A PRAYER WE DIDNT KNOW WE WERE SAYING

Through the pines and the one maple I hear her.
𝘐 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘯’𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘨𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘧𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘧 𝘐 𝘥𝘪𝘥𝘯’𝘵 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘰 𝘧𝘪𝘴𝘩.
𝘐 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘯’𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘨𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘧𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘧 𝘐 𝘥𝘪𝘥𝘯’𝘵 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘰 𝘧𝘪𝘴𝘩.
There she stands
legs impossibly long
pink and black polka dot swimsuit baggy
pole in her hands
and a little oval sunfish impossibly on her hook.

I don’t tell her, but I do think
Oh, sweet girl, life is always like that.
Fishing before you know how to fish.
Leaving before you know how to leave.
Speaking before you know how to speak.
Fighting before you know how to fight.
Loving before you know how to love.
Dying before you know how to die.

We are all the child with the pole
worrying about who we’ve hurt.
And we are all the fish on the hook,
hoping for mercy.
Her aunt hears her muttering prayer
and though she hasn’t unhooked a fish in 30 years
grabs the wriggling innocent in her hands
and dislodges metal from cheek.
And this, too, is all of us.
Saved again and again by prayer we didn’t know we were saying
and a witness we forgot was listening.
- Courtney Martin -

OUR TRUE SELVES

Its OK to joke yourself, but you shouldn't joke other people.

Like the time I took a bite out of Joanna Rodriguez's sandwich in the LD Bell lunchroom and put it back in her bag. It was supposed to be a mystery, a secret, like a funny (haha) who-done-it. She would open her bag and see the big bite out of it and smile, and say "Who is the comic genius that took a bite out of my sandwich." I would fess up, and I would be completely endeared to her (even though we had not been formally introduced) her saying "Oh how clever you are!" But it wasn’t a secret for long because of my overbite, and the peanut butter and jelly on the corners of my mouth. That was a dead give-away. It wasn’t funny either, haha, especially to Joanna who was pissed that some asshole with an overbite had secretly taken a bite out of her sandwich her mama had packed for her. Right there in the lunchroom, while she went to get her milk.

What was the country coming to, that you couldn’t set your lunch down for not even a minute?

In my minds eye I can still see Joanna, as I'm sure you must be seeing her now, disgusted and fuming, unceremoniously stuffing the sandwich back into the bag, marching to the trash can and slam dunking it, madder'n Charles Barkley.
And it wasn’t funny to me, me suddenly being absolutely horrified at what I had done, and the fact that it wasn't a secret, or the least bit funny-- which is what I was shooting for, haha-- at all. No sir, it wasn’t funny at all.

Addendum:
This story came up during an online recovery zoom meeting today. The topic was the masks that we wear and our true selves. I shared that even on a good day when I seem confident, polite, courageous, friendly, funny, urbane, and sophisticated, that deep down I'm like an awkward little boy that just wants attention, approval, and acceptance. And I'm afraid that I won't get it.
I think about this story often.
Sometimes you think maybe you're misunderstood. But you're not misunderstood, you're just doing stupid stuff. Fifty years later I still have to remind myself not to take a bite out of other people's sandwiches in order to get attention, and live in a certain amount of fear that I will have a momentary lapse of reason and resort to such tactics.
I get a lot of mileage out of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich don't I?

 Joanna, pictured left.

"MY NAME IS STEVE AND I AM AN ADDICT"

 I had a boss the last 6 years, a Marine veteran. He struggled with alcohol and no telling what else. His story was typical. Joined the corps out of High School. Spent 20 years at it. Several tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Returns home broken. Gets his first civilian job. Soon to follow is a divorce. He told me one time that he had no idea what to do with his kids. Just could not relate. It was hard enough on the job. I was exactly the kind of guy he couldn't stand, Funny, big-hearted, happy. He looked at me sometimes like I was the Taliban. I used to have to tell him "Hey, I'm on your side, remember?"

 Several times I contacted corporate that we had a problem down here. The boss is showing up drunk if he shows up at all. They seemed to be limited in what they could do. I watched the guy disintegrate the last two years. And then one day last September he shot himself in the head while I was on vacation.

Grief counselors came to the workplace and we had a meeting. They spoke to us (an office of six) and opened the meeting up for us to share. Everyone was silent. Maybe 30 seconds, or 45 went by. And thats when I launched into “My name is Steve and I work here.” I shared about my feelings on Tom, and what had happened, and how I was disappointed the company seemed to let Tom down.

That's how you get it started. Identification.

It broke the ice and everybody shared from there. It's what I've learned to do through my narcotics anonymous program.

I guess now its my habit, my nature.

FUCK YOU FRANK

 What a marriage! From acimony to alimony in six months flat. An alligator ate their dog. There was a parrot, whose only phrase was "Fuck you, Frank, fuck you, Frank." After she left he took to drinking, a fifth of vodka a day. Sitting in the backyard with a high-powered rifle, waiting for the alligator to come back. 

He blamed the state of Florida. It was his idea of a bad idea, and by that he meant the whole damn state. There was a For Sale sign in the front yard. But nobody was buying, what with the real estate slump and the alligators and the not-so-distant roar of the traffic going from nowhere to nowhere on the causeway.

He ate frozen pizza every single night. Alone at the kitchen table, or standing by the patio window, on the lookout for the alligator. It was her dog, a tiny chihuahua with a mean streak. One minute it was yapping in the backyard and then it wasn't, and there was an alligator sauntering back to the canal, belching. They should have put up a fence but there wasn't time, between the swearing and dish throwing. 

He wanted her back, that was the amazing thing. He even wanted the parrot back. Sometimes at night he would look at himself in the bathroom mirror and say, "Fuck you, Frank. Fuck you, Frank."

UF Mike

WHISPERS

 Sillage (n.)- a scent that lingers in the air; the trail left in the water; the impression made in space after someone has been and gone; the trace of someone’s perfume.

“The alphabet of grace is full of sibilants—sounds that can't be shouted but only whispered: the sounds of bumblebees and wind and lovers in the dark, of whitecaps hissing up flat over the glittering sand and cars on wet roads, of crowds hushed in vast and vaulted places, the sound of your own breathing. I believe that in sibilants life is trying to tell us something. The trees, ghosts, dreams, faces, the waking up and eating and working of life, are trying to tell us something, to take us somewhere.”
~ Frederick Buechner

~Image Rene Magritte

APRIL SHOWERS

 

APRIL SHOWERS

She and I played in the rain

We would walk to the top of the hill

And break a small piece of twig

To float in the gutter

Back down the hill we would follow our twig-boats.

Wait patiently for them to free themselves from eddies.

Watch delighted as they bounded over and around.

Small rocks,

Clumps of leaves

Cracks in the pavement

Then skipping through the rapids

We landed at the bottom of the hill,

Drenched and happy

Running back to the top

To do it all over again.

Bulletholes 5/2013 

She lived down the street from me. I was 17 and she was 14. Looking back, it seems like she and I played in the rain like this all the time. Most likely it was just one 30-minute rain shower that seemed like an eternity. I walked her home and kissed her on her front porch. It was a real kiss, and I remember being surprised I would do that, and how good she kissed for being just 14.

I think back sometimes, and wonder was it her first kiss. Judging by technique, I would say not.

If it was a "date" then it was the date all other dates are judged by.

Of course, she doesn’t quite remember any of it.

Sometimes when I meet a girl and think maybe I like her I wonder to myself if she is the kind of  girl that would float twigs with me.

 

14 YEARS CLEAN AND SOBER

 NEW BRAUNFELS JUMPING BEANS

oDwn at the ZZ top concert we were standing in a pretty thick crowd, asshole to elbow. I had to throw a few elbows every now and then to help create a little space for the three of us. There was a young cowboy to my front right. I gave him a few pretty good nudges. He was pretty good natured about it and would give us a little space, smiling at me and giving me a little fist bump..

In between songs he turned to me and offered me a couple big white pills in the bottom of a cup. I looked up to him and I told him "No thank you. I've got 14 years clean and sober. No alcohol or dope at all".

He said "Dude, that's great" and withdrew the cup. Another fist bump and we smiled at each other.

I couldn't help but wonder what that was he offered me. Ecstasy? Hydrocodone? White witches? Some kind of cocaine/fentanyl/propanol/ketamine tossed salad? New Braunfels jumping beans? These were pretty big pills.

So during a break between songs I leaned over and asked him:

"What was that you tried to give me anyway?"

"Copenhagen" came his reply.

Copenhagen pouches. Shit. 

 Yeah, I do everything I can to protect my clean time but I still felt like a bit of an idiot.

IF YOU WANT A FRIEND, BE A FRIEND

 

A few months back I’m talking to the Ex-Mrs Bulletholes, Shila. She tells me she and our good friend Lisa are going to see Willie Nelson and ZZ Top in April.
“You should get a ticket and come with us” She says.
“Oh yeah? You think?”
“Sure “ she says. “We are getting a B&B. If you go, you cant sleep with me, you’ll have to sleep with Lisa”
This makes me giggle.
“So how much are tickets?” I ask, thinking there no way I can afford ZZ and Willie. “Seventy-five dollars” she says.
“Seventy five dollars? Where is this show at, out in a field somewhere?” I’m thinking my days of outdoor concerts in fields is probably long past.
She gets that excited, unsinkable look on her face that I have always loved. Nodding her head she says “YES! Out in a field!” She is beaming.

I laughed. But the more I thought about it the next few days, the more I thought what the hell. We could have fun. Lisa just lost her husband, my friend Larry. I never liked a man as much as liked Larry.  I know this is a wonderful distraction for her. And besides, “NO” is not a word we use around here, not where our friends are concerned. Its all part of participating in your own life. If you want a friend,  be a friend.
So  called Lisa. She was excited that I would go.
“Shila says I have to sleep with you though”
Lisa laughs. “That’s probably not going to happen” But its worth it to hear Lisa laugh.

 So I bought my ticket. I called Shila. “I got my ticket. I’m coming with y’all. I told Lisa that you said I had to sleep with her”
Shila says “That’s not what I told you. I said you couldn’t sleep with me, you would have to sleep with Lisa”
I took a page from Shila’s book.
“That’s right” I said in my most excited voice “You said I’d have to sleep with Lisa!”

 So I hope they have a couch for me.

 Lisa and I go way back. I was a senior and she was junior when we met in Journalism class. During Christmas break I got the courage up to go see her the day before New Years to ask her out. As I was walking up the walk, a dude was leaving her house. James, a loser. I don’t mean to be judgmental, but this guy, I don’t think he could spell CAT if you spotted him the C and A.
“Hey James” I said as we passed on the walk.
“Hey Steve” says he.
I got to the door and rang the bell. Lisa opened the door and with a huge look of relief on her face says “Oh Thank God”.

We got to be fast friends  from there, and kissing buddies. We kissed all the time, even when her boyfriend moved up from Houston. Maybe not ALL the time after that, but sometimes I'd pull her into the next room for a quickie. It drove him crazy. 
I lost track of her about 1978, but in 1981 I was standing in line with my girlfriend at Galligaskins sandwich shop out on Camp Bowie. Some people came in behind us. I turned and glanced at them and did a double take. It was Lisa! With some guy. A NEW boyfriend. During my double take Lisa  was silently mouthing to me “Steve?”
I couldn’t help it. I took her in my arms and planted the worlds most passionate kiss right on her lips, in front of the world, in front of my girlfriend and her boyfriend.

That's all there ever was. Everybody ought have a kissin' buddy or two growing up, doncha think? We no longer do the full on liplock, but anytime we meet there is a friendly little peck for old times sake. 

A LITTLE PRICK

 I had a CAT scan done last week to make sure no cancer is trying to come back from my kidney removal last year.

They had to put in an Intravenous tube, which requires a needle. I don’t like it. Don’t like it one bit. I have to look away and I always gasp, even if all I feel is a little teeny tiny prick. 

The girl that put the IV, she was good, but noted the gasp and asked "Are you okay?"

I let out a sigh. “Yes, I’m fine but I really HATE these things. Very invasive” in my best Daffy Duck voice.

And we laughed.

She says "Well it's over now. Everything's okay"

“NO, No, no, it is not not not okay. Not OK at all. There is a tube hanging out of my arm that IS NOT supposed to be there.”

She said "Well the needle is out"

I laughed. “Don't try to sugar coat this for me!”

We both laughed. She was real nice and played along with my grouchy old man routine.

It got even better. She took me to the dressing room and turned on the light. Only one of the four lights was working. It was dark, like the back table down at The Pussycat Lounge. She says “I know it's a little dark in here but the light really is on.”

“You keep telling me things that are only half true” I whined.

And we laughed.

Artifacts

 My mom's been dead 37 years, dad 36. A few weeks ago I was passing by the junk shelf in the kitchen. Mind you, I moved into this house 3 years ago. On the junk shelf was a Watson's department store gift certificate for $50 that expired 3 months before my mother died. How that could have time traveled and wound up on my junk shelf in a house I've only lived in for 3 years I do not know. The trash can was right there. Keep it? Throw it away?

I took it and put it in my top desk drawer in my room. I'll stumble across it again in 5 years or else my kids will find it when they're sorting through my stuff after I'm gone. Throw it away? How could I.

HIGH MAINTENANCE PATIENT

 

I have a surgery scheduled for November 29th. They will be removing my left kidney. Its probably going to hurt like hell.
In September, when I had a minor complication from a hernia surgery it was discovered I had a mass on my left kidney. This is not good news, nor was it a surprise. Kidney cancer seems to run in the family. It killed my brother Don and his son Dave, both at an early age.
But it appears I am quite fortunate. Don and Dave both had masses that were smaller than mine. But they were situated and had grown in a way that surgery was not possible. They had to endure rounds of chemo and radiation in order to try to shrink the masses. The treatments were not successful. That doesn’t seem to be the case with mine. The good news was that if the mass was cancerous they could just remove it and the kidney. The bad news was that even if it was not cancerous I was still going to lose the kidney. I feel pretty lucky.

I did change kidney doctors. The first doctor scheduled my MRI and I went in for the consult. That’s when he said they could probably just remove the kidney. He scheduled a biopsy. When I got home I thought of another question I wanted to ask. I’m like Columbo, you know, always one more question. So I called. I got a recording that said:
“Please leave your name and number and we will try to get back to you in the next 48 hours. Please understand that we are a HIGH VOLUME OFFICE, and if you call back a second time it messes up our system”.
Well, how about that? I need for them to know that I am a HIGH MAINTENANCE PATIENT, and if they are so busy they cant get back to me for 48 hours maybe they need to get some more help up in there.
High volume office my ass.

So I went to the biopsy thinking I didn’t much like this doctor so much, especially since it had been a whole week and no callback. The nurse putting in my IV asked me who my kidney doctor was. When I told her she audibly gasped. She stopped with the IV and froze like a stone. Her eyes got big as saucers. She looked horrified!
“What? What? What?” I asked “What is that look?”
She gathered herself. “How did you end up with him?” she asked.
She brought me the name of a doctor she recommended, and I told her I had already determined I’d be changing doctors because of them being a high volume office and all.
So the next day I had my final appointment with the hernia doctor.
I told him about the phone call, and the office too busy to return calls.
“That’s no good “ he says, scrawls a name on a pad and hands it to me. “Give this guy a call. If they cant get you in this week, give me a call and I’ll grease the skids for you.”
It was the same name as the nurse had given me. A good sign. A very good sign. I'm not one to attribute much to being a sign from God, or stuff like that, but you could say this was my burning bush.

All things considered, I’m feeling pretty good about all this so far. Were it not for a minor complication from a hernia surgery I'd be walking around not knowing what was up with my kidneys.
I like my new doctor very much, but that’s a whole ‘nother story.

My Best Friend Larry

 "So  Now You Know"

"Thank you Lisa for the honor and privilege to speak here today. Lisa is my longest running friend…we went to nursery school together. Erica, Ryan Michael, Jay Sara and David, thank you for allowing me this. I was proud to know your dad.

I’ve had a lot of best friends in my life. In my old age now I think back on all of them regularly, and when I do Larry always comes out at the top of the list. If best friends can be ranked, Larry ranks best best friend. Not many people have been as close to me as Larry and Lisa, and I never liked a man as much as I liked Larry Allen.

I remember the first time Larry and I bonded. We sat on the hood of my car on graduation night and talked about what we would do now that we were out of school. I was going to be a chef. Larry was going to do art. Over the years Larry and I would check in with each other, and congratulate ourselves we were still doing what we said we were going to do.

I haven’t cheffed professionally in years now. But I want you to know the last time I saw Larry, just a few weeks ago, it was at an art studio in downtown Fort Worth called Dang Good Candy.  The exhibit was titled “Larry Allen: A retrospective”. The gallery was filled with Larry's artwork, and also a life time of his friends. His pieces were professionally displayed, with captions,  descriptions and details of the provenance of the particular pieces. Tip o’ the hat Larry, still doing art.

Larry said later it was the greatest night of his life. Most of y’all were there, and I was amazed by the sweet sweet spirit in the place. It was one of the most amazing nights of my life as well, to see this tribute to my good friend.

Some of you may have been unfortunate enough to be cornered by me to view the portrait of the old man Larry had gifted me long ago. I held people hostage to read the story and poem that I associate with the portrait. It was only a lack of vanity that kept me from taking the portrait down from the wall and making them read the inscription on the back Larry had written 28 years before. The inscription reads:

"In life, there are people who affect the way you see the world, not by what is said, more in how they assist in one’s illuminations of what is; those people are friends. I am grateful, as well as a better man, for your friendship.”

This inscription probably says more about Larry than it does about me.
The Old man is one of my most prized possessions. I told Larry that night that if he ever wanted it back he would have to fight me for it. From his chair Larry gave me his biggest smile, and put up his dukes.

A few months after high school there is a story that I cant tell here that earned me the first Larry Allen raised eyebrow I had ever seen. Y’all know the eyebrow, yes?

A few years later Larry and I went to the HOP. I taught him how to drink Peach Brandy. Then to the Old South for Dutch Babies, and back to my place where we unwrapped Waiting For Columbus, littlefeats latest release in 1978. Larry fell in love with Dixie Chicken, and the album became a mainstay of gatherings and parties among our peers.

The day after Erica was born Larry and I went to dinner. He told me all about what it meant to be a father, and reminded me that soon I would be a member of the club.

Back about ’94 Larry bought a house. Larry spent a month preparing for the move and I helped. It would be the most organized move ever. He had shrink wrap, stretch wrap, bubble wrap and boxes. His boxes were meticulously labeled. You know Larry could not make a check mark without it being a work of art. Shoot, he couldn’t request Dixie Chicken at a Buddy show on a cocktail napkin without it being a work of art. We saw that at his retrospective, cocktails napkins saved through the years with Larry's artful requests.

I'm going to cut to the chase here. On the day of the move the movers came. The the house sale fell thru. Somehow a rent house was located and movers were redirected. By 4 O'clock that afternoon I would have helped Larry move TWICE. But it wasn’t over yet because when Larry finally saw the rent house, he said “This place is a dump, I’m not letting my family stay here”

Well, we sat and had a discussion for the next hour about what to do.

At some point I said “I tell you what we could do Larry. We can move all your stuff  into my garage and onto my back porch. We'll put pallets up for our kids to sleep on. Y’all can stay with us until you figure out what to do”

And do you know what?

That’s exactly what we did.

All night that night we moved Larry's stuff into my house. We finished up about 8 the next morning, both a bit punchy. I said “Larry, you couldn’t have planned this more perfectly; you paid movers to move all your worldly possession's to two different locations, then all night long we moved them all to my house. And right now our kids are sleeping on pallets in my house, and all is right with the world.”

I asked Erica if she remembered this. She said she did not. Of course she didn’t …it was just part of the grand adventure.

Two weeks later a group of friends loaded a U-haul in my driveway with Larry's stuff. He had determined to move to Florida. There was Gary, and Bill and Jeff maybe, Billy Baker and Curtiss Pilcher (Hey guys). They got the truck all loaded, and I noticed Larry frantically looking through his well marked boxes. He pulled one off the truck and took it into my living room. He was being kind of furtive about the whole thing, but at some point I knew what he was doing. I went and took a shower while everyone sat in my drive way. I stood in the shower and I cried. Partly because Larry was moving away, and partly because I knew that Larry was about to gift me the portrait of the old man.
So now you know. So now you know part of the story of the Old man that is seldom told.

There are people that help illuminate for you what is. Not by what they say, but more but what they do. Larry was that kind of friend to me. Our friendship wasn’t based on self improvement, for the self or the other. I don’t recall we ever gave or sought each others advice. But just by virtue of the companionship, we appealed to the larger parts of each other; the smaller parts of ourselves diminished, not from critique but from participation as a witness to each other on a journey that cant be taken alone.

I’ve been struck by pictures I’ve seen of Larry the last year. Handsome with a beaming smile, but ravaged from his disease. I see him at the farm, on the beach, home with family. And always that beaming smile. Larry didn’t want to go. He didnt want to go because he loved you guys so much.

I’d said earlier that he couldn’t have planned that disaster of a move more perfectly. But I was wrong. In addition to Erica, Ryan and Michael on pallets, we could have had Jay, Sara and David as well. And there was no way we could have known that that would come later."

*******

This is what I wrote for Larry's servce in its entirety. I did not read it for the service, I just wanted to tell it.  A lot of it fell off  as I spoke, including the last two paragraphs. The description of our friendship seemed a perfect place to end it.
I never liked a man as much as I liked Larry Allen. 

Final Shirt

 After my father died, my mother

and my sisters picked the shirt, the tie;

he had just the one suit.

I left them to it. I didn't

want to choose, I loved him

all those years. They took a shirt

from the closet., I don't remember

which one, I'm sure he had worn it

to church and hung it up again.

They held the tie against the cloth

of the shirt. They decided, finally.

It's like that. Things come down

to the pale blue or the white,

or some other. Someone buttoned it

over him, those buttons he had unbuttoned.

Marge Saiser

Larry's Barney Story

Once upon a time I took my kids to see Barney the big purple dinosaur. He was at Northeast Mall during the early days of the Barney Craze. There was a sea of people at the mall, scarcely room to breathe. Somehow the gentle Dinosaur was muscled through the crowd and onto a stage in the center where he spoke briefly and then sang the Barney song with the crowd:

“I love you, you love me, we’re best friends as friends should be,
With a great big hug and a kiss from me to you
Won’t you say you love me too”

Upon finishing the song, Barney was muscled back through the crowd and into the safety of the bowels of the mall where there was probably a limo to escort him to a helicopter that would fly him to a Leer Jet… because back then Barney was bigger than US Steel.

The whole episode had lasted less than 2 minutes and the crowd waited in expectation for more…maybe Baby Bop would come out next, or even better, a Barney Encore. Then over the loudspeaker came the words immortal, words that had been many years waiting for a worthy subject to rise to stardom:

“BARNEY HAS LEFT THE BUILDING! PLEASE GO HOME!”

We were shattered, and a thick air of disappointment, sadness and even resentment hung in the air. And thats my Barney Story that I actually stole from Larry Allen. But I stole it fair and square!

TRUST ISSUES

 

My nephew Davy used to tell me about the time he was a delivery driver assistant. He worked with a fellow who had not been in country for long. He spoke broken English. Out on a delivery one day they got lost. Lost and turned around. They made a few city blocks, and the immigrant driver was getting a little discombobulated.
“We need to be going east” Davy said.
“Ve are goink eazzt now” the driver said.
“No, we are going west. See? The sun is setting”.
The immigrant driver, very frustrated, replied.
“You…cannot …trust …the …sun”

GOOD SHIT HAPPENS

I don’t know what in the news today makes me happier. That Ukraine plans to take back the Crimea, lost in 2014.
Or that Florida has identified and arrested 20 people on voter fraud charges…10 registered Republicans and 10 registered Democrats.
Or that the Judge that issued the Miralago warrant to take back all those classified documents from Mr Trump has directed the DOJ to work up a redacted affidavit for the public to see.
Or that the prequel to Game of Thrones, “House of the Dragon” starts Sunday night.
Valar Dohaeris

MY GRATITUDE LIST

 

If you are laying on the couch watching TV and suddenly you THINK you just saw a rat run down the hall, I want you to know that yes, you saw a rat run down the hall. And the odds are that there is another rat somewhere.
So the day after thinking I might have seen a rat scamper down my hall I saw it again, this time in the doorway to my bedroom.
My bedroom, where I watch TV and my kids come to play.
This is an infraction, and intolerable.

So off to home Depot I go to get some rat poison. Only when I get there, they don’t have the old D-Con box I had used many years ago. They hat some kind of new stuff. I checked the active ingredient.
Corn Gluten. That’s it. Corn Gluten. How can that be? Can you imagine a happier rat than one that is feasting in a corn crib? I read all about it, how Corn Gluten is supposed to kill a rat. But I don’t trust it. No sir. I want something that sounds deadly. Something with prefixes like Tetra, or Doxyl, or Cyano, and ends with string of letters and numbers. It seems the EPA has banned the good stuff. I bought a box of the Corn Gluten. And I called a friend that I had heard had a rat last year to find out if this shit really works
“No, I didn’t have a rat” he said “but I’ve got a box of the good stuff”.
It is illegal these days to use it.

I set out the bait. I could see the rats had eaten some corn gluten. But after a few days I thought I heard a rat, and then I thought I saw a rat, and as previously mentioned if you THINK you’ve seen a rat, you’ve seen a fucking rat. My son cornered one and shot him with a BB gun, but rats are tough. I chased one under the stove one morning at 5 AM.

So I bought a couple mechanical traps. Two different styles. I baited them up with fried chicken, TacoCasa, and half an ear of corn because you know rats love goddamn corn. And after 4 days now the traps haven’t been touched.
But neither have I THOUGHT I saw or heard a rat. I am assuming the corn gluten got them, and now they are communing with their Higher Power and eating like kings in that big corn crib in the sky.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t find rats particularly disgusting on an individual rat-by-rat basis. But as a group they are disturbing. I have a friend that LIKES rats. She keeps them as pets. She has a big cage for them, with rat toys, and running wheels, and little rat mirrors and cedar shavings and stuff. They come out and play with her, and then scurry back into their cage. If I could have a cage like that, and these rats would just go live in that cage and eat sunflower seeds, we would get along fine.

But that’s not what they do. They have to run and hide and chew holes in the wall and stuff.
I can abide this kind of behavior, so the rats had to go.

HANG MIKE PENCE?

In today's environment simply doing what the law and the Constitution require qualifies one as either hero or traitor.
Hero? Or traitor?

Seems like just about everyone that associated with Trump ends up as part of the RINO infested swamp.

Hans Rosling

" ... resist blaming any one individual or group of individuals for anything. Because the problem is that when we identify the bad guy, we are done thinking. And it's almost always more complicated than that. It's almost always about multiple interacting causes—a system. If you really want to change the world, you have to understand how it actually works and forget about punching anyone in the face."

WILD BREEDS WILD

Wild breeds wild –
you bring something in from the woods,
and soon enough, your home’s not yours.
P!ant a little honeysuckle
and the birds will come… They’ll come
with their mulberry trees and thistles.
They’ll build nests and attract foxes
and hawks, raccoons and opossum…
you lose control… you lose control…

And isn’t it the same with us… Isn’t it
the same with kisses and with skin…
we set something loose in each other…
We plant a little honeysuckle bruise
in our peaceful souls and the birds come…
They come on our hands and on our lips…
we lose control… we lose control.
It’s a deep thing… a promise, a warning…
wild breeds wild..
- Peregrine @ YourEyesBlazeOut