Days of Whine and Neuroses

T. S. Eliot wrote that April is the cruellest month.  He would have known better had he lived in Alaska–the cruellest month is September.  September is sort of a nothing month–technically, it is still summer, mostly, but the fireweed has bloomed out, the leaves are turning–it is too cold for a t-shirt, too warm for long johns.  September is just sort of a bumper-guard of a month, whose main purpose is to keep the two best months of the year from slamming into each other.

September is the leanest month.  Summer sales are way down, and today is the last day of the Wasilla Farmer’s Market, usually my best  sales day of the week, the one when I am most likely to make some credit card sales–and Wells Fargo charges a hefty fee each month whether or not I make any credit card sales.  Most of my customers at the flats don’t even have a drivers license, much less a credit card.  And it was drizzling this morning at my place, and the streets are wet here, so the last Market may yet be rained out.  As I write, it is slated to open to the public in two hours. We’ll see.

Another  thing about September, it is SuSu’s birthday month.  I have a lousy track record with presents, about which she has written well and at great length.  This month, I lucked out, however–she liked her gift, blogged about it, said some of her female readers were “green with envy.”  Still, she had said that she wanted to go to a motel overnight, so she could soak in a tub–I mumbled something evasive and noncommittal in reply.  I would dearly love for us to go to Whittier for the 26-glacier cruise, plus a motel stay  overnight– but that would cost around $500, more than my net earnings this month so far.  I finally paid off the car I got early this summer, now I can start paying off a huge credit card bill.  Sigh.

I notice that lately I have sighing deeply a lot, followed by a quiet but heartfelt, “Well, fuck.”

Not that this has been a surprise.  I knew it was coming.  Then again, they knew Katrina was coming.  Fat lot of good it did most of them. . . .  September is always lean, it is just a lot leaner than usual this year.

Then there’s the dental thing.  Few weeks ago, I was munching on some most excellant salmon fillet, broke off a big hunk of molar.  Since our clinic offers dental services now, I made an appointment.  It seems that several of my molars are fractured so badly they could break any time.  Now when I chew anything harder than, say, a raisin, I wonder if I’ll break another tooth. The dentist said I should have them crowned, which is out of the question. I also need to have a really bad one pulled.  As it is, I am slated for about $1500 worth of dental work–luckily, being poor and at the bottom end of their sliding scale, I’ll only pay about $150.  Still, it’s a lot of money.   Now I’m starting to chew with my front teeth, I  look like some  immense demented rodent.

What is even worse about this whole thing is that I  can’t just feel bad and be done with it–I feel bad about feeling bad. I keep telling myself that I should be above this sort of fear-based nonsense.  I should be able to transcend these negative emotions.  I keep shoulding all over myself.

I know beyond any doubt that God has not carried me this far just to let me down now. 

I know that God will not lay on me more than I can handle–but sometimes, I just wish He didn’t have so damn much confidence in me!

It’s an Ill Wind. . . .No, Not Katrina

SuSu recently wrote movingly about a recent incident at the flats, in which some ne’er-do-wells absconded and left behind a shitload of clothing and such.  And I use the word “shitload” advisedly–one of the bags I got out of the dumpster was indeed replete with domesticated primate feces.  As I was going through the sorry collection of stuff, I kept thinking, we need a better class of losers here so I can scrounge better stuff.  I also gave thanks repeatedly that I am free of the  human trait known as empathy–otherwise I would have found the experience profoundly depressing.

Still, I kept thinking of the children who had to leave behind their toys and little personal items and clothing.  It’s not like they had a choice of parents–they never thought, hey, I want parents who are drug-addicted, shiftless white trash!  Okay, maybe some of the adults were  victims themselves, maybe they did in fact have precious little choice of circumstances–but I doubt it.  They are here because they made stupid, ill-considered, and probably drug-fueled decisions.  But it really sucks that the kids have to suffer–I don’t like children and  the less I have to do with any of them the better I like it–but I hate to see them abused.

But enough of this mellerdrama.  What is, is–and the powerless, of any age, have always suffered at the hands of the relatively powerful, they always will, and all the tears and hand-wringing in the world will not change that.  On to the good stuff, the stuff that made me glad I spent the time and energy scrounging.

I don’t know what all Kathy got out of the pile for herself.  There was a hand-held SEGA video game thingie with a game cartridge in it. There were two game controllers that Doug could maybe use someday, and a JVC VCR that might be made to work–it needs cords.  There was a pair of pretty good hiking boots that might fit him–I hope so, he needs footgear.  (And since my gross earnings for the last four days came to exactly $26.43, I am not about to be taking him to Footlocker any time soon. As I write, I am mostly  wearing clothing I got out of the dumpster myself–a ripped Alaska t-shirt and OD green Dockers cargo pants.)

 For openers, I got one of those handy hanging wire-mesh  basket sets–right now, it is dangling from a nail in the ceiling, holding a bunch of videos.  I hope the cats don’t discover it.  I got a few little odds and ends, like a brush I can use to groom the cats , a neat plastic caliper ruler thing, 47 cents in cash, and a mostly unused stick of Right Guard anti-perspirant which  went into my shower pack.

On to bigger and better–I got a 35mm Olympus camera, film in it, and a spare roll–it works, I don’t know how well.  I got a SONY  AM-FM Walkman which also works, and a Magnavox CD player that works better than the one I splurged $2 on at a yard sale. There was a cassette tape of some great easy listening jazz, which is in my car stereo right now. I got  the soundtracks on CD from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer musical episode and Dirty Dancing.  I got upwards of twenty VHS tapes–I haven’t checked them all, but the titles that play include Limbo (the John Sayles cult film), Robot Monster (a fifties cult film, in B&W three-D), Bloodsport, Finding Nemo, and Lemony Snicket.

Finally, one little item which shows to me what an awesome sense of humor the Dumpster Deva has.  Back when I was rich, I had a whole shelf in the bathroom full of expensive cologne and after-shave (now I don’t even have a fucking bathroom, and I haven’t shaved  in almost twenty years–but I digress!)–stuff like Royall Spyce, Geoffrey Beane’s Gray Flannel, and my favorite–Drakkar Noir. Well, I found a little tiny (5ml!) bottle of Drakkar Noir.  I smell like it now.

It makes a nice change from the Tommy Hilfiger I found earlier this summer in the same dumpster!

Updates on cats, and ‘ Flats!

Okay, here’s the good news–Hohner is back!  YAY!!!!  My best buddy, the big black and white guy who went missing a week ago showed up on the porch night before last.  He came in the cabin, chowed down (the kittens seemed real glad to see him, rubbed up against him), then took off again, after getting lotsa pets and kind words.  He seems to be in a new phase, less affiliative than before–maybe he’s just going through some teenage feline stuff, who knows?  All I know is, I am soo glad he is okay. Dingus is still missing, however.

Last night was a first for Frodo and Freaky–they stayed out all night, under the care of Frankie.  The others stayed indoors, slept at the foot of my bed.

Last night I saw Dave, the guy who was shot.  His arm is in a cast–the bullet nicked the bone, he said it was a miracle there was no nerve damage, but he is in good spirits.  He reiterated the story that Gene hit him first, then shot him–he said “Do you really think I’m stupid enough to hit a guy carrying a gun?”  I took that as a rhetorical question.  He added that another local businessman last year commented on the shooter’s temper,  and predicted he would shoot someone within a year.  According to Dave, the incident is still under investigation and charges may yet be filed against the shooter.  I hope so. According to an NA friend of mine who has a cop inlaw, the police believed it was self-defense, but added that if the situation had been reversed–if the Felony Flats resident had been the shooter and the prosperous local businessman the victim–Dave would be in jail now.

Meanwhile, Gene’s wife–Lady Macbeth–verbally ambushed me at her laundromet the other day when I went in for water, falsely accusing me of spreading rumors that gene was at fault.  I tried to tell her that I only talked about it to Ellie, a woman who works for her, and that I merely quoted a few people who were witnesses, or who had spoken to witnesses.  Her  tiny mind was made up, however, and did not want to be confused with facts. 

One of which  is, she is a pathetic, fear-ridden redneck bitch.

My search for another laundromat continues.

A Few Other Things I Love












These first three are Hohner.  I named him that because1) he was born in a box of knives (honer–get it?) and 2) when he was a wee kitten, he made sounds like a harmonica (a Hohner, arguably the most popular brand of mouth organ).  He haas gone missing, sadly–I have’t seen him for a week.  Kathy says he may just be out catting around, but since he and I bonded so strongly, I am not optomistic.







These are Peachy, who is Frankie’s son.  He and Hohner bonded strongly, too–and since Hohner has gone, Peachy has gotten more affiliative.



Peachy with Dingus, nee Dirty Dingus Mc Gee, the meanest kitten you’ll ever see.  Dingus has gone missing too, the same time Hohner did.

Frankie with new kittens.  From the left, there is Freaky Deaky (the mackeral tabby); Albion (the white one); Frodo (the grey-tip Siamese); Campbell (the –I forget what, it is so damn noisy in the library I can’t concentrate–dark one); New Jersey; and Randy on the end.




A little ball of cuteness–clockwise it would be Campbell, Randy, Albion, Frodo’s butt, New Jersey, and Freaky. BTW, Campbell has since found a new home with a cat-loving local woman.  I miss him, too.

A nice shot of Albion on the porch.




Frodo, perched on the sofa cushion I sleep on when Kathy stays over (she gets the bed, which is too small for both of us).



Randy, staring intently at nothing.

The Old Fart with Frodo, on the proch of our cabin–BTW, Kathy took this one and the preceding three–I took the rest with a conventional camera, she scanned the photos and put them here.  (Thanks, and a tip of the Greyfox fedora to the webmistress!)




My car.  I love it. I blogged about it, I dunno, three or four. times.  A 1991 Mazda MPV, it is the best car I ever owned.    Everything works, Pioneer sound system is awesome, big V-6 gets 23 mpg highway and goes like a goosed moose when I floor it,  it is comfortable and stable, and has amenities like a five-speed automatic tranny, cruise control, push-button four wheel drive, and so on. Paid $2500 for it early this summer, FINALLY paid the loan off recently.  Mine–it’s all mine, I tell you–moo hoo ha ha ha.

No clever finish this time.  Life is good.

Shoot-out at Felony Flats:  And I Was There

Okay, it wasn’t much of a shoot-out; only one shot was fired.  And I was not close enough to the action for the troopers to have interviewed me.  But here’s the story, to the best of my knowledge and recollection.

I was schmoozing with Mike the  landlord yesterday, and Beth  drove up and said her husband Gene had shot someone.   Beth and Gene are transplanted Texans, own the Lone Star Laundromat across the highway.  I am not huge fans of theirs–Beth gave me such a ration of shit one day when I told her that a dryer was malfunctioning that I looked for another laundromat; Gene  tried to dicker me way down on the price of a gun, then wanted to trade some gold nugget jewelry for it–this after I had repeatedly said the price was firm, and for cash.  Gene is not a man who takes no for an answer gracefully, copped an attitude when I told him for the fourth time I needed cash for the gun.  But I digress. . . .

He had shot Dave, one of the denizens of the flats.  Now Dave looks like Uncle Fester on a bad day–a huge, scary-looking dude with a shaved head, who subsists on SSI mental disability checks–he is a professional lunatic, in other words. I have never had any problems with him, but one of the other lunatics here did and started packing an old .38.  But Dave  stops by my stand and chats–he is always courteous and lucid–buys the odd item at times, and I get along with him all right–then again, I am a double Libra with buckets of charisma, and I can get along with almost anyone.

They had eighty-sixed Dave from the laundromat, for some reason.  I don’t know why, but I have been told that he has been really testy  lately over a drug deal that went bad and he lost $50.  The alleged seller was a member of AA, I might add.  (And I will, so there!)  Anyway, Gene and Beth drove over to Dave’s place for some reason, and fisticuffs ensued.  Beth said Dave threw the first punch; a less biased eye-witness said that Gene threw the first punch, and shot Dave after Dave hit him back.  Anyway. . . .

Dave had been helping out Mike, doing odd jobs and driving around an ambulance that was out of service–they used it as a utility truck. The vehicle was parked at the crime scene, Mike’s wife asked me if I would go and get it, as she couldn’t bear to see someone who had been shot.  I agreed, not knowing how bad the shooting had been, but expecting the worse–Gene packs a nine mm, and I assume he’s a good shot.

So I go striding up the hundred yards or so to the scene, fully expecting to have to rifle around in a corpse’s pants pockets to get the keys to the ambulance.  Much to my surprise, Dave was ambulatory and really angry, and bleeding from a flesh wound to the forearm.  Evidently, Gene had merely winged him–shit, guys have finished playing a football game with more severe injuries.  But since it was a gunshot wound, there was all this extra paperwork involved.

Anyway, Dave hands me the keys, and  I climb into the thing, noting with relief that it has an automatic tranny.  Fired it up, carefully turned the thing around, and manfully resisted the temptation to turn on the siren and the flashing lights!  Following instructions, I pulled it around behind the cabins near mine, locked all the doors, and handed the keys over to Mike.

Then the real ambulance arrives, lights and siren blazing, and  rushes Dave off to the hospital for a thousand-dollar Band-Aid.  Then the troopers started arriving.  Jesus, you would have thought a fucking riot had broken out, not a piddly-ass shooting!  Fully an hour after Dave was taken away (and Gene was arrested), there were still five trooper vehicles, including a K-9 unit complete with barking canine, on the scene.  The troopers were standing around with notebooks, conferring with each other and any one who would stand still, and looking officious and intimidating in their blues and vests.  Sigh.

Meanwhile, many of the folks in the hundreds of cars who drove by while all this was going on will now be clucking about the terrible people who live at Felony Flats, not knowing that it was one of the upstanding neighbors who was the felonious perpetrator, and  that one of the Flats residents was the victim!

Personal PS–I have often remarked that I am one lucky guy, and this was proven again yesterday.  I had taken the day off to go to Willow to pick up a knife shipment.  Shortly before the shooting occurred, I thought about opening my stand, which is located very close to the crime scene.  Had I done so, I would have been an eye-witness and would have had to be interviewed and most likely would have been called to testify at the trial, assuming there is one.

What’s more, it clouded up and started to drizzle around five.

Foiling the Urinal from Hell:  Circumventing Technology Gone Mad

I am not a complete Luddite–there is some technology I actually approve of.  For instance, after forty years of driving cars with stick shifts, I got one with automatic transmission.  And I recently got one of those neat atomic clock thingies that resets itself every day by picking up a signal from the cesium clock at Fort Collins, Colorado.  (Okay, it is supposed to do that–we are too far away to pick up the signal, I think, but it IS a really neat clock, plus it has an indoor-outdoor thermometer AND it tells the phase of the moon.  But I digress.)

Technology is a great servant, but a lousy master.  Take automated men’s rooms–please!  The one at the Big Lake library is the worst.  The faucets come on automaticlly–thus giving you no control over water temperature or flow rate.  The toilet flushes automatically–while I am still sitting on the damned thing.  And the urinal tends to run forever.

The other day, I went in and the damned urinal was not only flushing but gushing, all over the floor.  I notified the librarian, she moaned and rolled her eyes, said “Oh no–not again!”  So she rolled up her sleeves and went into the men’s room.  I don’t know what she did, but the next time I went in, the urinal was singing “Bicycle Built for Two.”

But I figured out how to beat the system.  Now, when I have to take a leak, I go into the handicapped stall, and stand well to the side of the bowl–the sensor doesn’t even know I’m there, hee hee.

Of course, I do have to wipe  a lot of piss off the floor when I’m done, but it is well worth the trouble.

A Truely Loathsome Individual

 I live in a low-income area, sell weapons for a living, and set up shop next to place that sells off-road vehicles of dubious provenance.  Thus, I often see people who are, well, unattractive.  Some are meth freaks with greasy jeans and greasier hair  and teeth that look like halloween candy; others are stumbling drunks; still others are fat white  guys with tribal tattoos on their steroid-enhanced biceps–still, many  of them manage to have at least one redeeming feature.  Recently, however, I witnessed a guy who was so totally repulsive, who had gone to so much trouble and expense to enhance his natural ugliness, who exuded such utterly foul and heinous vibes  that I could not let him go unremarked.  He was  a customer at the afore-mentioned midnight auto supply store. (It sells other stuff–right now, for instance, you could buy a western saddle or a cement mixer.  But I digress.)

 His posture was awful, he slouched and slumped when he wasn’t strutting.  He was average height, well above average weight.  He had a double chin and a moderate beer gut.  Nondescript short  brown hair, pig face, close-set beady eyes.  His “why-bother ” beard (that is, one of those real short and carefully trimmed ones) did not begin to hide his weak chin or lack of facial bone structure.  One eyebrow was pierced, as was one ear, and the space between his lower lip and chin was pierced, and there was a one-inch spike protruding from it.

He was nattily attired in baggy black pants, dirty sneakers and a t-shirt that wittily announced to the world  that “your little princess is my little whore.”  But wait, it gets better.  There was his vehicle.

I think that what you drive says a lot about you.  In my neighborhood, it often just says “okay, I’m poor.”  I’m not quite sure what his said, but I don’t think it was good.  It was a newish pickup truck, a Dodge Ram.  I contend that any man  who drives a Dodge Ram has serious masculinity issues.  Better yet, it was a short-bed.  (Get it?  SHORT-bed?  Ahem.)  It was one of those slightly jacked-up affairs, with a step bar so you could at least get into the damn thing without a ladder.  The rear window was tinted dark.  The icing on the cake was the decals.  Two of them, both white silhouettes of naked women–okay, they had on high heels.  The one on the left had horns and a tail.  The one on the right had wings and a halo. 

Somehow, I doubt the guy dates very much–at least, not without setting a fee in advance.

On Relapse: A 12-step poem (sort of)

 Some months ago, our meetings swelled
To fifty souls or more.
More recently, the numbers fell
To fewer than a score.

 Why did they choose to fail, to lose,
Those ones who left our door?
Why did they choose to dope and booze
Just like they did before?

 They worked the steps, they read the books,
They made the meeting’s hour.
Did they all buy the heinous lie
That says we have no power?

 The toxic waste some choose to taste
Is quite devoid of will.
It has no say to rule or sway–
We choose to take the pill.

We each create the life we live
And therein lies our power.
We each can choose to win, or use–
To wither, or to flower.
 

Notes–this was inspired by the fact that a lot of folks have been
dropping out of our NA group lately, including one guy who was a
veritable rock star of NA–had a great business (he was a general
contractor); had lots of expensive toys–motorcycle, four-wheeler, and
so forth;  and lived in a big ugly house he built, with his young
trophy wife. Celebrated his anonymity by wearing a jacket with
“NA” on it in big letters. He always spouted the NA line, 
but went out and started drawing $500 a day from his business account,
blew it all on dope.    He is in rehab now.

Step One–”we admitted we were powerless over our addiction.”

The poem is, I think, very interesting from a technical point of
view, what with the internal rhymes and symmetry of the first and last
stanzas.

More Kitten News

I am letting them go out on the porch of the cabin now, on short supervised jaunts.  They are still too slow and clumsy to  run around loose outside.  Campbell especially likes the outdoors, runs madly toward the door whenever it is open.  Randy and New Jersey show little interest in the great outdoors, however. 

Sometimes I pop them into a cardboard box, to get them used to it–it will be their home when and if I ever make them outside cats.

Their mom–Frankie the cross-eyed Siamese– continues to amaze me with her feistiness-when she showed up, forlorn and preggars, on my doorstep last winter, she was sooo shy and self-effacing.  Then she got established and booted out Silky.

Last night, I heard this ROWR ROWR ROWR, and some thumps, followed by a YIPE YIPE YIPE–grabbed a gun, went outside just in time to see a decent-sized dog running away from her. You go, girl!

Guilt trip note to SuSu–bring the camera next week!!

Saved by Rock and Roll

If today were a horse, you’d shoot it.  If it were a building, it would be condemned.  The weather isn’t just shitty, it is spectacularly shitty–rain varying from drizzle to downpour, intermittant high wind that is getting much of the stuff on my porch wet, and which blew away the tarp over a neighbor’s yard sale stuff.  (Aside–this bothers me.  They are nice people, just scraping by, and I feel for them.  This bothers me even more.  After years of intensive therapy for my Narcissistic Personality Disorder, I am developing a soupcon of compassion and empathy.  It sucks.  Cold and selfish was more comfortable.  But I digress.)  I was expecting the weather, but what makes it particularly heinous is that late yesterday, a regular customer I don’t see often (he drives a pilot truck for over-size loads) stopped by, asked about coins and some other stuff I only sell to regulars.  He said he’d be back around seven or so today, so I spent a lot of time and energy digging out a bunch of coins and stuff, which is now adding to the clutter in the front seat of my car.

It gets better.  I’m getting dressed this morning, the laces of my white sneaks are suspiciously wet, and I don’t think it is Evian water.  It is eau de kitten, so I spray my shoes with that pet odor-killing stuff, overshoot and wet down some merchandise sitting on my chair.  Then I noticed my truss felt loose–all the stitching I’d done on the buckle had come undone, so I disrobed and started looking for my old truss.  I remembered it was somewhere in the laundry basket, started digging down through the summer clothing and camo stuff, finally said fuck it, and dumped the whole mess on the bed, much to the consternation of Frankie, who was on the bed at the time.  Finally found the damn thing and put it on–thing is, being a cheap piece of crap (all hernia trusses are cheap pieces of crap–they are designed that way, since they are just meant as an ad hoc stopgap until you get the operation, which I can’t afford, so I have been wearing trusses for like seven years), it pinches me severely in the groinal area.  Trust me on this, the groinal area is one place you really don’t want getitng pinched all the time.  So I liberally applied some corn starch to my naughty bits (and the carpet in the process), which helped a little.

But I am still not a happy fucking camper.

Get in the car and get going.  Once I am well on the way, THEN I notice my bad eye needs some eye drops.  To hell with it, the orb can wait until I get to the post office.  Then an on-coming driver flashes his lights at me–shit, I forgot to turn on the headlights.  I ALWAYS remember to turn on the headlights–okay, almost always.  I wonder what is going on with the stars and such, look forward to checking my horoscope on-line, remember that my astrologer is on vacation.  Shit, now I know how rich New Yorkers feel in August when their shrinks all go to  Europe–lost and afraid.  So I guess I’ll make do with the sun sign stuff in the daily paper.  Sigh.

I decide to make some music, dig into the tape box and get best of Foreigner, stuff it into the tape player.  Out comes “Urgent”.  Wow–when this was big, I was dating Paula, the girl with “forearms like a fullback” (her words).  Smart, blonde, sexy as hell.  We started dating in the early eighties, not long after I got out of rehab for the second time and had quit drinking booze AND smoking dope.  Gee, those were good times.  I was driving a new sports car at the time (Fiat X1/9, which is now a lawn ornament at our old place).

Then I snapped back to the present–I am cleaner and soberer and less nutty than ever before, I am married to an awesome woman who makes me look normal, I’m driving a wonderful car I love, I run my own business which I enjoy, and  I have a cabin-full of kittens and a heart full of love (which sounds like a really bad country song, but so what?).

Life is good.