brotherhood of shovelers and the lazy guy

it's so cold i have to state the obvious. pen-exploding cold. hand-whitening cold.

as an act of kindness, those of us indoors should warm the hands of those coming inside with our arm pits or our butts. "would you like me to sit on your hands?" should be a common greeting in a kind-hearted and caring society. sadly, people may take it the wrong way.

i just came in from my afternoon shoveling. i enjoy making a neat looking driveway. my current neighbor (one of many) in the transient house next door wandered out onto his stoop and looked at me as if he'd never seen a person work. if the world were all mirrors, he wouldn't. "i would have thought you would have a snow blower," he said. i tried to explain how a shovel is all a person needs. he looked confused. in seven years, i have never seen a person in that house shovel. they prefer getting stuck or sliding into my fence.

meanwhile, i watch others around the neighborhood, shovels in hand. one woman shovels slowly, for hours, whittling away at the sidewalk as if she's carefully sculpting a statue of a fallen hero on a horse. she rakes in much the same way--like she doesn't want to wake the grass.

the retired school janitor across the street shovels so much, uglywife says he shovels his lawn. he doesn't shovel a path to anything; he rearranges snow. he does so because every so often a neighbor will arrive home, or someone will walk by, or someone like me will be shoveling within earshot. it is his social life. work has always provided him with conversation and a sense of belonging.

shovel and you belong. blow snow and you keep a noisy distance. stay inside and you become unaware a society even exists.

it's cold and i have no one to sit on my hands.

fear the 80 year old man

we're not movie people. lately, though, we've been on a streak of movie watching. movie theater watching, i mean. yesterday, i finally saw a movie that was worth the exposure to winter germs. it captured my attention so much, i forgot i had to go to the bathroom. gran torino.

dirty old harry. it is very funny, truly sad, and thought provoking. i've never seen uglywife cry without an animal being involved. she cried. don't tell her i mentioned that.

it is difficult for me to resist talking about favorite lines and scenes. i don't want to be a spoiler. let's just say that it speaks to the timeless verities and exemplifies the best of the human spirit--with funny lines, big guns, and a cool car.

i haven't recommended a movie since 1978. i'll wait a week, expect you've seen it, and talk about particulars.

symptoms

it used to be storms. the dog would shiver and whine and refuse to go outside, meaning, refuse to go to the bathroom. that is fairly common.

the condition hasn't changed, but the definition of storm has. drizzle is a storm. a mild breeze is a storm. if we ever had two days in a row of pleasant weather--75 degrees, 5 mph winds--the dog's bladder would explode. we are fortunate to live in michigan.

inside "storms" used to be the vacuum. again, typical. now the storms include anything which might beep. cooking used to set off the smoke alarms on occasion. the beep from the smoke alarm would make the dog act as if the sound had grown burrs and entered her urethra. i disconnected the alarms, choosing possible death over the dog's panic attacks.

since the fan was turned on when cooking got a little smokey, the fan puts the dog in panic mode. association. damn that pavlov. if the fan is turned on, the dog demands to be let out to bury herself in imaginary dens.

our new oven gives a pleasant "ding" when the cooking is done. needless to say, if anyone turns on the oven, the dog begins shivering like she is being sent to the firing line, anticipating a possible ding.

i imagine the dog police coming and asking why i beat my dog. "i don't beat it. i simply turned on the oven to make some biscuits." they arrest me anyway. in the dog world, the definition of abuse is expanding at a rate even faster than in the human world.

the nervous disorders are endless. the sight of bugs makes her drool. blood will make her vomit. oddly, she's fine with vomit.

the doctor offers helpful advice. "it'll get worse." then with a chuckle, he hands me the bill.

latest unemployment numbers

i often say (though never on this blog until now) that i still do not see signs of an unemployment problem in my part of america. sure, everything around me is shut down, and i encounter many "displaced workers" (students), and statistically the rate for this little part of michigan is amongst the nation's highest.

still, i'm convinced we have an overemployment problem.

• i call a company to find out where my cat food is. the person says his records show it wasn't sent because i need a prescription for it. he looks again. "but that's not correct. you don't need a prescription. i'll change that." then he informs me the shipping is wrong and that he'll have to add eight dollars to my order which hasn't been shipped in three weeks. i speak to a supervisor. "you need a prescription," he says. overemployment.
• i go to lowe's to find a shelf. i wander. i look for someone to help. they scatter from me. they group together to chat about something and block me out. they linger by the bathroom. overemployment.

that's this week. the examples are abundant. a good percentage of people who have jobs shouldn't. i'm guessing that many of those who don't have jobs should. fire 20 percent of the current work force; hire the 7 percent currently looking for work; everyone wins.

birds v. gunslingers

in little more than a week's time, uglywife and i have watched ten hours of documentaries on birds and ten hours of documentaries on famous gun fighters of the old west. don't ask.

after this fairly thorough indoctrination into the lives of both, i can say without hesitation that i would feel much more comfortable living closely with desperadoes. the man killers of the west generally lived by a code of some sort. their body counts are usually exaggerated. most were readers.



birds, however, are vicious. we watched birds kill birds. we watched birds knock other birds eggs off branches to get a sip, leaving the rest for the ants. we watched birds wait for birds to leave their nest so they could kill babies. we watched ducks torture and starve their own babies so that they could have the two they want rather than the five that were born.

don't let the birds take over. they will not govern well. when you're not looking they will steal your children. wyatt earp will shoot you if you draw on him; a bird will crap on you just to laugh.

i'm emptying the feeders outside, throwing out the seed, and filling them with whiskey. better cowboys hanging out in the backyard than the current crop of sky killers.

confused by public urinals

there are so many things i don't understand about other humans, that i doubt sometimes i am human at all. the other day i used a urinal at white castle. it was a normal public urinal, which means dirty. dried and drying urine on the rim i can understand, though it really is a large target. the amount of public hairs stuck all over the rim, though, is perplexing.

what do people do to unleash so many pubes while peeing? do they rustle it about? do they pluck and preen to pass time while peeing? are the access slits in their underwear too tight? is the average person that hairy? is this a territory marking i'm unfamiliar with?

as i say, i'm confused. there must have been forty or so pubic artifacts on the urinal at white castle. there was sufficient variety in shape and color to suggest a recurring problem rather than a single shooter. am i the only non-shedder? what am i doing wrong?

stranger in paradise

i'm not a very good relaxer. i find pleasure in doing things. still, we decided to spend a few days over the holiday in a romantic, relaxation, paradise. it was better than advertised.

the place: sybaris.

the room (really a stand-alone condo): giant bed upstairs, with a food preparing area, his and hers sinks, giant shower, hot tub, stereo system, fireplace, and massage chair. a slide (or stairs for me, perpetually scared of slides) shoots one down to the 92 degree pool, attached hot tub, and giant steam room. we also got our own heated garage.

the experience: it became strange living without outside light, and really strange living without the internet, and i still found enjoyment in keeping things tidy or reading, but--for the most part, it was truly relaxing. we had an amazing amount of time to play in the water without anything important to do. though the place is in the middle of suburbia and close to busy highways, it seemed a million miles away from civilization. it's nice to leave civilization every so often.

the recommendation: go.

and now: i can get back to blogging about dowagiac, drunks, and stupid ideas.