His Mothers Hands

A friend from my home town lost his mother this past week. She was 84, healthy and taking no medications which is amazing for this day and age. Her passing was, in my book, ideal. Peaceful, at home, no illness, quick and after living a long, fulfilled, love-filled life.

In talking with my friend, he mentioned his mothers hands. She was embarrassed of her hands. They were misshaped, worn and wrinkled with years of work as a farmers wife and a country mother. Hands like hers should be admired and revered as badges of an honorable, well-lived life.

I found this poem that was befitting...

My Mothers Hands author unknown

I held her hands in mine last night
they looked so thin and worn
but they held mine just as tightly
as the day that I was born.

Those gentle and expressive hands
etched by work and care
have folded over my bedside
many times in humble prayer.

They've washed for me, they've fed me
they've helped me be a man.
There's something of our Lord, Himself
in every mother's hands.

iSniff

I love the title of this one: "Its all cool until you get to the sauerkraut track."


nataliedee.com

Dream Spam

According to the hubbie, I was talking in my sleep and giving out my email address Sunday morning. I wonder what kind of spam I'll get from the dream world? Maybe something like...

"Please your mate by taking herbal pillow enhancements! Make her snore with pleasure."

"Win money in your sleep at REM Casino!"

"Your SleepPal account has changed! Update now!"

"I am a solicitor from Pillowshameria and am officially contacting you regarding inherited funds."

"The perfect sleeping aid - Sleepytime Audio Books presents 'Bedtime Stories read by Ben Stein.' Pop in the earbuds and with Bens' perfect monotone drone, you'll be snoozing in microseconds. Sleep away as Ben reads the snoozin' classics such as 'Knitting for Dummies', '1980 North Dakota Census Results' and our favorite, 'The Grandfather Clock Maintenance Manual.' See? It even works on Ben himself!"

Brandi Carlile - The Story

I'm going to take a page out of the book of Logo and post the lyrics to this song...

All of these lines across my face
Tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I've been
And how I got to where I am
But these stories don't mean anything
When you've got no one to tell them to
It's true...I was made for you

I climbed across the mountain tops
Swam all across the ocean blue
I crossed all the lines and I broke all the rules
But baby I broke them all for you
Because even when I was flat broke
You made me feel like a million bucks
Yeah you do and I was made for you

You see the smile that's on my mouth
Is hiding the words that don't come out
And all of my friends who think that I'm blessed
They don't know my head is a mess
No, they don't know who I really am
And they don't know what I've been through but you do
And I was made for you...

Small Pleasures

I brought the truck into town the other day for a new set of tires. The mechanic said it would take an hour so I decided to while away the time at the library across the street. I often visit our little library to check out audio books but have never taken the time to sit and read in its quietness.

I wandered around the aisles of books and stopped at the poetry section. As I rifled through a few books, I saw some still have the small manilla pockets with signature check-out cards tucked inside. I imagined parents having to explain these to their post bar code era children and maybe even recognizing names of their friends and neighbors on the cards.

I found myself reading one, then two, then three of the poems in one particular book. I checked it out with my bar coded library card on my key chain and went to the periodicals room finding a comfy chair to read away my hour. What a pleasant luxury this was. I decided that wherever I retire, it must have a nice library nearby.

I keep thinking when I retire I will have all this empty time to fill up so I've started constructing a mental list. It includes things like frequent visits to a coffee shop where I actually sit inside and drink the coffee or tea while reading a newspaper, morning swims in the lake during the summer, tending a vegetable garden, and volunteering for some non-profit arts organization. Now I'm adding un-hurried visits to the library.

The book I had found to read was "Nine Horses" by Billy Collins. It is unusual that I enjoy and understand, without great analyzing, every poem in a book. Many of the poems were about those three second thoughts that pop into our heads attempting to distract our focus. He paints his words without rhyme or meter but rather with wit, humor and unique observation. I decided Mr. Collins is now on my list of favorite poets.

The hour in the library went by too quickly and I packed up my book and walked across the street to gather the newly tired pickup. Only twenty more years until retirement. That's a long time to wait. Maybe I need to make time for these small pleasures now.

Note: How short my memory is because I realized that I had already discovered Billy Collins via animated poems discovered in YouTube. In July I posted one called "Budapest" and in May I had posted one titled "Forgetfulness." The later is befitting don't you think?

Saturday Afternoon Road Trip

It was unusually warm on Saturday so a friend and I decided to go for a cruise along the Mississippi in the afternoon. We drove along the river for a ways and then wandered the hills and valleys of western Wisconsin.

The mode of transportation...


The Mississippi River. The "scooped" bluffs are the opening of Lake Pepin - a large lake-like part of the Mississippi. I never quite understood how there can be a lake in a river but with a bit of Googling, it is explained here.


We left the river at the town of Pepin. We followed a garage sale sign and stopped to find some home canned goodies. I bought a pint of corn relish and a quart of raspberry sauce which I think is too pretty to eat. We decided to not go back to the highway. The road kept getting narrower and narrower. It stopped when there was a blue gate at the end of the road. No dead end signs or anything. Discovered later it was a state wildlife area. Here's the road.


When we got back on to the main road, we spotted a unique barn off in the distance. Hard to see from this photo - it's in the hills above my hand.


We were in awe of this place. Talked to a woman mowing the grass. It was originally an Amish homestead. The barn has been in many calendars and magazines. It's a beautiful, secluded location with 400 acres. If I win the lottery...












Hillside south of barn...


The house...


One of the many tarpapered outbuildings...


On the road again...




End of the day...

Backyard Rest

Blackbirds or grackles, I'm not sure which, but they stopped in for a brief rest in our grove of trees this morning. You'll need sound to appreciate them. They took my breath away.

Avast ye mateys!

It be Talk Like A Pirate Day today ye scallywags! Did ye forget? Aye, I be guessin' ye did. Yarr! Weigh anchor! Hoist the mizzen! Savvy, ye scallywag?! Or ye will be in Davey Jones' locker soon, ye Landlubber!

I dare ye t' answer that thar phone at least once today with a hearty "Yarrrrr" or "Shiver me timbers." Or maybe rather than waving t' yer scallywag neighbor or if yer walkin' the planks of the cubicle farm, throw a hand over ye bad eye and let out a hearty "Avast ye mateys!"

If yer pirate speak needs a little hoistin' of thar sails, take a look at this pirate speak translator. Argh, where's me bottle o' rum?

And to get ye Talk Like A Pirate Day started, here's a bit o' humor to shiver ye timbers...
A pirate walks into a bar wearing
a paper towel as a hat. He sits
down at the bar and orders some
dirty rum. The bartender asks, "Why
are you wearing a paper towel?"
"Arrr..." says the pirate. "I've got
a Bounty on me head!"

Craigslist Junkie

I've become a bit of a Craigslist junkie. It's a great resource for finding practically anything you could desire or for selling anything you own. I've been looking for a dining room table as of late and have been spending some time in the furniture section of Craigslist. Admittedly there is a lot of crap to sort through on my quest. But I am confident the right fit will come along.

It is quite scary what some people will try to sell: mangled and sheet covered couches; tables missing more than one leg and office chairs that look like they've been dropped off a bridge onto I-494 during rush hour just to name a few.

It is equally scary to see the interior of some of these peoples homes. I am buying stock in the plastic storage container industry tomorrow as it's apparent by the photos I've seen that most homes have stacks and stacks of them in the corners of every room.

Then the other day this hilarious post appeared in the furniture section...


How to Sell Your Furniture - A Primer for the Confused
Date: 2007-09-16, 3:02PM CDT

Hey you folks with furniture to sell! I have a message for you. I'm here to help.

Gosh - how *generous* of you to offer your sodden, lumpen, cat-scratched, filth-laden, five-hundred-pound couch! And it's just *fascinating* that was custom upholstered in stylish puke green and burgundy nubby polyester plaid SO RECENTLY back in 1978! So what if it's a little faded on one side - it's alright.

Except that it just can't come with you when you move, is all. Right. I understand!

...But how do I sell it, you ask? I put up an ad for it every 15 minutes and yet no one is calling me! So here are a few pointers that will help your

- "Like New" does not mean "New - to you". It means, you could bring it back to the store and they would give you a return. It does not mean used, people! It does NOT mean "like new except for when I reupholstered it myself with burlap and a staple gun" or "like new except needs to be propped up on one side and has a slight odor" or "like new except for the ten-inch gash that Cujo ripped in it before he barfed on the cushions." That's not what "excellent," "fabulous," "great", "perfect," or "pristine" condition means either.

Tell me something. If it is truly like new, then why do you have an old sheet thrown over it for the picture? If it's "like new", then how come it looks like you bought it at a yard sale from Howard Cosell? And tell me this: why - WHY - does your picture clearly show an enormous crater-like ass dent in the middle of that couch? The last I looked, Crate and Barrel did not sell couches with convex cushions whose seams looked about to burst. They wouldn't, because no one would buy them. Except you. Because from the looks of that dent, you are apparently the world's largest Weeble.

I am truly frightened by that dent. Even if I could force myself not to imagine your sweaty butt cheeks every time I sat down on it, I couldn't buy your couch because I would be too afraid to go to your place and meet you. If that ass of yours has the heft to drastically alter a piece of furniture, could you sit on me and kill me? What if you're a crazed, ass-wielding maniac of sufficient magnitude to crush me like a bug? What if you're a serial killer? What if your calling card to the cops is Death by Ass?

...I don't want to die. Not for a couch. And I'll tell you, not for filthy goddam "Like New" couch that you slipcovered ten years ago to cover the dog hair - THAT'S for damn sure.

- Here's another little tip! Actually I really just want to thank you. When you put "WOW!!!!!! L@@K!!!!!!!" etc. into the title, you do me a HUGE FAVOR! That lets me know you're a subliterate nincompoop with the intellect and sincerity of a crack addicted squirrel - so I can save the time and skip your ad! If you had anything but a pile of steamy shit to sell, you'd use that space to DESCRIBE it. What a timesaver! Thanks! ...Don't you *want* me to look at your ad? I thought you wanted to get rid of your stuff.

- You might also find it helpful if you stopped saying "amazing," "unbelievable," "rare," etc. You do not have an Frank Lloyd Wright chair, right? You don't have a Caravaggio you're tired of in your college apartment, do you? Oh - wait - no - you have a TOASTER OVEN. That you haven't cleaned since you bought it three years ago.

- And quit saying "Sacrifice!" What are you sacrificing? You're SELLING it for the price it can command on the open market. You receive MONEY for something you clearly do not want any more. That does not make you Mother Theresa. The pope does not give a crap about your "sacrifice." You are not "sacrificing" your ugly Ikea breakfast bar for $20 less than you paid for it two years ago. It's USED. Meaning NO LONGER NEW. You are not Elvis or Paul McCartney. The fact that you owned it does not increase its value. Can you say "depreciation?" ...I knew you could. On top of the fact that it's used - and that perhaps I will be unable to eat my Cheerios day after day, because I can't stop thinking about big pink slabs of ass spilling over the sides of my breakfast bar - I have to buy it with no warranty, deal with you, and schlep it down your 80 flights of stairs in Libertyville. So stuff it with the "incredible bargain" nonsense. It just makes you sound like you're INTENTIONALLY insincere instead of just clueless. Having trouble pricing? Here's a tip! Just because you dropped a $600 when you bought that orange and brown La-Z-Boy back in 1986 doesn't mean that it's worth $200 today! Remember: depreciation. Depreciation and a hefty, hefty ass tax. Your ass took *years* off that chair's life. That chair should sue you. You and your fearsome ass of destruction. It should sue you for reckless endangerment. You should PAY ME to put it up in some kind of protective custody from you.

Here's an easy way to boost sales in a jiffy - MAYBE your furniture would sell if your photos didn't show it nestled in squalor! Maybe I'd buy that entertainment center if the photo didn't show it stuffed with grimy fast-food wrappers and sticky porno tapes! Maybe cleaning up a little would help me believe that your version of "Very Good Condition" means that you've removed MOST of your grimy skidmarks from the cushions!

- And just a reminder - when you take the picture, turn on the lights ON and not OFF. And remember, you want to take a picture of the front of the thing you're selling - not it nestled amongst the discarded whitey tighties in your little hovel! While your taste in decor makes for a fascinating anthropological study, most folks would rather just see the thing you want them to buy.

And here's another helpful tip: you might want your ad to say more than FOR SALE: CHAIR. Or FOR SALE: CHAIR - BLUE. Or even the mysterious but omnipresent FOR SALE: DINNING ROOM SET NEEDS WRK MUST GO CALL 312-555-5555! Gosh, that sure is tempting to have to call you and deal with you, but it might be easier to look at the 999 other dining sets that have pictures or at least descriptions. So please don't leave that out, m'kay?

And there's just one last thing, kids - if it's too nasty for you to sit on any more, then throw it out. Burn it. Shoot it and put it out of its mercy if you have to. But unless you're unusually rich and/or persnickety - and I mean Howard Hughes persnickety - chances are the Craigslist public won't want to set down on your grotty couch from hell either. Even if you're giving it away for free! The "free" category is a place to give away stuff that people would actually want. It isn't there to make sad attempts at unloading filthy, squalid castaways that Salvation Army wouldn't take! That matter is strictly between you and your garbage man. I'm embarrassed for you when I look at them. Really I am.

(...By the way, in case you were wondering, we ALSO don't want your 50,000 bricks "take all or none", your broken cassette deck, your four used coffee mugs with cracks, or your box of 75 slightly used sex toys. And as far as I can tell there is no market for 400-lb broken metal desks. So good luck with that one!)

...So in other words, thanks - but no thanks. And please, people, let's keep the Craigslist airwaves free from mind-numbing crud! Only you can stop and think for a second before you hit the "post" button!

Creatures from TED.com

Found this on a new favorite website, TED.com

Creatures
Dutch artist Theo Jansen demonstrates his amazingly lifelike kinetic sculptures, built from plastic tubes and lemonade bottles. His "Strandbeests" (Beach Creatures) are built to move and even survive on their own.