Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Fall Art Walk
Calling all Rodney Street neighborhood or the vicinity writers for a night of readings at the Rodney Street Laundry and Jailhouse Sandwich Shop & Soup Kitchen. The laundromat and other neighborhood landmarks have joined in on the 24th Annual Downtown Helena Fall Art Walk on Friday, November 9, from 6 to 10pm. During the evening, we will have readings every thirty minutes as well as tasty refreshments and an exhibit of visual art from neighborhood artitsts. Please let me know if you are willing to read something. Pull out something old, try out something new, just have fun with it. Can't find a better "crowd" (there isn't a lot of room for the masses) to rise to the occassion and give it a go. The rest of you Helenans be sure and put the laundromat on your walking list.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
HOW DID IT GET TO BE FALL?
Saturday, September 29, 2007
I’m sitting in the Seattle-Tacoma Airport in a semi-quiet spot with floor to ceiling windows looking out on the gray puffy cloud-filled sky. It looks like I could reach out and ring the water from one of them.
Traveling is always a bit disorienting especially when the trip is fast-paced and packed from start to finish and the flight path is crisscrossed. I booked the flight with American Advantage miles, which was good for the pocketbook but not for direct travel. For starters, American doesn’t fly to Montana. With mileage points though they allowed me to hook up through Alaska Air’s Horizon Air. There aren’t many of those flights out of Helena so I took what I could get: 6:10am to Seattle (one stop in Great Falls that didn’t require getting off but did require moving to my assigned seat and losing my sleeping berth). Then was the painful 7-hour layover before I could catch a flight to Dallas. Two things Sea-Tac Airport has going for it: (1) there is a great place for chair and foot massage that is very rejuvenating especially when one has had only 4 ½ hours of sleep and (2) the bathroom stall doors open outward so you don’t have to squish in your bag and yourself into the stall, work around the door to turn around and get it shut before doing one’s business. Someone thought that one through. Probably an architect with a hell of a long layover somewhere.
Thirty-six hours after arriving in Dallas –just long enough to miss the turn off at Lewisville and almost go to Mckinney rather than Denton and still have some time to sleep once I backtracked and got to the right destination-- I caught a quick flight on Southwest Airlines (my favorite) to Houston and the day after that I drove the 3 1/2 hours to San Antonio. Now coming back a week later, I had it easy this morning with an 11:10 departure from San Antonio, quick changeover in Dallas, and then nice flight to Seattle where I now have five hours before I board for Helena. I love flying and traveling but as I gain in minutes and years, it seems to take longer for my soul/life-force/innards to catch up with my body. Hopefully that will happen tomorrow, Sunday, when I get some time to stare into space –not that I’m not doing that now but it looks like I’m focusing on the computer screen.
I was in Texas to promote my San Antonio book, It Happened in San Antonio (on sale at the Alamo Gift Shop, your local bookstore, and online). I had an excellent book signing at the Twig Bookshop, a brief news radio interview, and two nerve-racking 30-minute taped radio shows. Nerve-racking because prior to I felt like I was preparing for a pop quiz on my book that led me to reading the book in the style of cramming for finals the night before. Hal, father of my friend Elaine and publicist of mine, told me after the second taping that I had a thorough knowledge of my subject and that I’d be surprised at how many authors didn’t know their material. I wasn’t surprised at all but felt that a bit of grace/luck/willfulness had gotten me through by the skin of my teeth. In an earlier conversation he told me about a book entitled Fiction Writers are Liars and Thieves, which made me feel justified in whatever I said, true or false, even though I do write non-fiction.
Hal has his own recording status, he makes tapes reading Hank the Cowdog books (on #49) out loud for a radio and reading program. Kids that have trouble reading can listen to Hal/Hank while they follow along on the page. Sounds like a great program to me and Hal with his perfect Texas accent I’m positive makes Hank and the gang come alive.
Hal, my mother and I got to the second taping about an hour early, which didn’t help my nerves any, but when the radio personality (Ron Aaron) arrived with a giant black Great Dane named Eloise by his side I decided that it wouldn’t be so bad after all. Hal asked what kind of dog Eloise was and Ron answered, “A Texas Chihuahua.” An answer even Emma would have thought funny and she’s known some of the smaller variety Chihuahuas. Later when one of our party went to the restroom, Ron said, “Oh, did he stop at the sandbox.” Ron is the executive director of the Animal Defense League of TX, a no-kill non-profit shelter that right now has about 400 dogs and cats (go to their website, the dogs all look happy and the cats coy). Hal, my mother, Ron, Eloise, and I boarded the elevator and went up to the studio and while Eloise circled around, Ron and some others gathered up equipment and another chair. The chair part caught my attention because there was already one and they were only getting another and there were three of us humans. There wasn’t a chair by Ron’s control panel either. He came back and said that I would be standing because that makes for better radio. Since he didn’t have a chair I figured he wasn’t pulling my leg. So I stood with a huge microphone in my mouth, Eloise bedded down behind me, and Ron doing his introduction. My cheat-note book out of sight behind the microphone, I swallowed hard and dove in. I had been comforted by the “taped” part of the interviews, however I found out that it just meant it wasn’t live right then but the taping wasn’t for the purpose of editing. It was The Deal. The morning taping went well but I could refer to my book and find snip-its. The second with Ron was more of an overview of the book and a discussion of San Antonio, also more banter, kind of like a non-competitive but still speed-ball ping pong match. He told me that the recording went right to the hard drive so that if I made a mistake to correct myself right then. Only choice was to jump in, hope the thoughts/answers came, and in a timely fashion. They did and I had a fine time even when Ron asked how I knew the story I had just told was true. I answered, “How do you know it wasn’t.” I got to bring in my alma mater Davy Crockett Junior High and our mascot The Pioneers and he got in a “Go Pioneers.” I also got in a plug for the Myrna Loy Center and, of course, the Rodney Street Laundry and Jailhouse Sandwich Shop & Soup Kitchen. I broke up the laundry and sandwich shop name as one must be succinct on the radio (so I was coached). It was a good day all around. The radio shows play Sunday morning (September 30th) on “Community Closeup” at KCYY-FM with Chrissie Murnin and “Talk San Antonio” on KAJA-FM with Ron Aaron. I won’t be tuning in. My voice never sounds the same on the outside as it does in my head and listening to a tape scares me.
I had been worried about sounding Texan enough but felt prepared after the flight from Seattle to Dallas with all those Dallasites and then one trip to the grocery store pretty much got me set. However after the second interview I asked my mother if I sounded Texan. She said, “No but you were well-spoken.” I don’t think she meant to imply that the two are mutually exclusive.
Side note/Wish I had a picture: As Hal and I were driving to the first interview, we passed a fast food restaurant with two drive-thru lanes: one for DONUTS, the other for TACOS.
In my last post I wrote about various different ways to define seasons. Soon after that the seasons began to divide and multiply. Summer-Montana is Heaven sub-divided into June Heaven with Precipitation and Chance to Stay Cool, July Hot-as-TX Summer-without-AC & Severe Drought Season, and August Fire and Smoke Season. And my personal seasons were June Visitors, July Buy a House via Email/Phone for Brother and Sister-in-Law, August New York City and Virginia Beach Trip to Unrealistic Redo New House in Seven Weeks with Laptop Hard Drive Crash, Diverticulitis Bout and Red Dots. The August season blended into the September season with the Redo and the final move into the redo-in-process house on the 10th. I now live on Butte Avenue (for those not familiar with MT cities, Butte rhymes with “cute”…really, no jokes). My neighbors include a small herd of deer, couple of rabbits, and graffiti tagger. The last week of August, some youngster tagged the house with the signature “Unknown.” It was funny at first because that was the last thing I expected to happen in Helena, my house to be signed in Sharpie permanent ink. When I had to clean it off, I wanted to ring the child’s neck. I figured that it wouldn’t take much to identify the tagger. I thought about stopping kids on the street to ask if they were at-risk youths or, simply, if they had a Sharpie I could borrow. I wondered for a bit if maybe the culprit was a disenfranchised buck (of the hooved kind) with pen rubber-banded to his antlers –the city has planned to bring in sharpshooters to cut down on the deer population. If I were a deer, I would feel at risk AND disenfranchised and take to scribbling to extinction. I gave up ID-ing the tagger and worked on cleaning the graffiti off the house. For future reference, paint thinner, TSP cleaner, and electric sanders do not take permanent ink off, they mostly make the wall cleaner and the tag stand out more. Also, it is hard to match up paint from a 500 year old paint can found in the Pulp Fiction-like basement even if it is the paint on the house. My mother was the last person I would think of as being the source for graffiti removal products but she faithfully reads the Happy Handyman column in the Houston Chronicle and remembered a product that cleans graffiti right off. Our Ace Hardware didn’t have that particular product but did have another one. With a good spray application and a hard scrub the tag came off. A few weeks later some high school informants told me that there was a girl going around tagging houses with “Unknown.” A girl-pioneer-tagger…I still want to ring her neck. The police officer that I talked to said that there was a gang in the area named the “No Browns” but if he was taking it from the tag, he was on the wrong track. And what kind of name is No Browns for a gang in a state with a population 92% white. Their goal is racist AND flimsy.
Just after the graffiti incident I got sick and had to have a round of antibiotics that I then had an allergic reaction to. Red dots started appearing on my stomach. I thought about connecting the dots to see if it made a shape or word but was afraid that the “Unknown” tag would emerge.
A special note about the new house, Emma shares the yard with three cats that live in the guesthouse (a tiny rental house) in the backyard. One in particular is Emma’s new best friend and food supplier. The cat is a successful hunter and as cats do, he brings the dead prey back to the yard and home base. Emma then has endless cat-roadkill treats to look forward to. She’s a happy dog even if she has feathers stuck between her teeth.
I left off my July posting with the promise of Part II and Part III. Now there are more Parts than can be counted, it’s been such a full summer. I do remember though what Parts II and III were going to be about: II was about crashing the free, Willie Nelson concert in Choteau with sister-in-law Kelly and III was about taking the Nia White Belt Intensive Training to become a certified Nia dance teacher. I’m adding a post below that tells the Willie Nelson close-up adventure story in pictures as well as two other photo essays: SHOUT goes on vacation and Emma’s Dog Days of Summer. I’ll start my teaching-Nia escapades in posts-to-come as I’ve set a goal to teach my first official class on Tuesday, December 4th. After doing radio with Eloise, I’m up for (almost) anything.
I’m sitting in the Seattle-Tacoma Airport in a semi-quiet spot with floor to ceiling windows looking out on the gray puffy cloud-filled sky. It looks like I could reach out and ring the water from one of them.
Traveling is always a bit disorienting especially when the trip is fast-paced and packed from start to finish and the flight path is crisscrossed. I booked the flight with American Advantage miles, which was good for the pocketbook but not for direct travel. For starters, American doesn’t fly to Montana. With mileage points though they allowed me to hook up through Alaska Air’s Horizon Air. There aren’t many of those flights out of Helena so I took what I could get: 6:10am to Seattle (one stop in Great Falls that didn’t require getting off but did require moving to my assigned seat and losing my sleeping berth). Then was the painful 7-hour layover before I could catch a flight to Dallas. Two things Sea-Tac Airport has going for it: (1) there is a great place for chair and foot massage that is very rejuvenating especially when one has had only 4 ½ hours of sleep and (2) the bathroom stall doors open outward so you don’t have to squish in your bag and yourself into the stall, work around the door to turn around and get it shut before doing one’s business. Someone thought that one through. Probably an architect with a hell of a long layover somewhere.
Thirty-six hours after arriving in Dallas –just long enough to miss the turn off at Lewisville and almost go to Mckinney rather than Denton and still have some time to sleep once I backtracked and got to the right destination-- I caught a quick flight on Southwest Airlines (my favorite) to Houston and the day after that I drove the 3 1/2 hours to San Antonio. Now coming back a week later, I had it easy this morning with an 11:10 departure from San Antonio, quick changeover in Dallas, and then nice flight to Seattle where I now have five hours before I board for Helena. I love flying and traveling but as I gain in minutes and years, it seems to take longer for my soul/life-force/innards to catch up with my body. Hopefully that will happen tomorrow, Sunday, when I get some time to stare into space –not that I’m not doing that now but it looks like I’m focusing on the computer screen.
I was in Texas to promote my San Antonio book, It Happened in San Antonio (on sale at the Alamo Gift Shop, your local bookstore, and online). I had an excellent book signing at the Twig Bookshop, a brief news radio interview, and two nerve-racking 30-minute taped radio shows. Nerve-racking because prior to I felt like I was preparing for a pop quiz on my book that led me to reading the book in the style of cramming for finals the night before. Hal, father of my friend Elaine and publicist of mine, told me after the second taping that I had a thorough knowledge of my subject and that I’d be surprised at how many authors didn’t know their material. I wasn’t surprised at all but felt that a bit of grace/luck/willfulness had gotten me through by the skin of my teeth. In an earlier conversation he told me about a book entitled Fiction Writers are Liars and Thieves, which made me feel justified in whatever I said, true or false, even though I do write non-fiction.
Hal has his own recording status, he makes tapes reading Hank the Cowdog books (on #49) out loud for a radio and reading program. Kids that have trouble reading can listen to Hal/Hank while they follow along on the page. Sounds like a great program to me and Hal with his perfect Texas accent I’m positive makes Hank and the gang come alive.
Hal, my mother and I got to the second taping about an hour early, which didn’t help my nerves any, but when the radio personality (Ron Aaron) arrived with a giant black Great Dane named Eloise by his side I decided that it wouldn’t be so bad after all. Hal asked what kind of dog Eloise was and Ron answered, “A Texas Chihuahua.” An answer even Emma would have thought funny and she’s known some of the smaller variety Chihuahuas. Later when one of our party went to the restroom, Ron said, “Oh, did he stop at the sandbox.” Ron is the executive director of the Animal Defense League of TX, a no-kill non-profit shelter that right now has about 400 dogs and cats (go to their website, the dogs all look happy and the cats coy). Hal, my mother, Ron, Eloise, and I boarded the elevator and went up to the studio and while Eloise circled around, Ron and some others gathered up equipment and another chair. The chair part caught my attention because there was already one and they were only getting another and there were three of us humans. There wasn’t a chair by Ron’s control panel either. He came back and said that I would be standing because that makes for better radio. Since he didn’t have a chair I figured he wasn’t pulling my leg. So I stood with a huge microphone in my mouth, Eloise bedded down behind me, and Ron doing his introduction. My cheat-note book out of sight behind the microphone, I swallowed hard and dove in. I had been comforted by the “taped” part of the interviews, however I found out that it just meant it wasn’t live right then but the taping wasn’t for the purpose of editing. It was The Deal. The morning taping went well but I could refer to my book and find snip-its. The second with Ron was more of an overview of the book and a discussion of San Antonio, also more banter, kind of like a non-competitive but still speed-ball ping pong match. He told me that the recording went right to the hard drive so that if I made a mistake to correct myself right then. Only choice was to jump in, hope the thoughts/answers came, and in a timely fashion. They did and I had a fine time even when Ron asked how I knew the story I had just told was true. I answered, “How do you know it wasn’t.” I got to bring in my alma mater Davy Crockett Junior High and our mascot The Pioneers and he got in a “Go Pioneers.” I also got in a plug for the Myrna Loy Center and, of course, the Rodney Street Laundry and Jailhouse Sandwich Shop & Soup Kitchen. I broke up the laundry and sandwich shop name as one must be succinct on the radio (so I was coached). It was a good day all around. The radio shows play Sunday morning (September 30th) on “Community Closeup” at KCYY-FM with Chrissie Murnin and “Talk San Antonio” on KAJA-FM with Ron Aaron. I won’t be tuning in. My voice never sounds the same on the outside as it does in my head and listening to a tape scares me.
I had been worried about sounding Texan enough but felt prepared after the flight from Seattle to Dallas with all those Dallasites and then one trip to the grocery store pretty much got me set. However after the second interview I asked my mother if I sounded Texan. She said, “No but you were well-spoken.” I don’t think she meant to imply that the two are mutually exclusive.
Side note/Wish I had a picture: As Hal and I were driving to the first interview, we passed a fast food restaurant with two drive-thru lanes: one for DONUTS, the other for TACOS.
In my last post I wrote about various different ways to define seasons. Soon after that the seasons began to divide and multiply. Summer-Montana is Heaven sub-divided into June Heaven with Precipitation and Chance to Stay Cool, July Hot-as-TX Summer-without-AC & Severe Drought Season, and August Fire and Smoke Season. And my personal seasons were June Visitors, July Buy a House via Email/Phone for Brother and Sister-in-Law, August New York City and Virginia Beach Trip to Unrealistic Redo New House in Seven Weeks with Laptop Hard Drive Crash, Diverticulitis Bout and Red Dots. The August season blended into the September season with the Redo and the final move into the redo-in-process house on the 10th. I now live on Butte Avenue (for those not familiar with MT cities, Butte rhymes with “cute”…really, no jokes). My neighbors include a small herd of deer, couple of rabbits, and graffiti tagger. The last week of August, some youngster tagged the house with the signature “Unknown.” It was funny at first because that was the last thing I expected to happen in Helena, my house to be signed in Sharpie permanent ink. When I had to clean it off, I wanted to ring the child’s neck. I figured that it wouldn’t take much to identify the tagger. I thought about stopping kids on the street to ask if they were at-risk youths or, simply, if they had a Sharpie I could borrow. I wondered for a bit if maybe the culprit was a disenfranchised buck (of the hooved kind) with pen rubber-banded to his antlers –the city has planned to bring in sharpshooters to cut down on the deer population. If I were a deer, I would feel at risk AND disenfranchised and take to scribbling to extinction. I gave up ID-ing the tagger and worked on cleaning the graffiti off the house. For future reference, paint thinner, TSP cleaner, and electric sanders do not take permanent ink off, they mostly make the wall cleaner and the tag stand out more. Also, it is hard to match up paint from a 500 year old paint can found in the Pulp Fiction-like basement even if it is the paint on the house. My mother was the last person I would think of as being the source for graffiti removal products but she faithfully reads the Happy Handyman column in the Houston Chronicle and remembered a product that cleans graffiti right off. Our Ace Hardware didn’t have that particular product but did have another one. With a good spray application and a hard scrub the tag came off. A few weeks later some high school informants told me that there was a girl going around tagging houses with “Unknown.” A girl-pioneer-tagger…I still want to ring her neck. The police officer that I talked to said that there was a gang in the area named the “No Browns” but if he was taking it from the tag, he was on the wrong track. And what kind of name is No Browns for a gang in a state with a population 92% white. Their goal is racist AND flimsy.
Just after the graffiti incident I got sick and had to have a round of antibiotics that I then had an allergic reaction to. Red dots started appearing on my stomach. I thought about connecting the dots to see if it made a shape or word but was afraid that the “Unknown” tag would emerge.
A special note about the new house, Emma shares the yard with three cats that live in the guesthouse (a tiny rental house) in the backyard. One in particular is Emma’s new best friend and food supplier. The cat is a successful hunter and as cats do, he brings the dead prey back to the yard and home base. Emma then has endless cat-roadkill treats to look forward to. She’s a happy dog even if she has feathers stuck between her teeth.
I left off my July posting with the promise of Part II and Part III. Now there are more Parts than can be counted, it’s been such a full summer. I do remember though what Parts II and III were going to be about: II was about crashing the free, Willie Nelson concert in Choteau with sister-in-law Kelly and III was about taking the Nia White Belt Intensive Training to become a certified Nia dance teacher. I’m adding a post below that tells the Willie Nelson close-up adventure story in pictures as well as two other photo essays: SHOUT goes on vacation and Emma’s Dog Days of Summer. I’ll start my teaching-Nia escapades in posts-to-come as I’ve set a goal to teach my first official class on Tuesday, December 4th. After doing radio with Eloise, I’m up for (almost) anything.
THANKS, DAVE!
Though not confirmed, it is widely believed that David Letterman was the celebrity that brought Willie Nelson to the Choteau rodeo arena for a free concert for 2500 Teton County residents and 500 lucky lotto winners (or maybe it was 2700/300, you get the idea). Residents stood in line to get their tickets and others sent in postcards. One of the winners in the drawing was all the way from NYC.
Dave has a ranch outside of Choteau (populatin of about 1,800 and located 20 miles east of the Rocky Mountains on my road to Glacier Park) and seems a good neighbor. I don't know if he was thanking the good people for helping nab the would-be kidnapper of his son months back or just liking to see people have fun or what, really didn't matter. What could be better than a Willie Nelson concert in a rodeo arena in Montana? I didn't have a ticket but when Kelly got to town I thought that we should just drive up to Choteau and see what was what. She was more than game. So here are pictures of our little adventure.
By the way, Willie did say from the stage, "Thanks, Dave." There you go.
Kelly at our perch where we could look in on the rodeo arena and get a glimpse of Willie & Family. If we were in a big city and bought seats to the concert, very likely this would be as close as we could get! There weren't as many people as I thought there would be on the outside hanging out to at least hear Willie even if we couldn't get inside to see him. The Jaycees still sold burgers (local beef) and beer to us out the back door of their booths. Great people those Jaycees.
See!
Dave has a ranch outside of Choteau (populatin of about 1,800 and located 20 miles east of the Rocky Mountains on my road to Glacier Park) and seems a good neighbor. I don't know if he was thanking the good people for helping nab the would-be kidnapper of his son months back or just liking to see people have fun or what, really didn't matter. What could be better than a Willie Nelson concert in a rodeo arena in Montana? I didn't have a ticket but when Kelly got to town I thought that we should just drive up to Choteau and see what was what. She was more than game. So here are pictures of our little adventure.
By the way, Willie did say from the stage, "Thanks, Dave." There you go.
Kelly at our perch where we could look in on the rodeo arena and get a glimpse of Willie & Family. If we were in a big city and bought seats to the concert, very likely this would be as close as we could get! There weren't as many people as I thought there would be on the outside hanging out to at least hear Willie even if we couldn't get inside to see him. The Jaycees still sold burgers (local beef) and beer to us out the back door of their booths. Great people those Jaycees.
These people in the cherry picker came prepared. They were on the outside too but sure had good seats behind and above the arena. They could see the stage straight on. People sitting down below enjoying more of that local beef. moo
Wonderful surprise, one of the Jaycees came out and told us outsiders that we would get to go in! The entrance was right by the side of the stage.
See!
Willie was at his laid-back finest and the crowd was probably the mildest ever. The security consisted of (besides the Jaycees) the county sheriff's department lined up in front of the stage. However mostly they were helping people in the crowd by taking their cameras and clicking close up pictures of Willie and his band. A very dusty German Shepherd wound its way through the crowded legs. We got our way to the front without having to push or shove. What the Jaycees thought would be the last few songs that we could get into hear became about 45 minutes of Willie wrapping it up and then playing another and another and another. He was amazing. With the sun setting, he ended with the song, "I gotta get drunk, I sure do regret it." We sure didn't regret making the last-minute drive up to Choteau. Thanks, Dave!
SHOUT goes on BEACH VACATION
SHOUT learns about friends that bury friends in the sand.
"Where'd everybody go?"
SHOUT tests the waters.
SHOUT learns about tides.
OH NOOOOOO!
IN THE NICK OF TIME!
SHOUT safely back in room
with Max the lifesaver.
DOG DAYS OF SUMMER
DONE YET
Maggie Mae and Emma at House Redo
PUGFEST
Helena
URBAN HUNTER
New York City
BIKER LAB IN DOGGLES
Safeway gas station in Helena
TREAT
Emma at Rodney Street Neighborhood picnic
Sunday, July 8, 2007
FIRST THINGS FIRST
The owners of MAIN NEWS, a general store of sorts, on the ground floor of the Arcade Building on the downtown walking mall are having a contest to rename its business. You can submit your ideas at the store. The winner will receive a $25 gift certificate. The owners, Sandy and Jim Rojo, provide one of my weekly simple pleasures, the Sunday New York Times on the Sunday of publication (if the airline doesn’t send it somewhere else or something gets mixed up in Seattle where the papers begin their flight). I like living in a place where it is hard to get the Times but I also really like being able to savor its international, national, arts, books, interesting-people obituary, and unapologetic Queer news coverage (see same-sex married couples along side the not-same-sex ones in the wedding announcement section). So now I have both Helena and the NYT and I’m a very happy person. If you have ideas for their business name drop by their store or if you don’t live here, send it to me and I’ll submit it and if you win, I’ll get five Sunday papers in your honor…or you can visit and buy cigars, they have a wonderful selection.
HOUSE ARREST
Due to Visitor Season, I have been put under house arrest. I do have/get to check in at the Jailhouse Sandwich Shop & Rodney Street Laundry on account of my parole agreement but mostly I will be writing from home for now. There are many ways to name the seasons and I’m not the first or last to do so. Here’s my latest rendition: “Visitors Season: Helena & Montana are Heaven (Summer),” “Some Curious Visitors: When Does it Get Cold There (Fall),” “Locals Only: No Way am I Coming There to Freeze my Butt Off (Winter),” and “Tentative Plans: When does It Stop Snowing (Spring).” Mom was here for 10 days in June and sister-in-law Kelly was here for a week (also called Many Adventures Season). In between I was in an amazing training for a NIA Dance Technique White-Belt Intensive (more on that in next posting). That time was a different season altogether: Marilyn Voluntarily Pushed Out of Comfort Zone Season.
SEASONS TO SORTING LAUNDRY
There are different schools of thought on when one waits to do a load of whites: wait until there are enough for a full load (people that stand out in a dark alley); don’t have enough dirty for a load, mix with very light colors; or don’t own enough to make a load, mix with light colors and perpetuate the decreasing number of white whites. I have no set thought (surprise) on this and find it situational. For example, right now I have a hodge podge of brief stories/vignettes to mention. Do I wait for enough to constitute one post or just lump them together? Turn the water on cold, you get them all…remember BRIEF vignettes, you’re not committing yourself to long entries. The long stories are long enough for a full post. Those will come later, Part II and III or maybe just Part II. I really do combine more often than separate and wait, another surprise I’m sure.
LOST & FOUND
Emma has discovered road kill (if you are squeamish of animal behavior go to next paragraph). She trotted off the other day when I wasn’t looking, not an all out run that is her signature but a slowly sniffing down the street until out of sight. She’s been hanging around off leash very consistently but I know better than to not pay more attention. I went looking and found her in the middle of a busy street on the yellow line licking the asphalt. Cars slowed down and passed on either side of the oblivious dog. Mind you this same dog is afraid of telephone cords, sudden noises, and box fans but now road kill rocks. She all out ran last night to the same spot. She never ever forgets a food source. This time Magpie feathers were involved (told you, if you’re squeamish you shouldn’t have read this, she is a dog after all). Back to the front yard lead she goes. She’s still smiling.
I found another pure, simple pleasure a few weeks ago, a brand new Papermate Pink Pearl eraser. It makes me so happy. I know how to use it. It’s effective, fresh, without dark smears. It also doesn’t rely on new Microsoft Office 2007 that came on my new work computer that I installed a few weeks ago. I used my favorite obscenities for three weeks before I got it taken off. Call me set in my ways, go ahead, I don’t care, I hated it. I’ll just erase your words.
Found Object (see picture):
a) musket ball
b) ball bearing from old wagon wheel
c) kidney stone from T-rex
d) petrified rum ball
e) other
Please submit your answers.
Kelly found it at what will be my new house. My brother Curtis and his spouse/partner/wife Kelly, presently residing in Jakarta, Indonesia, have bought a house here that I will live in. It comes with a studio in back that our mom will visit 3-4 months out of the year (Helena & MT are Heaven Season). Even though I’d never bought a house before, it was easier than the blasted Microsoft Office 2007 (I will try to let this go).
Another Found Object
One construction worker’s discarded toilet is another man’s new throne. At the Queen City Newspaper’s 5th Anniversary Party I got to talking to a man that had lived in a house bursting with parties in the Rodney Street neighborhood when he was in college. Story goes they needed a new toilet. He was down by Big Dorothy’s (a brothel that last until sometime in the 1970’s when she decided to close it –my uncle has a wild story about helping her reach this state of upward mobility by showing her that selling shots of alcohol was more profitable than her other sales, do we believe him?) and came across workers cleaning out Big D’s building. He asked if he could take the toilet and now recalls what a sight he made carrying a toilet up the hill from Last Chance Gulch to Rodney Street (it is a huffer and puffer of a hill).
The man recalled another fantastic story about his brother who also lived in the RS neighborhood. The not-fantastic part was that his brother had been in a motorcycle accident that had left him disoriented in life. One night of 30-below temperatures the brother’s 4-plex caught on fire. Unfortunately he stood out in the street and didn’t realize that all the water and such used to put out the fire had frozen around his feet and he was stuck there. Neighbors called the storyteller-brother to tell him to come get his brother.
Okay, there are enough laundry piles for you for today. To be continued…
The owners of MAIN NEWS, a general store of sorts, on the ground floor of the Arcade Building on the downtown walking mall are having a contest to rename its business. You can submit your ideas at the store. The winner will receive a $25 gift certificate. The owners, Sandy and Jim Rojo, provide one of my weekly simple pleasures, the Sunday New York Times on the Sunday of publication (if the airline doesn’t send it somewhere else or something gets mixed up in Seattle where the papers begin their flight). I like living in a place where it is hard to get the Times but I also really like being able to savor its international, national, arts, books, interesting-people obituary, and unapologetic Queer news coverage (see same-sex married couples along side the not-same-sex ones in the wedding announcement section). So now I have both Helena and the NYT and I’m a very happy person. If you have ideas for their business name drop by their store or if you don’t live here, send it to me and I’ll submit it and if you win, I’ll get five Sunday papers in your honor…or you can visit and buy cigars, they have a wonderful selection.
HOUSE ARREST
Due to Visitor Season, I have been put under house arrest. I do have/get to check in at the Jailhouse Sandwich Shop & Rodney Street Laundry on account of my parole agreement but mostly I will be writing from home for now. There are many ways to name the seasons and I’m not the first or last to do so. Here’s my latest rendition: “Visitors Season: Helena & Montana are Heaven (Summer),” “Some Curious Visitors: When Does it Get Cold There (Fall),” “Locals Only: No Way am I Coming There to Freeze my Butt Off (Winter),” and “Tentative Plans: When does It Stop Snowing (Spring).” Mom was here for 10 days in June and sister-in-law Kelly was here for a week (also called Many Adventures Season). In between I was in an amazing training for a NIA Dance Technique White-Belt Intensive (more on that in next posting). That time was a different season altogether: Marilyn Voluntarily Pushed Out of Comfort Zone Season.
SEASONS TO SORTING LAUNDRY
There are different schools of thought on when one waits to do a load of whites: wait until there are enough for a full load (people that stand out in a dark alley); don’t have enough dirty for a load, mix with very light colors; or don’t own enough to make a load, mix with light colors and perpetuate the decreasing number of white whites. I have no set thought (surprise) on this and find it situational. For example, right now I have a hodge podge of brief stories/vignettes to mention. Do I wait for enough to constitute one post or just lump them together? Turn the water on cold, you get them all…remember BRIEF vignettes, you’re not committing yourself to long entries. The long stories are long enough for a full post. Those will come later, Part II and III or maybe just Part II. I really do combine more often than separate and wait, another surprise I’m sure.
LOST & FOUND
Emma has discovered road kill (if you are squeamish of animal behavior go to next paragraph). She trotted off the other day when I wasn’t looking, not an all out run that is her signature but a slowly sniffing down the street until out of sight. She’s been hanging around off leash very consistently but I know better than to not pay more attention. I went looking and found her in the middle of a busy street on the yellow line licking the asphalt. Cars slowed down and passed on either side of the oblivious dog. Mind you this same dog is afraid of telephone cords, sudden noises, and box fans but now road kill rocks. She all out ran last night to the same spot. She never ever forgets a food source. This time Magpie feathers were involved (told you, if you’re squeamish you shouldn’t have read this, she is a dog after all). Back to the front yard lead she goes. She’s still smiling.
I found another pure, simple pleasure a few weeks ago, a brand new Papermate Pink Pearl eraser. It makes me so happy. I know how to use it. It’s effective, fresh, without dark smears. It also doesn’t rely on new Microsoft Office 2007 that came on my new work computer that I installed a few weeks ago. I used my favorite obscenities for three weeks before I got it taken off. Call me set in my ways, go ahead, I don’t care, I hated it. I’ll just erase your words.
Found Object (see picture):
a) musket ball
b) ball bearing from old wagon wheel
c) kidney stone from T-rex
d) petrified rum ball
e) other
Please submit your answers.
Kelly found it at what will be my new house. My brother Curtis and his spouse/partner/wife Kelly, presently residing in Jakarta, Indonesia, have bought a house here that I will live in. It comes with a studio in back that our mom will visit 3-4 months out of the year (Helena & MT are Heaven Season). Even though I’d never bought a house before, it was easier than the blasted Microsoft Office 2007 (I will try to let this go).
Another Found Object
One construction worker’s discarded toilet is another man’s new throne. At the Queen City Newspaper’s 5th Anniversary Party I got to talking to a man that had lived in a house bursting with parties in the Rodney Street neighborhood when he was in college. Story goes they needed a new toilet. He was down by Big Dorothy’s (a brothel that last until sometime in the 1970’s when she decided to close it –my uncle has a wild story about helping her reach this state of upward mobility by showing her that selling shots of alcohol was more profitable than her other sales, do we believe him?) and came across workers cleaning out Big D’s building. He asked if he could take the toilet and now recalls what a sight he made carrying a toilet up the hill from Last Chance Gulch to Rodney Street (it is a huffer and puffer of a hill).
The man recalled another fantastic story about his brother who also lived in the RS neighborhood. The not-fantastic part was that his brother had been in a motorcycle accident that had left him disoriented in life. One night of 30-below temperatures the brother’s 4-plex caught on fire. Unfortunately he stood out in the street and didn’t realize that all the water and such used to put out the fire had frozen around his feet and he was stuck there. Neighbors called the storyteller-brother to tell him to come get his brother.
Okay, there are enough laundry piles for you for today. To be continued…
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Unchanging Change
So much for the pinkie swear of writing more often. However the intentions were very good as I see in my computer file that I have notes from being at the Rodney Street Laundry on April 29th. Seems like that was just last week that I was intent on writing and ready to go but, alas, that didn’t happen. On my behalf and for my behalf, we did have our biggest fundraiser of the year at the Myrna Loy Center a mere two weeks ago so there was the work ahead of time and the recuperation afterward –it was a wine tasting after all and very successful for the wines, tasters, auctioneer, and the MLC till and programs. Now I’m back at the computer and the Laundry and raring to go.
Meanwhile, since I last wrote, the Legislature came back for a special session, rallied, passed the budget, and the Republicans fired Rep. Lange as the top House Republican dude, more for having a clandestine meeting ahead of the special session than for his tirade. In addition, Spring peaked from around the clouds and then slid back in a game of hide and seek. In the 80’s, toasty with a clear blue sky one week, lots of rain in the city and snow in the mountains the next. The lilacs kept their enrapturing scent throughout, the apple blossoms on my tree came and then were swept away by a storm’s wind. Today though is a gorgeous one with plenty of sunshine and warm air.
I talk about the weather more here in Helena than any place I’ve lived, maybe because there is more variety, actual seasons for example. Or because my love life is dormant so instead I have more time to consider other drama like weather systems. But always Weather has been close to my mind. Starting with my great-grandmother Sally Geers Sandusky who thought all weathermen were liars. I dated a boy in college who was studying meteorology. When she met him and found out his major, she promptly said, “Why do you want to be a liar?” Her view was rather reasonable as she was born before the Weather Service came into being and I’d guess that they had a steep learning curve but unwavering confidence. The combination of which would lead to overly somber forecasts that weren’t realized or sunny ones that were rained out, all given with the certainty of an overly-zealous new field of experts. Mammaw, as we called our great-grandmother, used to watch tornados rip through her flat West Texas landscape and be the last into the storm cellar so she knew storms, skies, warnings and masquerades. She’d also spent a lifetime leaning into the everyday West Texas wind which makes Chicago’s classification as the Windy City seem like a dog’s mild panting (though really the Windy City isn’t named for actual wind but blowhard politicians). In order to stand upright, she’d had to plant her feet solidly on the ground with a little flex in the knees for the gusts. Weather was no lofty science.
Another thing about the talk of weather is that wherever I have lived, people say a similar verse, “If you don’t like the weather here in Ama-ril-ah (or College Station or Tulsa or Dallas or Chicago…) just wait a while and it will change.” The speaker would always localize the change but really, weather is universally changing. However, I don’t know if this saying is pronounced in Honolulu, St. Martens, or Mozambique.
I think that Mammaw died before the advent of the Weather Channel on television. Its presence would have been quite a stretch for her. I am however taken with watching it especially listening to the local forecasts. First, the announcer always says it like he’s here, “tonight we’ll have lows in the 30’s.” Then there are the descriptions, one day “very cold” dipping to “bitter cold.” Missing however as the temperature dives to sub-zero extremes is the classification “unfuckingbelievable cold.” Then there are predictions like, “chance of rain and a rumble of thunder.” I don’t know about you but I don’t remember a thunderstorm with just one rumble of thunder. But for all the wording, I do love seeing the map of the US of A and how my weather is moving east out to friends in Chicago and onto my brother in New York City, even if it does morph into something else by the time it gets there. And in the bitter-ass cold of winter, I can see that Dilia in Phoenix is having a nice time of it until summer when the blazing sun creates extreme weather down her way. But it’s a dry heat. The last thing about the Weather Channel that I’ll mention is my theory of how they audition reporters for hurricane season which, by the way, starts in June. They give the would-be reporter a script, microphone, and then train a firehose on them and see if they can stand up. Mammaw would have passed the test with her withstanding-the-force-of-wind experience but then she would have been a liar and she was nothing if not a straight shooter.
The rains have brought forth a huge harvest of the only crop that is in my yard…unless you count the wormy apples. Rhubarb. Without my help this green, leafy plant sprouts and spreads out of the ground and when cut back, still returns about three more times with the suspicious and mysterious red stalks that couple with strawberries to make a good pie (pronounced “pah”). The Joy of Cooking goes to great lengths to clarify that rhubarb is not a fruit even though its pie is in the fruit pie section of the cookbook. Not mineral or vegetable either. Though my earliest years were in the Dakotas and Montana where rhubarb is plentiful, other places we lived it was not so we were much more likely to have cherry or pumpkin or apple pie (Mrs. Smith does not make a frozen rhubarb pie) so rhubarb was a relatively unknown entity. But when I moved into my house here, my friends Annie and Barb identified for me the rhubarb plant. It looked more like what I remember the Summer Squash plant to look like when my brother Paul and I were sent out to hoe the vegetable garden in our side yard. Our dad spent his early years on a farm and I guess he thought we should be using that soil for something. Mostly it would offer up tons of cucumbers that made their way into sweet “bread & butter” pickles. The smell of vinegar on pickling day held a certain fondness as my father seemed to tackle the cucumber transformation as a feat of engineering: an efficient, orderly production line with a satisfying end-product. He had the added benefit of having the soured & sweetened harvest on ham sandwiches the rest of the year…there were that many cucumbers. I think I'll stick with my one rhubarb plant.
+ + +
As you may be able to tell, I don’t really know where these posts will go once I start writing. Today I was going to write about the DOC as you can see on the back of the t-shirt of Kim Drew, one of the new co-owners of the Jailhouse Sandwich Shop. This DOC stands for Delivery of Chow, a play on the DOC (Department of Corrections) across the street. But I’ll ponder that another day. The DOC t-shirt and chow scenes in the pictures were taken at the Rodney Street Laundry & Jailhouse Sandwich Shop & Soup Kitchen Open House on May 5th. The BBQ beef brisket sandwich was mighty fine and the signature potato salad delish. It was another bright sunny day!
+ + +
One final note, there are some new comments on the last two posts. I added them from excerpts of email people sent me. So please check those out. Also, if you can’t figure out how to add a comment, send it to me and I’ll add it under anonymous unless you want me to add your name. I won’t add your email comments unless you give me permission. It can be short, quick, off-the-cuff, irreverent, insightful, humorous or pointless. Doesn’t matter. Don’t be shy. Also, please share the blog site with others. The more readers, the more interesting the comments.
+++
For those that have asked:
604 days, 0 hours, 0 minutes, 0 seconds
Oh, now to 603 days…
Meanwhile, since I last wrote, the Legislature came back for a special session, rallied, passed the budget, and the Republicans fired Rep. Lange as the top House Republican dude, more for having a clandestine meeting ahead of the special session than for his tirade. In addition, Spring peaked from around the clouds and then slid back in a game of hide and seek. In the 80’s, toasty with a clear blue sky one week, lots of rain in the city and snow in the mountains the next. The lilacs kept their enrapturing scent throughout, the apple blossoms on my tree came and then were swept away by a storm’s wind. Today though is a gorgeous one with plenty of sunshine and warm air.
I talk about the weather more here in Helena than any place I’ve lived, maybe because there is more variety, actual seasons for example. Or because my love life is dormant so instead I have more time to consider other drama like weather systems. But always Weather has been close to my mind. Starting with my great-grandmother Sally Geers Sandusky who thought all weathermen were liars. I dated a boy in college who was studying meteorology. When she met him and found out his major, she promptly said, “Why do you want to be a liar?” Her view was rather reasonable as she was born before the Weather Service came into being and I’d guess that they had a steep learning curve but unwavering confidence. The combination of which would lead to overly somber forecasts that weren’t realized or sunny ones that were rained out, all given with the certainty of an overly-zealous new field of experts. Mammaw, as we called our great-grandmother, used to watch tornados rip through her flat West Texas landscape and be the last into the storm cellar so she knew storms, skies, warnings and masquerades. She’d also spent a lifetime leaning into the everyday West Texas wind which makes Chicago’s classification as the Windy City seem like a dog’s mild panting (though really the Windy City isn’t named for actual wind but blowhard politicians). In order to stand upright, she’d had to plant her feet solidly on the ground with a little flex in the knees for the gusts. Weather was no lofty science.
Another thing about the talk of weather is that wherever I have lived, people say a similar verse, “If you don’t like the weather here in Ama-ril-ah (or College Station or Tulsa or Dallas or Chicago…) just wait a while and it will change.” The speaker would always localize the change but really, weather is universally changing. However, I don’t know if this saying is pronounced in Honolulu, St. Martens, or Mozambique.
I think that Mammaw died before the advent of the Weather Channel on television. Its presence would have been quite a stretch for her. I am however taken with watching it especially listening to the local forecasts. First, the announcer always says it like he’s here, “tonight we’ll have lows in the 30’s.” Then there are the descriptions, one day “very cold” dipping to “bitter cold.” Missing however as the temperature dives to sub-zero extremes is the classification “unfuckingbelievable cold.” Then there are predictions like, “chance of rain and a rumble of thunder.” I don’t know about you but I don’t remember a thunderstorm with just one rumble of thunder. But for all the wording, I do love seeing the map of the US of A and how my weather is moving east out to friends in Chicago and onto my brother in New York City, even if it does morph into something else by the time it gets there. And in the bitter-ass cold of winter, I can see that Dilia in Phoenix is having a nice time of it until summer when the blazing sun creates extreme weather down her way. But it’s a dry heat. The last thing about the Weather Channel that I’ll mention is my theory of how they audition reporters for hurricane season which, by the way, starts in June. They give the would-be reporter a script, microphone, and then train a firehose on them and see if they can stand up. Mammaw would have passed the test with her withstanding-the-force-of-wind experience but then she would have been a liar and she was nothing if not a straight shooter.
The rains have brought forth a huge harvest of the only crop that is in my yard…unless you count the wormy apples. Rhubarb. Without my help this green, leafy plant sprouts and spreads out of the ground and when cut back, still returns about three more times with the suspicious and mysterious red stalks that couple with strawberries to make a good pie (pronounced “pah”). The Joy of Cooking goes to great lengths to clarify that rhubarb is not a fruit even though its pie is in the fruit pie section of the cookbook. Not mineral or vegetable either. Though my earliest years were in the Dakotas and Montana where rhubarb is plentiful, other places we lived it was not so we were much more likely to have cherry or pumpkin or apple pie (Mrs. Smith does not make a frozen rhubarb pie) so rhubarb was a relatively unknown entity. But when I moved into my house here, my friends Annie and Barb identified for me the rhubarb plant. It looked more like what I remember the Summer Squash plant to look like when my brother Paul and I were sent out to hoe the vegetable garden in our side yard. Our dad spent his early years on a farm and I guess he thought we should be using that soil for something. Mostly it would offer up tons of cucumbers that made their way into sweet “bread & butter” pickles. The smell of vinegar on pickling day held a certain fondness as my father seemed to tackle the cucumber transformation as a feat of engineering: an efficient, orderly production line with a satisfying end-product. He had the added benefit of having the soured & sweetened harvest on ham sandwiches the rest of the year…there were that many cucumbers. I think I'll stick with my one rhubarb plant.
+ + +
As you may be able to tell, I don’t really know where these posts will go once I start writing. Today I was going to write about the DOC as you can see on the back of the t-shirt of Kim Drew, one of the new co-owners of the Jailhouse Sandwich Shop. This DOC stands for Delivery of Chow, a play on the DOC (Department of Corrections) across the street. But I’ll ponder that another day. The DOC t-shirt and chow scenes in the pictures were taken at the Rodney Street Laundry & Jailhouse Sandwich Shop & Soup Kitchen Open House on May 5th. The BBQ beef brisket sandwich was mighty fine and the signature potato salad delish. It was another bright sunny day!
+ + +
One final note, there are some new comments on the last two posts. I added them from excerpts of email people sent me. So please check those out. Also, if you can’t figure out how to add a comment, send it to me and I’ll add it under anonymous unless you want me to add your name. I won’t add your email comments unless you give me permission. It can be short, quick, off-the-cuff, irreverent, insightful, humorous or pointless. Doesn’t matter. Don’t be shy. Also, please share the blog site with others. The more readers, the more interesting the comments.
+++
For those that have asked:
604 days, 0 hours, 0 minutes, 0 seconds
Oh, now to 603 days…
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