When The Moon Hits Your Eye

It was almost pitch black as Isis and I began our nightly outing tonight. It was silent except for the sound of our footfalls. We walked along for awhile enjoying the cool air, fragrant pipe smoke, and each other's company. We took the usual route,and when we turned back to meander toward home we saw the moon as she was just cresting the horizon, waning gibbous, so large and orange that it was startling. She looked like a giant, golden cat's eye, watching us as we made our way through the darkness.

Last night on our walk Isis paused, staring intently. It took me a moment to realize what she was so fascinated with. She was looking at the moon! She was transfixed, captivated by that same orb that drives writers, artists and lovers mad. What could she possibly be thinking?

What hold did it have on her? Did she find it as beautiful and mysterious as I do? Never have I wanted to know what a dog thinks more than I did in that moment. And never did I need words less to understand or break the magic. And so we stood and stared for a moment in shared silence until our footfalls sounded our way home again.

Diva Dog

 

Draw me like one of your French Poodles.

Autumnal Equinox

You couldn't ask for a more beautiful day to kick off Autumn. Sunny and cool, the air full of the anticipation of Fall, I'm transported back to my childhood.

These were the days of pumpkins and Indian corn, of cornucopia and anticipation of what October would bring. Soon we would begin coloring Jack O' Lanterns and planning our costumes for trick-or-treating. There would be bags of candy from which we could choose ONE piece. The rest must be saved for Halloween visitors.

It was time to learn about harvest, of golden haystacks, time to anticipate the changing colors of the leaves. We would collect them for class projects and try to replicate their colors with crayons of orange, yellow and red. To this day the colors of the Fall palette are my favorite.

Soon the morning dew would be replaced with frost-- jackets in the morning but shirtsleeves in the afternoon. I remember rushing home from school to change into play-clothes to make the most of shortening afternoons. To play until dusk meant keeping up with sweaters, which would invariably end up lost, hanging on some neighborhood back fence. Evenings would grow cooler, filled with the aroma of the first hearth-fires of the season.

And now, that imperceptible something, whispering through the leaves, calls me forward as much as it calls me back. The Fall somehow always seems more full of promise than any other time of year, even Springtime. Like the ticking of the eternal clock calling geese to take wing and the heart to beat faster in the breast of the stag, it-- whatever "it" is comes upon us again. My heart, like that of the stag, beats faster in anticipation.

The Holidays Are Upon Us

Do you know how I could tell the holiday season was upon us? It wasn't when I heard Bing Crosby crooning "It's Beginning to Look A Lot like Christmas," standing among the discounted pumpkins in Wal*Mart the day after Halloween. It wasn't when the perky newscaster informed me that this year Thanksgiving day was the new Black Friday, that Black Friday would run until Cyber Monday and that if I had any hope of getting a deal on the hottest gifts I should've done all my shopping by last Tuesday. This all dovetails neatly with vodka and Oreo Wednesday. Just wake me up for really, really casual Friday, okay?

My first inkling of the approaching yuletide festivities might have been when I awoke from dozing in front of the TV this afternoon buried under the first real catfall of Winter, but I missed even that clue. Heck, it wasn't even when some real go-getter on Pintrest suggested we decorate Cheerios with candy sprinkles and leave them out with Santa's cookies as "elf doughnuts." Great, like we don't have enough mouths to feed already!

No, I realized that the holiday season was truly upon us when my wife informed me that our furnace expired-- and oh, by the way, the brakes are going out on the car.

So what you are telling me is that not only do we have no heat in the house, if we decide to go over the river and throw the woods to Grandma's house we are liable to just keep going?

Okay... Deep breaths... Just roll with the punches. We've got a couple of electric heaters to get us through the cold nights. At least we don't have water, snow or a complete power outage like the poor folks on the East coast. And I suppose we could wrap a chain around an anvil and toss it out the back of the car if we really want to stop someplace. I guess I can't really complain. It could be worse.

As a strict adherent to all of Judge Murphy's edicts I know what I'm talking about. I take my role as an object lesson for the rest of you quite seriously. How many times have I walked up in the middle of conversation, "...Well, could be worse. at least you're not--" only to be met with foot shuffling and awkward silence?

"At least he's not who? Who are you talking about? Fellas? Hey, where ya going? At least he's not who?"

You would think it would get to me. Some say that weird twitch in my left eyelid is proof of a man on the edge. I just try to shrug it off. What else can I do? If you can't be in on the great cosmic joke of fate you might as well enjoy being the butt. So I just smile and keep watching the skies for that final punchline. At least if I get smashed by a falling satellite I'll be imortalized in the pages of Ripley's  Believe It Or Not, right between the man with three noses and the water skiing squirrel. A man couldn't ask for a better legacy than that.

Portrait of A Very Bad Dog

 
Good evening. Our first offering this evening depicts a tale of woe involving a runaway pooch and the broken-down old man who must search on foot through blistering pain and blinding migraine to find her. The irony of the story is that though the doggy is long since safe at home the old man's spirit is cursed to wander, calling her name and muttering about her ability to leap thirty feet in the air. We call this painting, "Portrait of A Very Bad Dog," and it's found it's way home at last... to the Night Gallery.

 So this was how the day went: I woke up from a short, restless night of bad dreams with a throbbing migraine. I took the dog out in the yard for her necessaries and slouched down in my mushroom chair trying very hard not to pitch forward on my face. The next thing I know "Scarsnout" decided to make a break for it. I swear the last thing I heard as I saw her fluffy tail disappear over the fence was a full-on philharmonic rendition of "Born Free."

Now my days of chasin' tail are long behind me and since I left my cane in Teresa's Jeep I decided to take a mosey. By the time I got around to the gate she was as scarce as a well-paying job in the current economy. I set off down the road. At first it was "76 Trombones Led The Big Migraine." After half an hour it felt like the Lesser Bataan Death March. I searched high and low, to and fro, hither and yon, over there and beyond. I walked well more than a mile-- six or eight perhaps, not in another man's shoes but in my Angry Birds jammie pants. My Angry Birds were angrier than usual today.

I can only imagine what the good townsfolk thought as I staggered along calling her name and muttering lines from "Moby Dick."

"I'll follow her around the Horn, and around the Norway maelstrom, and around perdition's flames before I give her up! From hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee. Ye damned dog!"

By the time I got back to the house my metal hips were grinding and I thought I smelled smoke. Have you ever burned out a butt-bearing? It isn't pleasant. My head was pounding harder than ever and I had a bad case of mummy-leg. I was NOT happy. Then about 1:00 or so she came leisurely trotting back to the house.

THEN-- and this is the icing on the cake-- When Teresa got home from teaching class and I sat down and began to tell her my piteous tale of woe, unbeknownst to me our fat old Siamese tomcat was backing up to me.

BEEP...BEEP....BEEP... Just like a garbage truck.

Suddenly I felt a warm, wet spray all over my legs. The damned cat sprayed me! THE DAMNED CAT SPRAYED ME. Why you !@#$%@!!^&%!!!

REDACTED...

...And that's how the cat learned to fly, the dog learned I was mad, the wife realized it wasn't funny and the rest of God's creatures trembled with fear.

The End.

Postscript:

The dog knows she's fouled up big time. I've ignored her all day and she's been laying on the sofa with her head hanging over the side like she's expecting a trip to the gallows at sunrise. I want her to learn a lesson but I'm afraid that no matter how forlorn she is tonight the minute the September sun hits her face and she drinks in the cool morning air her lesson will vanish and she'll be flying through the air like Pegasus.

Out of The Frying Pan

Hash Brown Casserole

It's happened. I've signed up on a recipe site. I've installed a recipe app. I've become that guy. School has started again for the Fall and my Sweet Victoria Rose has begun her circuitous teaching schedule, traveling around central Texas more that an itinerant preacher I've decided to step up to the plate, quite literally and shoulder most of the cooking burden. That means finding recipes that we will both enjoy, shopping for ingredients for said recipes and preparing them with a minimum  of food waste, smoke and/or fire.

I used to be a pretty decent cook in my college days, but I've gotten lazy and out of practice over the years. I need to get my chops up-- pork and otherwise, in the kitchen. If I'm lucky cooking will be like riding a bicycle, except with fewer skinned knees and pant-legs caught in the chain. Am I up to it? Only time and my egg timer will tell.

Vapor Trails

"Pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment of human affairs."  -- Albert Einstein

Albert was right.  There is a certain meter to smoking a pipe, to fall into the slow rhythm of draw and exhale, to watch the smoke unfurl in the breeze. It makes a man thoughtful. There is a reason writers and artists smoke pipes. It helps to slow down and organize one's thoughts. The act of smoking a pipe is like a mantra, nothing more is needed than a pipe full of your favorite blend and a cool breeze on a Fall day to put one into a meditative state.

My prized possession is the Peterson Dingle with the bulldog shape I was given as a gift long ago. I think if my house were on fire it is the thing I'd brave the flames to retrieve. It has perfect balance, smokes well and is beautiful in its shape and form. It fits perfectly in my hand. I've spent many a happy hour with this pipe as a companion. Ah, I do love it so.