the day i discovered my orientation

i was in third grade.
i was nine years old.
it was recess.
i was on the playground.
i had just mastered the paper-clip and rubber-band weapon.
i took a shot at jimmy vanbuskirk, who was reloading after a wicked, errant shot he had just launched at me.
unfortunately my paper-clip also went errant, missing jimmy to the left but catching joan peterson in the eye.
she reached for her socket as she bent over startled and sobbing.

(from the files) 863. the international dog trick challenge

a weekend with cousins

i just spent a weekend with some cousins recently.
when it was all over, i was reminded why they were better siblings for me than my own brothers while growing up.
i had fun with them, just like i had with my brothers, except they always went away after a few hours, just before all the sharing became a terrible burden, and the blood-letting commenced.

a major mcdonalds question

we have a mcdonalds that has unlimited refills at its self-serve soda fountain.
do you have one of these near you?
if so, that's good because maybe you can answer this for me.
why do they offer three different cup sizes?
and even more puzzling, why is the largest, most expensive one called the best value?

when i inquired about this unlimited refill versus best value conundrum, the kid behind the counter explained that if i refilled the small one three times and i refilled the supersize three times, i'd get plenty more for my money with the supersize?
i said, oh, i see, the equal number of refills principle.
the kid yawned and said, yeah, something like that.

you see why i'm askin'?
i think the kid is trying to pull a fast one over on me.

(from the blook) field marshall for five hours

i took a personality test for stumbleupon.
not sure why i took it.
probably because i'm just an amicable fellow who follows orders, which is strange because i tested out as a “field marshall", that is, one who likes to give orders.
well, the only thing i can say is: it's about time!
move over mister meek.
here comes the new bob.
and the first thing i'm gonna do is give a few field orders to keaton.
and one of them will have to do with wearing a little french maid number i just mail ordered.
oh baby, let the field marshalling commence!

(fast forward five hours)

my field marshall days were doomed from the get-go.
i had a feeling it was a bad idea.
i seem to recall getting as far as “... ordering french maid num—", when i was struck down by a frozen pork chop (keaton's manstake correction device of choice).
oh well, needless to say, i took the personality test over and over again until i got it right: "best suited to perform household chores happily".
unfortunately, until the little french outfit arrives, i'm forced to vacuum wearing only a speedo with bag over my head.
it's not so bad though.

been worse.

"how's all that hope and change workin' for yeh?"

sarah palin, the puppet-mastress of the tea party, is not very smarticky.
and to tell you the truth, her densicky is becoming boricky.
like her latest winking brilliance, "how's all that hope and change workin' for yeh?"

the answer is, "it's not", of course.

no thanks to the boulders dressed in suits masquerading as republicans.
no thanks to an out-of-control oil assault on the planet by an out-of-control oil industry.
no thanks to alarming unemployment numbers caused by the misdeeds of an unfettered financial industry.
no thanks to endless nation building in a country where you can't even get water to come out of hiding.
no thanks to the two nogoodniks hellbent on running their beloved iran and north korea into nuclear fallout.
no thanks to the shallow shenanigans spawned by the brains of the three high school degreed, chickenhawk stooges: rush, glenn and sean.
no thanks to a big mouth general and his frat brothers.
no thanks to unfair, unbalanced fox and fiends, whose collective memory is short and ideology long known.

and no thanks to sarah, whose rhetoric, lies and misleadership prey upon the kind of red, white and blue fear that only folks who desire their guns and god—as odd a couple as i can imagine—possess.

you see, hope and change never really had a chance.
some of that i place at the feet of obama as the cost of learning on the job.
but the ugliness and resistance that reared swiftly from the loud and stupid to keep the "foreign born, dark socialist" in his place when the man hadn't been in office an hour yet was born from a primal fear of the "other" that one could not have envisioned.

yet all we really have is hope.
and all we can hope for is big change.
but not the sort that this november may bring.
and to think the most fickle among us, with their participation in the history of the moment securely locked away and with it any misplaced guilt, are poised to give this mess back to those who brung it on.

i don't get it.

as bad as things are, we should all be ecstatic that the grumpy old man and alaska annie oakley aren't anywhere near the helm of this broken barge tossing in these swirling seas.
but even more important, this is no time to entertain the thought of handing over the reigns to their old mates.

a couple of three things

1. i watch "so you think you can dance", and as a matter of balance, "so you think you can ultimate fight".
2. my handlers are now letting me do blog interviews (inquiries).
3. i have no handlers really, just benny and andy, who i told could be my handlers because quite frankly i thought the two could use some excitement, except benny immediately called a meeting during which he told me i needed to use capitalist letters to broaden my appeal, to which i reminded him i have no appeal, to which he admitted then there isn't much excitement in all this handling, so andy suggested i do blog interviews and i agreed mostly because my handlers were becoming a handful and i needed to end the meeting so i could get out of benny's garage and get some fresh air.

about goog le trender - george vlosich III

[the first in a series called, "about goog le trender", where bob comments on what's trending in goog le land.]

george vlosich III is an artist.
his medium is etch-a-sketch.
and he's the 3rd no less.
makes me wonder what the 1st and 2nd were up to.
but i don't have to wonder too hard because who cares?
i mean, now that mr. master of his knobs the third has reached google search trending stardom, racing to a volcanic rating in the hot department, what difference does it make what the first and second did, other than pass on some wild outlier genes to number three.

now look, i'm not saying georgie boy there doesn't deserve his props. 
all i could ever do on my etch-a-sketch was draw a picture of a straight line.
so there you go.

he's brilliant.

i mean look how he made these two guys look like best buds.

talk about luck of the birth.

suppose he had been born twenty years earlier.

he would have been stuck making his art out of mr. potato head or maybe porridge for chrissakes.

so here's what i wonder about, besides all the interest in his etches all of a sudden.

what if he has all his art in one show, like in san francisco, like during an earthquake?
what then?

i couple of shakes and wholla!

gone.

tens of dollars of art, erased by nature.

i wouldn't be able to sleep at night if i were georgie.

that's one thing i know.

another thing i know is that old man archie apgar up the road makes sculptures out of cow dung, and he barely comes up on a plain old google search, let alone something as fancy as a google trend buster.

and nothin' for nothin but his sculpture called, "two flowers that don't smell so rosy", ran away with second prize at the municipal fair just a week ago.

not sure mr. sketchy the 3rd would have been able to claim the same, that is if he had the gumption to even enter the cultural extravaganza with his fancy-dan, sand-in-a-box, art tools and all.

i'm afraid he'd quickly discover to be no match for archie, a vision and a fresh meadow muffin.

oh baby, i'm sharpenin' up me makin' money bloggin' skills

for fathers day i received the book "problogger" from my pseudo step daughter, alix.

she's a good egg.

no ... she's a great egg who has to put up with my wandering about the place in plaids and stripes half the time.
anyway, this book she gave me is pretty good.
if it's subtitle, "secrets for blogging your way to a six-figure income", is any indication, it has a lot of promise.
after all, with three figures already stuffed in my bank account from the old fibmercials and scams blog, i'm half way there already.
makes me sort of like the kid in the front row with his hand up all the time.
you know, the kid named albert or penbrook with all the answers already.

so all i'm saying is expect some snappy, commercial things at cranelegs pond in the near future.

possibly a big old bp oil rig right smack in the middle.

get a little something for all my trouble.
something a little more industrious.
like this for instance:

(from the blook) the throes of duffers’ torment

dad (a.k.a., poppy) was a scratch golfer—impressive considering until his mid twenties the only birdie he had ever known was the little one that “told me so” .
in fact, he just shot a 68 the other day, and he’s 75 years old.
but with all the rounds he had played in between, with all the company trophies he had collected, with all the bets he had won, the hole-in-one remained the one elusive achievement he sought in order to complete his rather extraordinary hobby.
a triumph he nearly had given up on.
and in the later years leading up to his eventual hole-in-one, his disdain for lesser golfers grew exponentially, as every monday he read in silent agony the newark star ledgers’s weekly list of new jersey’s newly anointed in gory detail.

he seethed at the wrong clubs selection and the measly distances hit.
he roiled, if they were older … and female … and wheelchaired.
he fast was becoming a truly miserable man—his personal disappoint approaching a water hazard darkness.
that is, until he finally entered the elite club himself a few years back, around his seventieth birthday.

and thank god he did!

for had he not, today would surely have been the day.
the day he would have written an eloquent note of farewell in his best, eighth grade, award winning penmanship, chained himself to his golf bag, and sloshed his lowly life into the murky brown depths of the tenth fairway pond on his beloved mews golf course to drown in golf’s purpose unfulfilled.
for today he would have heard the story of a pennsylvania lady hitting her first hole-in-one on a pond protected green, similar to his own fond tenth.

a blind pennsylvania lady.

a blind pennsylvania lady who had the same chance of making a hole-in-one as a sighted person hitting a ball into the darkness of a new moon night with a blindfold on.
putting aside my suspicions about her feat, since it was only she and her husband playing (and we all know men will do the darnedest things for a chance to have—well, you fill in the blanks), true or not true, the very possibility would have been too much for poppy.

poppy—a man who would have certainly succumbed to the throes of duffers’ torment.

alix is spontaneous (in her mind)

alix (my pseudo step daughter) said, you know i'm anal about being on time to stuff.
i said, you don't say.
she said, i do say, and i have this whole routine i go through to prepare. it's very precise and everything has to be done in order.
i said, um ... um ... um! you go girl with your bad rigid self!

then she said, but don't get me wrong. i can be spontaneous too ... as long as i get three days notice.
that's when it occurred to me even though our thought processes were quickly parting ways, it was in everyone's best interest to leave well enough alone.

bloody orientated

today i made my second trip to the employment center.
i was to be orientated.
this time my fly was zipped and socks matched.
and normally that would be great, except i needed a distraction.

you ever try to take a person seriously who has a fresh, ruby-pulpy gash right smack between the nostrils and upper lip?
possibly from the kind of shaving mishap one might encounter when a six month old lady schick razor gets in the unsteady, heavy hand of a lumberjack with parkinson's?
well, minus the parkinson's part, that's what i did to myself this morning during my usually uneventful clean-up-nicely-before-visiting-the-employment-center process.
anyway, if you are the sort who can barely contain their amusement at such a sight, then you understand why i could have used the distraction.

now i am the distraction down at the old center.
they see me coming, and they scatter faster than marbles in a moving box car.
but i persisted and at least was orientated for my troubles.
bloody orientated but orientated just the same.

and let me just say, now that i'm orientated about my unemployment, i'm expecting big things because i was so not oriental before.
or to politically correctify that, i'm certainly more exotic now, and an exotic bob feels pretty damn fabulous to tell ya the truth.

(from the blook) folding laundry

okay, so i fold laundry.
mostly because the thought of keaton touching the toxic waste i pass off as underpants is much too much for me to manage.
having said that, she has some under apparel (i think) that quite honestly are complete mysteries in oh so many ways.
for instance, there are some stringy items, not sure what they are, that when i fold in half, disappear.
regarding silk intimates—don't like the feel against my guitar-calloused, man fingers.
as for bras, short of collecting all the straps and stuff in the bowls and closing it up like a clam, i'm hopeless to find any folding technique that results in any precise outcome.
and finally, those tops with the built in breastical support and ropes, impossible to figure out.
but give me a pile of big girl cotton panties and i'm your guy—keaton has many of those.

(from the files) 524. an idea man

i fancy myself an idea man.
and when i'm not in the throes of another f-5 brainstorm, sometimes i think about all the ideas i already had that someone else came along and actually made happen.
starbucks, itunes, the two-for-one sale, and dogs named fido to name a few.
the problem is, i just don't have what people in the idea business call, the vision of implementation.
i lack the ability to see how to make the idea come to life.

like right now i've been working on edible pencils, you know, for people who like to chew on wood while capturing their thoughts.
but i can't see how to make the lead, lead-free, and therefore fda approved.
see?
no vision of implementation.
it's killing me!

(well that and maybe the allure of delusion)

just when it can't get worse

so i cleaned myself up real nice, ironed my shirt and pants, and headed off to our local new jersey one-stop employment center to seek out some information and advice about training and re-tooling and cool words like those.

when i entered the center, the first thought i had was how strikingly bleak the whole operation appeared.
the type of bleak encased by dead white cinder-block walls, trodden speckled linoleum floors, and dank stained ceiling tiles—a labyrinth of hallways, signs, notices, posters, arrows, and scattered steel chairs, some holding up crumpled human spirits.
at long last, a waiting room of sorts with a long, listless line and a welcome window, manned by one well meaning, underpaid, one-stop greeter.

so i took my place at the end of the line, wondering about the sad, silent stories surrounding me, assuming all along that as bad as things seemed to me, i was actually pretty fortunate given the vacant vibes of this crowd and place.
that is, until i looked down and saw the blue tail of my button-down oxford poking out my khakis.

do not underestimate the immediate humility attained by the abrupt awareness of a zipper fully disengaged.
i instantly was certain that my thoughts of good fortune were a fleeting and self-absorbed lapse into fantasy.
that those around me were more likely feeling much better about their own lives once i entered the unemployed fray, trumpeting my lowliness for all to see.

and as i pulled and tugged at the traffic jam in my groin to the humoring delight of those nearby, of those receiving cell phone pictures of the same and soon of those watching on youtube, i wondered if possibly this was the abyss.
that this was the bottom of the sink hole in the bottom of my deepest valley.
that there was only one way to go from here and it would be up.
finally.
an end to this depressing descent.

alas, i had every right to the promise of ascent, that is, until i saw my socks—one black, one green.

Bob's version of Curb Your Enthusiasm: "The Tip"

I couldn't help myself. I'll never write for Larry David. So I wrote my own episode starring Keaton and myself. Can I help it if we might carry on like Larry and gang? Oh well, here's the writing humor equivalent of going from painting with fingers to sculpting in marble.

"The Tip" by Bob Crane
(a thirty minute sit-com in search of a camera)

[Click on "The Tip" to read online or download pdf (recommended).]

(from the files) 844. on free speech

i'm a big supporter of free speech, but not for any highbrow reason.
the fact is i have no choice—no one would pay to listen to me anyway.

you too!

"walk down the street to the river and look for the entrance to the path on the right. it follows the river for about two miles. quite beautiful this time of year. that'll be two dollars for the water."
i hand over two dollars, "thanks for the directions."
"no problem. have a great walk."
"you too!"

ever done that?
automatically responded "you too" when it doesn't apply at all?

ever have someone seize upon your injudiciousness by retorting, "oh, i will if by that you mean have greatness in walking back and forth behind this human oven, masqueraded as a deli counter, fetching the icy cold beverage of your choice, while tending to steaming soup and a skin searing griddle all day long, because if that's what you mean, then it never occurred to me to do just that until you suggested it this very moment, pretty much making me feel like such an unappreciative lout all these years without a day off for not knowing how much splendor might be had by this prancing about on my flat feet and shin splints. it even gives me pause to wonder why—what with all this untapped merriment and jollity at my hammer toes becks and calls already— why i should get paid an exorbitant six dollars and hour plus tips left by lesser people than you, with your wonderful zen insights and all. if that's what you mean by "you too" is all i'm sayin', because if that's it, i can't find the right words to express my gratitude of your well wishing."

i haven't ... yet ... but i think the day is comin'.

the today conundrum

i was thinking earlier if today is yesterday's tomorrow and simultaneously tomorrow's yesterday, when is it ever today?
kinda makes me not want to get up in the morning.
i mean after all, what's the point?

job hunting bingo

during my endless job hunting lately, i've been hearing, "you are over-qualified for the position."
to which i respond, "i'd prefer to think of it as i'm extremely qualified and therefore will do a great job for a bargain wage."
to which i hear, "you see? over-qualified people always go overboard by over-stating their case. you see the pattern there."
and i stupidly answer, "it's over?"
to which they announce, "bingo!"

(from the blook) building word power through matches

i was eleven when i happened by the open garage door.
the empty can of paint stripper said, inflammable.
my mind reasoned: hmm ... expensive-inexpensive, correct-incorrect, flammable ... um ... inflammable!
i was prepared to test my newly acquired deductive reasoning skills.

so i took out my matches (in the sixties, eleven year old boys worth their salt always carried a book of matches and their trusty cub scout knife).
i lit a match and placed it to the bubbling paint on the door resting atop two wooden horses (part of mom’s better housekeeping induced, natural wood campaign).
well, it didn’t take long before the door was fully ablaze, and with it any deductive reasoning skills recently acquired.
thanks to mom’s quick thinking to use the garden hose, the garage was saved, and therefore the follow-up wooden spoon beating rather inconsequential.
in", can occasionally mean, "more", as in "more flammable than the surface of the sun".
it defies deductive thought quite honestly—more likely some kind of adult trick to keep kids on their toes.

and to think this important building-word-power lesson was the result of my ever present book of matches—a rather hollow benefit of some good thinking given the particular word in question and resulting outcome.

a few thoughts on the mess

i was watching morning joe being broadcasted from the pristine white beaches of pensicola when it struck me, they have it all wrong.
rather than protecting the beaches from oil, we should be channeling the oil to the beaches.
they are a natural filtration system.
we should use them, not avoid them.
all i hear is how much easier it is to collect the oil off the sand.
but all i see is a mad rush to insulate the beaches from doing just that.
i don't get it.
well, actually i do.
save the tourism business—reminiscent of the short-sighted logic used to keep the beaches open in the movie, jaws.
and we all know how that turned out.
this will make jaws look like a helpless crude covered guppy when it's all over.

look, we have the makings for the mother of all disasters bubbling away in the gulf.
use the beaches.
they are the only tool in the natural arsenal.
they will recover.
tourism will recover.

what won't recover is this crowded planet, if that eco-system dies.
and every day it is subjected to this tar terrorism, is a day closer to its last blue breath.

use the beaches.
stop drilling.
make alternatives the only-tives.
now.
and maybe, just maybe, this planet we have assaulted will forgive us.

(from the files) 527. blue screen of death

keaton wandered into the kitchen and mumbled, "um ... i was just downloading that new james blunt song on bearshare when i got the blue screen of death on your computer upstairs."

a jolt from my brain stem to my toes ripped though my nervous system, wiggling my little left toe, which hasn't moved on its own since 1997.
my thoughts about mr. blunt's music would have to be put on pause—with a little luck there would be time for that later.
my instinct to wince would have to wait as well.
it was not the moment to show weakness.
so i reached deep inside, and with a knotted calm etched across my face, i said, "no problem. i'll take a look."

i promptly laid the dish towel wrapped around my shoulder across the black marble counter top, aligning it perfectly to the edge of the sink.
then i set the pot i was rinsing upside down upon it to dry.
i removed my pastel blue man apron and proceeded to fold it like a coffin flag in precise military fashion, placing it squarely atop the overturned pot.
my brow curled as i stared into the blank abyss of the counter.
i took a measured breath as i placed both hands equally apart on the edge of the cold stone.
i knew what was coming and that it had to be done.
i pushed myself away from the sink to retrieve my special crucifix and boot backup diskette reserved for such matters, and ascended the stairs to the remote room in the back corner, where i write this stuff for a nonliving.
the blue screen of death—no laughing matter.
it surely called for an operating system exorcism.

i paused before the heaving devil's door, pulsating blue radiance oozing through the gaps in the frame, bowed from decades of settling.
i took one last deep breath, as i looked down at my trusty boot diskette in one hand and jesus in the other.
they were all i had.
they would have to work.
to be sure, i made jesus kiss the diskette by touching his sad plastic lips to its underbelly.

i thought, should i survive casting this pc demon asunder, there would be some esplainin' to do lucy—plenty of it.
the truth is, there is no room for the blue screen of death in an otherwise civil relationship.
keaton would have to clean up her dangerous, wayward, peer-to-peer downloading ways as thoroughly as i cleaned up after a messy vegan pasta dinner.

and with that in mind, it was time.
holding the cross and boot diskette in front of me i entered screaming, "in the name of our lord jesus christ, it is he who commands you! it is he who flung you from the pearly bill gates of heaven to the dark depths of hell because you partook of the forbidden apple! and now with this holy boot cd, in the name of jesus h. christ, i repel you!"

(even an everyday agnostic like me can get all catholicky when in the throes of the blue death screen!)

(from the archives) 127. driving with ma

many years ago, near the end of ma's driving career, i was a passenger.
i asked, ma why don't you use the rearview mirror?
she replied, you mean the makeup mirror?
i said, whatever you want to call it. but you might want to use it occasionally to see the mayhem you've created behind you.
she said, never look back bobby, only look ahead.
i said, but ma we're talking about driving a car here, not some sort of tony robbins dumb view on a winning life.
she said, cars! life! tony! it's all about what's ahead bobby! about what stands before you! not what you can't see behind you!

then i thought, if ever there was a time when "what's the use" applied, this was about as good as any.

my purpose driven life

my brother rick's annual bass tournament for his fellow jazz musicians, neighbors, friends, brothers, and daughter suitors was held yesterday.
and what a splendid day on the lake ... nearly ruined.
high hopes to see my name grace the bronze plate on the prestigious lunker cup were dashed without so much as a nibble in the first hours of competition.
a partial recap, if i may:
three newly purchased rattle-trap lures snapped free from my casts, probavly still orbiting earth as i write.
two rubber, liberace-speckled, lizard beauties wrapped around a high wire for all to see.
and one, as rick fondly called it, "phony las vegas worm" impaled on a sunken tree branch some ten feet below the surface.

but it wasn't a total loss.

(from the files) 441. perching

on saturdays keaton and i like to take our morning coffee to the loft and perch in the bed with our yellow lab.
and when it rains like this morning, well, the perching is just grand.
we pretty much rant and rave, and bad mouth anyone and everyone.
it’s a weekend cleansing of sorts.
during this latest perchment, we talked about systems of oppression, and the clash between the american dream and the limits of resources.
holy cow, we really know how to have fun.
later i plan to hammer tacks into my eyes.

oh boy, so much joy is almost criminal.

(from the files) 161. two things i pay attention to

first, i pay close attention to an agitated keaton when she has a frozen pork chop in her mitts, and second, my bleeding nose, if i didn’t do such a good job on the first.

the most fulfilling of times

since i'm a firm believer in woody allen's view that there are two types of people in the world, the miserable and the truly miserable, i'd have to say that we are living in the most fulfilling of times right now.

about olive oyl

i have it on good sources that popeye's olive oyl wasn't ... how can i say this ... um ... wasn't extra virgyn.

how to meet a vegan halfway, so to speak

in my attempt to meet keaton half way on this vegan kick she's on (no pun intended), i've discovered a veggie burger made out of ground sirloin from cows fed only grass and spinach.
keaton claims it's a hamburger just the same but i beg to differ.
it's a meaggie burger if it's anything.
and nothin' for nothin' it's chock full of wholesome goodness.
the kind only 500 calories of trans fat can bring you.
and the best part is, it actually tastes better than a real veggie burger.
hard to imagine i know, but true nevertheless.

[you know, this vegetarian stuff isn't all that bad really.
you just have to know how to approach it.
that's all i'm sayin'.]

(from the files) 773. those french!

well i did it anyway!
against all warnings from benny and andy not to.
i mean, come on, this nonsense about the french hating us and all.
it's just a bunch of ... well ... horsepucky if i may.

so i set my gps system to the sexy french woman, julienne.

what the heck.
i knew where i was going.
i had a week of french in high school.
besides, i could pretend what it might be like to be married to a french woman, giving me all those directions in that sexy french language.
might even make the whole driving experience more tolerable.

well, let me tell ya something.

those french hate us for sure.
i couldn't believe it.
i'm not five feet from the house when she starts in on me, making up directions that loosely translated to, "turn 100 meters ahead at the camel tongue and put your finger in the nut jar."
and when i don't turn in a hundred meters, she starts screaming, "tournez-vous baisant l'idiot américain!" (rough translation, "turn you f%cking american idiot!")
i'm like yelling back, "no way! ya piece of poodle pooh-pay!"
next thing ya know we're screaming at each other real good until i can't take it no more and pull over and toss her out the door and tell her she can walk her french butt home, that is if she had any legs, the freakin' legless piece of gps!

really!
what's up with that?
they have a real bug up their maps.

and nothin' for nothin' but as it turns out, keaton's way sexier anyway—even when she's sleeping with her head against the passenger window, drooling a river!
even then mind you!

the happy/unhappy breakdown

i was trying to calculate the happy/unhappy percentages of my life so far.
i'm fairly certain it amounts to 43% happy, 38% unhappy and 29% don't know (i.e., sleeping).
i know that adds up to 110%, but that's what i'd like to believe i give most of the time.

at first through third glance, those percentages are nothing to write home about, but at fourth glance, they start to look much better.
truthfully, a big portion of that unhappy was from high school, which is a distant memory, as long as i stay away from reunions.
so it's not as bad as it might seem.
it includes two divorces too, which is going to add a quick 18% to anyone's unhappy count.
i mean look at larry king if you want proof.
he may be the most divorced, unhappy person alive.
he's so unhappy, he's sorta dead really.
that's my read anyway.

you know, maybe i could write home about this after all.
except i'm not sure the folks would understand why i'm writing, when a simple email would certainly do.
they're old fashion that way.

the waiting room

keaton is in an outpatient surgery center having her shoulder worked over to remove bone spurs.
in the meantime, i'm sitting in the far corner of the waiting room like shane.
my back is up against the wall where i can discreetly observe the others in the event a situation develops and i have to jump into action.
(i'm in secret agent mode in case you haven't guessed)
i've sized up the combative nature of this group and other than one rather stocky marine drill sergeant type, the others i can take out, given they limp at me in single file.
as for sarge over there, i think i can get to the coat rack and lodge into his wheel chair, essentially immobilizing him while i take care of the rest.

for the moment all is calm.
but they are all watching fox news, and i'm not sure how much longer i can take it until i ask to switch channels.
that may be the spark that explodes this timber box.
i need to hang in there.
take it a minute at a time.
think about good things.
cover my ears and repeat, "la, la, la, la ..."
maybe i should just leave while the gettin's good.
keaton should walk the sixteen miles home anyway.
probably do her a world of good.

boy, i don't know, but being in secret agent mode sure carries with it the burden of swift decision making and crisp death blow execution.
it's not for everyone, that's for sure.
you have to have the steely resolve of a jackal with the deadly grace of a jaguar.
and if i've revealed anything about my nature it has been that i employ both quite innately.
or so i must imagine anyway, when i'm in secret agent mode.