974. bob gets caught at the airport

okay, so i had too much cabbage the night before my departure from ireland.
how was i suppose to know they used heat sensing scanners at security?
the only thing i can say, they was silent ... and they was deadly.

973. the shipyard dog

keaton and i hopped out of the car to begin a 3.5 mile walk just a stones throw east of the small town of ballydehob.
the walk started at a shipyard, and curled around the nob of a small peninsula.
up hills and through pastures with mindful views throughout.
like all the other walks in every way.
except this time we had the pleasure of being accompanied by a four legged guide.

as we made our way around the first bend in the road, here he came.
he quietly walked up to us, sniffed our knees and carried on ahead.
the entire walk.
all 3.5 miles.
sometimes behind us.
sometimes along side.
but mostly in front.
and always making that next choice for us when we came upon a fork or crossroad that required a decision.

he didn't speak much.

but he was a busy little guy.

at one point we were faced with a rather large herd of hefty heifers coming up the road.

our guide walked through the open gate that led to the field the cows were clamoring towards, where we can only imagine he helped the farmer shepherd them to their final grazing place.

we pressed on without him, making a few turns here and there along the way.

and soon enough, here he came.

marking his spots at every chance.

as quietly competent a canine as ever there was.

and when we arrived back at the car, off he pranced to the shipyard from where he came.

no paw out for a tip or a treat.

just another job well done.

the people we met were great but when the dogs are even first class, you start to wonder what's in the water.

972. either perfect or brilliant

what i miss most about ireland is that everyone thought i was either perfect or brilliant.

bartender: and what will you have?
me: i'll take a pint of guinness.
bartender: perfect!
(three minutes later)
bartender: another guinness there?
me: no, let me try a murphy's.
bartender: brilliant!

either perfect or brilliant.
all the time.
everywhere.
i know keaton heard them tell me too.
and do you think she might just show me a little acknowledgement?
nooooo!

(maybe she's just plain awe struck. i do that to people you know.)

971. an irish home, a front view and a kitchen view

an irish home

a view from the front

a view from the kitchen

i think i figured out why the irish drive so fast.
it is to get home, pour a cup of tea and smile with the earth.

970. safe and not sound

"you take the high road and i'll take the low road and we'll both be dead by the morning."
i think that's how the song goes.
and if it isn't, it should.

well we made it to our destination but i'm certain i shortened keaton's life by three years and mine by seventeen.
it was a recipe for disaster.
no sleep for 24 hours.
a car with the zest of a three legged cow.
a steering wheel in the front passenger seat.
200 miles on the contrarian side of the road.
two lane country roads the width of a driveway.
in town roads the width of sidewalks.
insane speeds nearing light.
people in a rush to somewhere.
rain.
93 roundabouts.
and keaton, a demonstrative passenger caught in a four hour keystone cop chase.
in short, i will never, ever speak unkindly of new york city cabs again.

i can tell you first hand, the path to hell may be paved in gold but the path to heaven is paved through hedges and brimstone.
i am shaking just thinking about it.
almost killed us five minutes into the drive, which didn't bode well for the remaining three hours and harrowing fifty five minutes.
but somehow we made it.
and i only clipped one mirror in route.

i do not recall any scenery from the ride.
keaton tells me it was quite beautiful.
i wouldn't know.
my knuckles actually broke through my skin and the bleeding was distracting.

however, now that i'm out of the car, the place is something out of middle earth.
i half expect to see frodo baggins come over the heathered hills behind our abode.
pictures will be forthcoming, i swear.
it's just that they are all blurred from the shaking.
some ex-pat we met at a food festival today said my condition would subside in another day or so, and i'd soon see the folly of my old driving ways.

anyway, i'm on my second guinness and third prozac right this moment.
so i'm feeling a little nick nolticky.
stayed tu...

969. blogging from ireland

keaton and i are heading off to ireland.
never been there.
keaton has been there a few times.
i'm not irish but my son is 50%, which i think entitles me to be 25% pseudo irish, which i plan to take advantage of.

been working on two things in preparation:
1. i've been driving on the opposite side of the road and through circles the opposite way to practice. it was suggested by benny and seemed like a good idea but frankly the tickets are starting to pile up.
2. i've been practicing my pseudo irish brogue. it needs work though. keaton says i sound more like pseudo ramesh patel, who honestly doesn't sound very irish.

anyway, i'll be snappin' photos and bloggin' beginning sunday.
so stay tuned.
and if any of you have "must see" suggests, please do tell.

until then:
"may the road rise up to meet you.
may the wind always be at your back.
may the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
(except for lightly.)"

just kidding there big fella!

blogger's block

deleted because lightly is right.
(see comment)

(from the files) September 11th, 2001: A Troubling Metaphor

At the time I watched the towers crumble from the sudden strike of the previously unimagined, I did not realize I was watching a metaphor for the great promise their soaring human achievement beaconed to the world. It is five years later, and I see the vast optimism our nation once promised the world at the tipping point.

In the day’s wake, we have strayed from a nation united with others, to a nation on the brink of wandering a lonely, isolated trail. And a great many of us don’t seem to mind. “Pre-emption is our prerogative.” “Shoot now. Ask questions later.” We no longer care how our actions, right or wrong, are embraced by the greater world. Just get out of our entitled way.

At the same time, we have slowly tightened the noose around the neck of our freedoms—willingly. “I have nothing to hide. Go ahead. Spy on me as you see fit.” It is the least we can do when under siege by the invisible—give up freedoms so that liberty might endure.

Nineteen men, a simple plan executed, five years later, and a great power is floundering. It lurches along a “war” unguided, left virtually alone to attend to a civil mess of massive proportions with no way out and of our own creation. The plan appears to unapologetically embrace the low road at every turn, rebuking every moral departure point for the chance to wrestle in the mud.

Five years later and all we have to show for all of this is a government in political stalemate. Rather than dialogue about how we conduct “the war” or how we improve our vigilance, our partisan leadership debates whether horses should be sold for human consumption, argues about the definition of marriage, writes amendments on burning the flag. And we, the people, don’t seem to care.

What has happened to us? It is as if we are the towers ablaze. Soon to buckle and collapse from the searing heat of 9/11—a white-hot heat that continues to melt the steel-like principles that made us what we were on 9/10/2001.

We talk about not being attacked again since. Some say it’s the result of policy. Some say it’s the result of luck. I think it may be that the first attack is far from over yet, that it continues to burn in ways still unimagined, that it hasn’t run its full course.

I worry that if we do not re-embrace the grand values the rest of the world once rested its dreams on, that one attack—nineteen men and a simple plan—will be, in the end, all it took.

The beacon that once illuminated a better way, is weakening fast, and like the towers, soon to crumple. The consequences of that should haunt us all.

[author's comment: It has been three years since I wrote this, and we are still scrambling: Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, economic collapse and now internal fighting much greater than a democratic family squabble. For god's sake, we are only now beginning to fill the hole in the ground where the towers once stood.]

967. a rupture in the 12/21/2012 rapture!

all this talk about the end of the world on december 21, 2012.
well i'm about to rupture the rapture folks.
big time.
all you have to do is look in your spam folder.
i have a boatload of emails from the future, specifically 2038, and let me tell you.
men will still need enhancement.
women will still have a secret weight loss program.
and i personally will be the object of a zillion hot babes' fling desire.
oh baby!

so good riddance 12.21.12 and all your "end of days" rabble-rousing!

966. a bird afraid of heights

this is why i panic about coming back in another life as an animal of some sort.
i just know that if god has a hand in it, he will send me back as a bird.
mainly because i'm a fraid of heights and he likes to have dominion levity as payback from time to time.
and he'd probably make me a canada goose at that.
they fly high and often.
i wouldn't be able to do it.
i'd have to forego the "v" and walk the migration.
and have you ever watched them walk.
walk isn't even a word that describes it.
it's a waddle really, and a pigeon toed one to boot.
a pigeon toed goose afraid of heights.
what a mess.

maybe there's time to turn in my agnostic ways for some kind of guarantee.
i'd take a hippo right about now.
anything land loving really.

965. the last mile

i just did the calculations and i'm on the last mile of this little marathon run of 1000 posts in three years.
my fingers are feeling pretty, pretty good, and i have written through the wall a while back but i'm beginning to hallucinate.
in fact i think i see mama cass way off in the distance and she's calling like a beached whale siren.
she's like a big bright beacon and she's singing, "now his posts are brown, and the guy is gray."
she's singing to me!
i must write into the light.
i'm coming mama!
"blogginforya dreamin' in such a dimwit's way!"

964. a really bad day for keaton

(as i matter of full disclosure, i obtained keaton's permission to share this with you. you will understand why this is important soon enough.)

keaton walked through the front door looking unusually forlorn.
her shoulders drooped, her back curled and the corners of her mouth frowned.
i asked, okay, what's wrong? another long day of dumb meetings?
she said, no!
i persisted, did your boss yell at you?
she sighed, no.
i tried one last time, well you look like you're about to die. what happened?
she said, i had camel-toe all day long.

i had to think about what she said.
and when it finally settled in, i wasn't sure what to say.
so i began to nervously laugh and talk at the same time.
i chuckled, oh no! not that! are you sure?
she said, take a look for yourself.
i sheepishly looked down, i mean it's not every day one gets such an offer.
and wow!
she had a very bad day indeed!
just gut wrenching.

and it was precisely at that moment when my mind raced to ask her how long she thought she could go without water, when a stroke of uncommon common sense overcame my urge to perform what would have proven to be a monumental manstake.

so i poured her a glass of wine instead.