kvetching up

Musée Mécanique,  2017.   This morning is the last chance for me to climb in the beast and go to the Puyallup Fair. Jenny stopped going to the fair around 2015, as did Leiney. Abby and I would go together without them, each year since, until she went away to college. Last year I went alone. Twice. I have been to the fair this late in the season. I go for the animals, the arts and crafts, some of the sellers in the pavilion, to see my cousin, and of course for the scones. I can't imagine going today, but maybe.

"I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm Your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm" In large beds in Seattle, New York, Riverside and Renton I would wake on weekend mornings, Jenny beside me asleep--for I have always been an early riser and she a late sleeper--I would turn to gaze upon her. Her summer lightened hair--flaxen-colored from the sun's rays--I would softly and silently stroke, knowing only I would ever know of such moments. She would wake,  a pixie smile would come across her face. We would hug, cuddle, and begin to plan the day. It seems those moments were plentiful in NYC. Despite the troubles we had in Riverside, there too our weekends were filled with fun and adventure, if not  the feelings of love I remember elsewhere.    Memory is tricky, though. For, I know that in NYC and elsewhere Jenny's mercurial temper could show up out  of nowhere.  It would appear like a process server pulling up in their car at the house whi...

 I was awakened shortly after 1 a.m. to the beeping of a dying battery alert from a smoke alarm. These alarms are hard wired into the house, and the battery is only for backup. It turns out the power had failed.  The house was dark, my phone near dead, and the dog on the bed punchy-pawing me as the chirping of the smoke alarm scared the bejeezus out of her. I groped in the dark to the floor where my pajamas reside in the night, finding them and then sitting down to put them on one leg at a time. Willow and I went downstairs and I let her go do her business--searching for squirrels and raccoons as it turns out--and giving her a treat on her return.  I sat on the couch for a moment, trying to grok how to proceed if the power was not back in the morning. I could go to work, I thought, and then laughed loudly in my head at the idea. Shrugging my shoulders, the chirp of the smoke alarm sounded again. Given the number in the house, I wasn't sure where it was coming from, so I s...

I have opted over these many years to build an insular world, one that extended only to immediate family, and in a more granular sense an interior space of only me--for all of us I suppose this is the case. Even when home, if not with my kids, much of my time has been spent in my head with music. As I am sure I have written about before, I suppose because of my mom's influence and the era I grew up in, singer songwriters have been everything. From Cole Porter to the Carter Family, Lucinda Williams to Led Zeppelin, Mary Black to Mazzy Star, and on and on, I have lived in my head their music and lyrics wrapped around my thoughts, and providing structure to my memories. Nancy Griffith died of cancer during the COVID epidemic, as did John Prine (he of COVID after a battle with cancer). I discovered both during the early years Jenny and I were together. Around that same time I discovered Kate Wolf's work at a boheme apartment Jenny was housesitting at right next to the Safeway I use...

My mom loved music and shared that love with me, for which I will be ever grateful. Music brings me peace and happiness. I remember listening to KRAB radio back in the 1970s each weekend, where the then hippy-run nonprofit radio station served up pop and  folk music from the 20s and 30s, contemporary "experimental music" which I probably falsely remember as the banging of pots and pans, triangles and the sounds of chainsaws, car engines and anvil hitting the floor of a garage. There was also bluegrass, and lots of it.  Her nurturing of my love for music, whether intentional or not, was profound. Each year for several years we would go and see Peter and the Wolf at the opera. During my asthmatically bound early years, I remember three things most vividly: the sound of a now old fashioned humidifier pumping steam into the room to aid my breathing; listening to a Disney album that showcases and discusses a variety of unusual musical instruments from around the world (narrated b...

 It's Friday the 13th. I hate to admit I have superstitions, but here it is and there you are. When I was a kid, around 9 or 10, my mom would tell me stories about how my great grandmother, May Sullivan, was incredibly superstitious. The conversation started one rainy and gray Seattle afternoon, as I was watching KSTW movies. It must have been a Sunday, because they always played Francis the Talking Mule and Abbott and Costello movies on Sunday afternoons. Anyway, I had just watched some Abbott and Costello movie where the latter has spilled salt, and then said, "bread and butter" while throwing salt over his left shoulder. I was baffled. So, I asked my mom what this could possibly mean. She, my mom, was a walking encyclopedia. She never was stumped on any question about any topic I ever asked, or any definition for a word that I sought. She explained that spilling salt was considered bad luck by some, and that to mitigate any problem arising from such an incident, the sp...

"The finest hour that I have seen Is the one that comes between The edge of night and the break of day When the darkness rolls away" My trip blogging fell off. It isn't that there wasn't content generated every day, but I was exhausted at the end of each day--not unusual but more acute than the last two cross country road trips I have done. I haven't driven across the country since 2000, which I did alone, driving from NYC to Seattle in 2 days and 17 hours--it's a long story and not worth retelling, except that my driver side windshield wiper died during severe weather in the Chicago area. I pulled over and took some string and hooked it to the wiper. I then drove for an hour or so with my driver side window down, dragging the wiper as quickly as I could as the rain came down in torrents. And while it is true that I am not mechanical and may have played a role in my jenky-fix and soaking arm, I stand by the genius that is me in problem solving that issue away....