July 31, 2010
Responsibility.....
..... about two months ago, the fellows who lived across the street from me left their home in a rush and moved to Belize..... missionary duty, I've been told since, but it was literally a case of one day they are watering their lawn, and the next they are having a garage sale and selling their bedroom set........ and two days later they were GONE........ hey, I respect anyone who would sally forth to do missionary work, but something about their whole "exit" just seemed a bit irresponsible......
.... the area surrounding their home - and the covered breezeway that connected the garage to the house - is an absolute jungle...... ivy runs rampant..... shrubs, hanging baskets, and ferns surround their house to the point that if you saw a Japanese soldier peep his face out after dark, you'd swear that you were in New Guinea ALA 1942.....
.... anyhow, after my annual 4th of July fireworks display this past year showered their vacant lawn with the left-over sticks from my 50 or so rockets, I wandered over to retrieve them one afternoon.... and that was when I discovered that - buried among the dense, tropical undergrowth, they also had two small koi ponds that were absolutely filled to the brim with 8-inch long koi carp..... I must admit that I was shocked and awed at the same time...... I mean, I just wasn't expecting to find such a bowl full so close to my own home..... it's odd, I know, but I stood there for the longest time just watching the fish..... eventually the mosquitoes ran me off, and I wandered back to my own house...... but that night I couldn't wait to tell The Missus of what I had discovered.....
..... fast forward to today...... a light thunderstorm had just passed and the Sun had broken through after lunch..... so I walked through to the living room where The Missus was curled on the couch.....
... "C'mon.... let's go.... put your shoes on.... I told you about those fish a month ago..... let me show them to you!"......
...... I'd told her about them the day that I first discovered them, but she'd never taken the time to go and look for herself...... so I took the lead, and we set off down the driveway.......
.... after arriving at the edge of the neighbor's jungle, it dawned on me that I should have asked her to wear more than the flimsy flip-flops that she had chosen as footwear...... the honeysuckle and morning glory vines were so dense that it was quite difficult for ME to walk, much less for a person only wearing shoes that were connected to feet with only a thin strap.... but still, she soldiered on while I followed behind.....
.... and what a sad, sad sight we found when we finally arrived at the pools...... two dead adults were floating - half decayed..... and the water itself was a deep forest-green..... the pumps and filters had stopped weeks ago once the county had turned off the power, and the water was hot, thick, smelly, and stagnant......
.... she was disgusted and trod off around the corner to peek into the windows of the abandoned house....... I, with ever the attention to detail, stood stone-still and examined the details of the pool.... the lilies, the ivy, the flat stones...... I was searching for life among the death...... and after five minutes or so, I saw the faintest flick of a white tail swish just below the surface, and I knew that there were fish still alive in the pool......
.... I looked around and found a fishnet that had been discarded in the vines, and I started scooping....... my third swipe reaped a minnow - twisting and flipping itself into the air as I examined the bottom of the dip-net......
.... there was an empty and unused garbage bag on the breezeway that I used to collect water in...... and into that water I deposited my baby koi...... five more minutes of netting resulted in two more minnows........
..... and so now, I have three baby koi carp living in an old glass salad bowl in my kitchen...... if they survive until morning, I will go into town and buy them a proper bowl and some food..... and if they are alive in the morning?...... I may even go back to the neighbor's house and see if I can find any more survivors......
..... if we humans create something that contains life for our pleasure, we should maintain it...... and it really, really pisses me off that a family of humans could traipse off halfway around the world to be missionaries for God, and leave those creatures to die.... slowly.... hopelessly.......
.... life is life, rubberneckers...... and every speck of life is to be respected.... sometimes things need to be killed, of course... but hunt what you need, eat what you kill, and leave the rest to enjoy itself as best it can..... and if you put something in a cage for your pleasure, then you should damn sure take CARE of it...... making any creature suffer is just beastly on the part of the human.....
.... so, anyone who has any knowledge of keeping fish, I'm all ears...... I've never owned a fish before - until now..... and they are much too small to fry up with some chips, so I'm kinda stuck....... pointers are definitely welcome.......
Keep Reading»
July 30, 2010
Promotions....
..... after watching Dax's latest video post, this song latched itself violently onto my brain and I've been humming it ever since....... and so, I dedicate this to ole Dax..... congrats on the promotion, sir....... but that cut is not NEARLY short enough, you hippie.....
.... a toe-tapper, non?...... and if you watched his video as well, you will recognize that Mr. Montana has excellent taste in beer.....
.. in other news, I was given the chance to peer into the depths of my own septic tank this afternoon...... and I have still not fully recovered from the experience..... suffice it to say that a Human Being should never, ever be introduced to ten years worth of his own emissions all at once like I was today when the happy Septic Tank Sucker-man arrived to work his magic......
.... It was odd, seeing all that shit clogged in one poor, tiny concrete box..... and yet I couldn't help but imagine that I was feeling the exact same sensation that Koontz must feel every time he walks by the horror section of his local Waterstone's......
Keep Reading»
July 29, 2010
Gall.....
.... so.... last night The Missus walks in from work and says to me, "... the strangest thing happened to me today..... an elderly woman strode in and said, 'Ma Husband had been galled'ed....... whut can you do to halp?'"
...... she looked at me, and I looked back at her quizzically.........
.... "Galleded", she says..... "what the fuck is that supposed to mean?"....
...... and I must admit, it took me a moment or two, but then I began......... "ummmmm..... it is an Old word...... it is only used by old country folk, and good god, it has been years since I have heard anyone say it....... but........ I'm pretty sure that it has something to do with a man's nutsack....".......
.... "what?!?".....
..... "yeah..... back when I played baseball and we all wore a jockstrap and cup, I remember hearing folks talk about their sons being galled'd....... it was something to do with irritation around the nether regions caused by being sweaty, being active, and being chaffed around the nutsack region due to wearing a cup..."........
.... "good god....... I had a woman come in today to tell me that her husband needed medication because he had been 'galleded' while working in the fields...... I had no idea what to say to her..... I'd never even heard of the word before.... I mean, gall?..... galled?....... and then galled'ed?...... what the hell?........
....... so, being just as curious (and confused) as she was, I wandered off to find my giant copy of the Oxford American English Dictionary...... and what I found shocked us both....... check this out, hammerheads........ the multiple definitions of the world "gall"......
gall"sore spot on a horse," O.E. gealla "painful swelling," from L. galla "gall, lump on plant," originally "oak apple," of uncertain origin. Perhaps from or influenced by gall (1) on notion of "poison-sore." The verb meaning "to make sore by chafing" is from mid-15c.; figurative sense of "harass, irritate" is from 1570s. Related: Galled ; galling .
.... or even better, from websters.com....
gall definition Function: vt : to rub and wear away by friction : CHAFE loose saddle gall ed the horse's back>...... the interesting thing is that this really IS an OLD word being used in modern times here in Appalachia........ our ancestors really were speakers of Old English, and Galled is just one of those words that has survived among the hillfolk here and died out in usage in England, Scotland, and Wales..........
.... that poor woman's husband had been working out in the heat and his nuts got galled'ed....... and that, is absolutely what happened to them...... and what is more?..... it is pretty close to being grammatically correct after 3-4 hundred years.........
....... fuck, that makes me proud to be from the East Tennessee hill country......... even if we DO spell things a bit differently than most folks..........
Keep Reading»
July 27, 2010
Anticipation....
.... the past three evenings have worn the most amazing dusks..... flanked by high thunder clouds to the north and south, the setting sun has blazed golden everything that it has hit...... and today it happened again for the third day in a row..... trees, grass, and even the very air itself is hued....
... I've seen the air colored like this before, of course.... usually when we're expecting a tornado the sky will go yellow and the breezes will calm..... so it has been more than a little unnerving to watch this happen just before the sun dips down behind the Cumberland plateau - leaving us in darkness & anticipation of a storm which doesn't come...... life's like that, I guess...... whatever you THINK is coming usually passes...... it's the times when you think you have the tiger by the toe that you suddenly get ambushed......
... in other news, I visited a book sale at one of the local high schools the other day and made out like a proverbial bandit.... I bought 37 volumes of Time-Life's WW II set (there are originally 39 in the set) for 55 bucks..... it's pretty damn awesome when you can spend fifty-five dollars, and end up with so many books that you need a dolly to haul them out to your car......
... I also purchased a copy of "Fix Bayonets" from 1926 for five dollars...... it is a book that I read many years ago and have quoted on this blog a few times..... and I certainly look forward to reading it again.......
... and then, in an absolute fit of insanity, I bought a dog-eared copy of "Walden; or, Life in the Woods" by Thoreau...... good god, give me strength....... once upon a time I loved reading Emerson and Thoreau.... but now?.... well, methinks that I have perhaps dug one too many ditches by hand to begin hanging on their ideals again like I did as a nipper.....
.... Life in the Woods wouldn't have been nearly as bearable for him had Momma not been a few cornfields away baking cobbler and roasting goose.........
Keep Reading»
July 26, 2010
Fireteams......
.... I'm up...... they see me..... I'm down...... fire three rounds and wait for squad members to advance beyond me....... I'm up..... they see me..... I'm down....... rinse & repeat....
... mercy.....
Keep Reading»
July 22, 2010
Descriptions....
..... more on watching television when you are blessed to have DirecTV....... behold The Descriptions, fellow travelers....... I found these while strolling through the living room over the past few days....
... and a few days later?....... this?!...
.... methinks they be smoking some weed at DirecTV Central....... either that, or there are a LOT of weird-assed movies that I have never seen before....
Keep Reading»
