time for me to start kindergarten in a new and strange place in the middle of the term. Amidst the loneliness of making new friends and the terror and joy of the new experiences I was undergoing, one thing was clear and bright: I wanted a bicycle for Christmas. That was the thing that occupied my dreams day and night: a bicycle!

We left the house in the early evening that Christmas Eve and I don’t clearly remember where we went. I believe the trip was really designed to get my little brother and I out of the house. (I seem to remember Christmas Carols and hot chocolate being involved.) When we arrived back at the house, my brother and I were wound up like the proverbial tops. After all, it was Christmas Eve and there had been sugar! The door of the house was opened and in we walked. Someone reached around the corner and turned on the lights. And there, standing in front of the Christmas tree, was a beautiful brownish red bike. Right beside it was a smaller emerald green bike. Santa Claus had come and gone. My brother and I had our first BIKES!!!

Both bikes already had the training wheels attached. My brother and I couldn’t stand the idea that we were not going to be able to ride these magnificent steeds that night. How could we not? They we so bright and shiny and beautiful. After much cajoling,whining, and begging, we were allowed to at ride them a bit in the living room (which was all of 2 bike lengths long and wide). We went to bed reluctantly, eager for morning so we could take our bikes outside and ride.

Far too early on Christmas morning, my brother and I were up and eagerly waiting for breakfast to be over. We didn’t care that it was well below zero and snowing, we wanted to take our bikes outside and ride. And so we did. We rode on the sidewalk and the neighbors cleared driveway until we were too cold to move. I can still remember the feeling of power and freedom imparted by that first ride. All else disappeared in the joy of effortless motion. And the pride of ownership! We were so proud of our steeds.

By the time late summer arrived, it was time to remove the training wheels. I can still remember Dad running along side me on the bike, his hand on the bicycle seat ready to catch me as I learned to ride without the training wheels. And I can remember him doing the same for my brother as he learned how ride without training wheels. Those memories have stayed in the forefront of the memories I have of those years in Nebraska.

Of course, I can also remember the neighbor on the corner watching vigilantly lest we cut the sidewalk corner short and ride on *his* lawn. And I remember Jo Ann, the “older” girl who lived on the other side of us, roller skating with us as we rode our bikes around and around the block. (Since none of us was yet allowed to cross the street alone.)

I was broken hearted when I outgrew that brownish-red bicycle. It had been a faithful companion and seen me through the adjustment to a new home. It had been a jeep and a tank and an airplane in my imagination as we played various games. It had given me mobility and the chance to go to the park and to visit my friends once I was allowed to cross the street. It was a bit like losing a friend and a piece of childhood to see it go. But I got a bigger bike and rode on. The love affair with bicycles started with that first bike continues today, 45+ years later. The only question now is how many more years before I need training wheels again?

This post was written for Scribbit’s Write-Away Contest. Check out the winners and all the stories on Feb. 21st.

… another day older and and deeper in debt …

Happy Birthday to Me
Happy Birthday to Me
I look like a monkey
And live in a tree

blog, mechanics, writing

Why I Blog

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It seems that there are at least as many reasons for blogging as there are bloggers. So why did I choose to start blogging? And why do I continue blogging? It obviously isn’t for fame or fortune.

I started blogging for a very mundane and prosaic reason – I needed to regain my writing skills. In order to understand what I mean, some background is in order. I am the author of more than 150 published articles, papers, nomographs, and a weekly newspaper column. Note that I say am, but that writing was mostly more than 10 years ago. In the past, writing was a natural and easy process for me. I could sit down and my thoughts would flow onto the screen or paper without a thought of the mechanics of the process. When I started to write again recently, I was rusty and it was like pulling teeth to get anything out of my head. What should have been a ten minute task became a two day ordeal. The joy of writing was lost to the struggles within.

I am not what I call a passionate writer. I don’t feel that I have something eating its way out of my brain that *has* to be published and read. I am not even sure what I want to write about until I sit down and do it. All I know is that I want the mechanics of writing to get out of the way so I can engage my mind in the joy of creation and expression.

Like any skill, writing depends on practice and hard work. As my friend the writer says, you have to work at it every day. I know he puts in the requisite hours every day. At the Super Bowl party, he and I had a chance to chat a bit about it. He reads this blog and sometimes comments to me about it. (Yet another of the people who comment in real life and not here.) He also said he had thought from time to time about blogging, but that after the long hours of writing he did each day, he feared he would have a difficult time writing still more for a blog; it would become just another task. (He had a point. If I ever feel that this is a task rather than a joy, it will cease.) The issue here is that practice really does make perfect (or at least ease).

Back in October/November, I made an agreement with myself to write something every day. I promised myself that I would publish daily, no matter what the state of that day’s writing. I also told myself that I would prepare and write any day’s assignment on that day, preferably within 45 minutes of posting it. That way it could not become a long agonizing process. I also made the explicit decision to only give my writing a quick once over in lieu of real proof reading. I wanted to be able to write again, not edit. I have generally followed that plan. You, my dear readers, have had to suffer the occasional misspelling and typo, even the rare sentence fragment. For that, I apologize.

The point of this whole meandering mess? The process is working. It has become easier for me to pick a topic and just write about it. Some of my normal wit (and sarcasm) has started to peek through as the mechanics have moved aside. It has improved enough that some readers have noticed. Even L has noted that my writing is getting much better. And that makes me happy. But what makes me the happiest is that it is becoming a transparent process, free and flowing. Now all I have to do is work on my tendency to wordiness and …

So why do you blog?  Are you on a mission? Are you honing a skill? Do you have something eating its way out of your brain? Are you a Martian?