Scott's Worried Man Playlist!

 Ahhhhhhhhh, mid-August. When the weather should be very hot but instead is a little cooler in the mornings, when the kids are back in school, and when I am not. Sublime.

Oh, I had the Covid. Three weeks ago I awoke at 3:20 in the morning in the throes of a sneezing fit the likes of which I cannot recall ever experiencing. I was a little warm so I took my temperature and it was a solid 99.4. That's low grade high for me, whatever the scale says 99.4 is. I took a home anti-gen test and that dreaded line showed up. 10 days in our bedroom alone, masked whenever my honey was in my line of sight, and I escaped back to my scheduliberation. 

At no time did I feel the crud was life-threatening, but it laid me low and I did just that--laid low--until the fever had been gone for two days and all symptoms were back to my snotty normal--allergies back to their Tennessee most active. I'm feeling okay now, back to my routines of fishing, painting, playing music, long dog-walking, and general mischief. Masked almost always in public and always in crowds. That's a way of life. 

This morning while walking Watson I searched in Spotify for a song I want to (re)learn and the results were so varied and interesting I decided to make a playlist from the search results. Two hours later, I'm calling it done. I've made several passes in different ways towards reducing redundancy, but I have found that even the same recording re-issued can sound significantly different in a new mix so I intentionally left some of those. I've also sorted the thing by artist, so the thing to do may be to play it on shuffle. You'll rehear some re-issues and sense some redundancy, no doubt, but bear with it. And there are some stunningly odd and some outright bad versions; but one supposes that odds would have that in a list of this size. That is what god made the skip button for! Again, I enjoy having those mingled in, sort of like I enjoy the very occasional bad B-movie just because it is so bad (e.g., "Dead Possum"). 

Have fun with...

Painting and Learning

 So. I'm very excited about visiting renowned painter Charles Brindley's class at Scarritt-Bennet Center here in Nashville, across from the Peabody at Vanderbilt Campus I attended 'way back in the early '90s . I first met Charles at University School of Nashville's Artclectic, which my wife, Lee Ann, was leading (she did so for 10 years of its biggest growth). I taught at USN for 14 years, and Lee Ann was deeply involved in both, in part because both our beautiful children attended school there and in part because USN was her alma mater. I was immensely impressed by Charles' art--who could see and not be so?

I am not going to copy and paste evidence here, it's copious at his website: Get lost in the man's mastery of visual imagery at his online gallery at cbrindley.com. 

Charles' class info is at https://www.cbrindley.com/classes if you want more information about that. I am at least tentatively planning to enroll in one for the Fall semester to learn from the master and I'm buzzed about it. I haven't taken a class of any kind since graduating from Vanderbilt in 1995, and I am visiting tomorrow to see how they work and to assuage a little anxiety about doing so. We'll see.

I first started painting, again, during the pandemic, of course. I walk my dog every day. Just about to go out after jotting this down. There is a great deal of construction going on in my neighborhood, just like in virtually every neighborhood in Nashville, and people are moving in and out all the time. I keep an eye out in the construction lots and alleys for useful throwaways, and I started making Kountry Kraft signs for my front porch out of discarded 2x10s a couple years ago, first using Sharpie markers and graduating to a beginner's set of acrylic paints. Here's an example:

Hoppy Holidays, yes, a beer reference

Other signs include "Love Trumps Hate," "Only Love," REIMAGINE HOW SCHOOLS WORK," "Happy" (4th of July), "BOO!," "BeKind," and...you get the idea. I recently discarded my "Back 2 School" sign because, well, I ain't never going back. 

I am, however, going to class tomorrow and beginning regular participation twice a week starting September 8, barring some jolting turn-off during tomorrow's recon mission. I don't anticipate that. 

I take a lot of photos. Some are well-documented on my Facebook album, "ThingsOnTheGround." In November of 2021, I had to stop the car on the way down the hill from my dear buddy Rocky's home on the ridge above Little Marrowbone Creek Road to take a photo:

Some time later, likely around December, I took one of my reclaimed 2x10s and spray painted it flat white enamel, then spent the next maybe 3 months painting. On January 8 it looked like this:

and when it was "done," it looked like this:

I sketched it out in pencil, threw a plethora of color at it, mixing as I went, and just kept going until it satisfied me. I also extended its field to the edges of the lumber:

Since then, I've finished paintings from a photo of an ancient cinderblock building a couple blocks from my home and from a pic of a great blue heron perched solemnly atop a condo rooftop in Destin, Florida. I'm now working on a panorama view overlooking the grassy field of Brownland Farm horse ranch in Franklin, TN. I don't see an end to it. I've found the zone a few times where I am one with the brushstroke, intuitively understanding when something is right, or right enough, and smiling. I want that feeling again, often and deep.

Examining Charles Brindley's vast body of work at his website, I see that my own crude work with paints is just that, lacking realism, which is okay, and rudimentarily color mixed, which is understandable; and I know that anything I can learn from him will strengthen my experiences. I also believe I may be onto something with my choice of canvas. Building something meaningful and artistic from a discarded piece of lumber imbues it with something a little magical, I think.

That's all today. Watson is getting a little cranky and it's only getting hotter outside. Rain today though! And thankfully not flooding rain. Climate change is. Peace.

It's the late middle of July in Nashville, Tennessee, and I am thankful for the rain this morning. It's just shy of 6 am and it's 72 degrees and according to timeanddate.com, dawn came 11 minutes ago. A gray cloudy sky still smothers the world outside my windows and the streets are dark and shiny with the light rain falling. As I type it grows brighter gray by the minute.

The first thing I did after coming down the stairs from our bedroom with Watson leading the way was to approach the locked back storm door and peer into the dim light to see the rain chain hanging from our porch gutter cascading down with water. Sweet water, Rare water this summer.

Sitting on our lush leather sectional before the 61" flatscreen tv last night, enjoying a big dinner salad prepared by my love, we rediscovered Killing Eve last night, starting back up from where we left off after episode 1 of the third season. I don't recall why we did not continue--something else more glittery came along, we switched to another series on a whim, it was in one of those platform transitions where we ditched the Roku and bought an AppleTV device, something. Maybe we discovered Ted Lasso.

Whatever the case, it's a doozy of a series and we have most of this season and all of season four to enjoy. During the show, I enjoyed a Vesper Martini and Lee Ann drank some Pino Grigio and we sipped waters and laughed and talked, me on the sofa, she in the luxurious, monster Barcalounger we bought on sale during her recuperation from emergency intestinal surgery this year. We probably watched four episodes, bingelike, until agreeing it was time for bed and snuggle time.

Life does not suck. I don't know what I thought retirement would be like, but likely it was like this. I like it. Like, did I say "like" too much there?

After a whirlwind pair of trips away from home (see most recent posts), I like our home. 

I spent yesterday and most of the previous two days totally relaxing, sort of an enforced relaxing due to my sprained hip (self-diagnosed) from over-exertion on Montana. I shouldn't say that, really, because it was just a strain imposed by a less-than-intentional steep step up out of Blanchard Lake 

Pano at (little) Blanchard Lake off US83. We fished a bit off a little pier on Harper's Lake then drove on a smidge to this little gem. The creek comes in at the right of this pic and my handsome son Colin surveys the breathtaking surroundings. Ah, Montana. 

after standing in the cold mountain creek water that fed it for maybe an hour and a half. I remember Colin reaching down from above to help me make that step and I remember a slight pulling sensation as I pushed myself up with my left leg. Two days later, getting up from a seat on my last of eight air flights in 2 weeks, I felt it again. That's when I started limping. It got progressively worse.

Now, 3 days later, it gets progressively later. The weakness is still there, but I'm not grimacing or moaning out loud when I move my left leg. I walked the dog for a mile yesterday and there was a little backsliding in the pain department, but it was worth it. I'm on the mend. I'm going to bounce around some antique stores with Rocky today. 

It's funny the games the mind plays. When the pain was at its worst, and it was bad, I kept conjuring in my head the phrase, "degenerative bone disease," knowing that was malarky but teasing myself with it anyway, much like when I hear the one "...crashed on takeoff" when I'm strapped into any plane during lift off from the tarmac. I counter that by repeating a mantra that goes, "I love you Lee Ann, I love you Miranda, I love you Colin, I love you Watson, I love you Ed, I love you Tim, I love you Katie, I love you Rocky, I love you Jimmy, I love you Seamus" until the plan levels off into its flight. On repetitions, I often add other names: I love a lot of people. If I left you off the list, don't get your knickers in a twist. I remembered to add you as it grew. The cool thing about these last four takeoffs was that I got to say the first sentence to Lee Ann, as I held her hand. 

As the bright green happy red maple in the front yard releases unhurried droplets of water, leaf to green green leaf, as Fred the Fly (wondering how the hell he gets out of here back into the vast outside) wanders beyond my white wooden blinds on the window overlooking the porch and my little idyllic rain garden, as Watson sleeps behind me on my office rug in my beautiful home, I just want to say I'm grateful. 

I am grateful. And, oh, I finished a painting yesterday. I just need to seal it up with a layer or two of shiny polyethylene glaze and it's done. Here's the final form it took:

blue heron on destin rooftop

I really do enjoy painting on these reclaimed cast-off 2x10 (and other size) pieces of lumber. Always from photos I have taken with my iPhone. I think it's a thing. Next up I'm going to try a pano on a wider 2x6 I picked up in an alley walking Watson yesterday. We'll see. 

That's my blathering for today. Peace.

Montana Trip 2022

Final update with pics from July 9, 2022--Done!

So, I think I'll just let the images describe this leg of our summer Montana trip, 'k? Click on the image above to view our dynamic annotated album from July 3, 2022 to July 9 when we head on back home to Chez Merrique in Nashville. Click on the first pic and navigate through the photos with the arrows on the sides. This album will stop growing but remain as long as the Internet loves me (and you). Check back often as I'll be uploading and adding brief comments to most pics until the end of the trip. 

BTW, the alarm is armed and neighbors are watching at home, so don't even think about it. Cool.

Sojourn to the Berkshires 3, Last Day (kind of)

 Okee dokee. At the moment I am in a beautiful hotel room in Missoula, Montana, having hugged my son and daughter-not-in-law-but-so-for-real for the first time in a year. My lovely soul-mate is sleeping in the king-sized bed behind me, and I am up after being comatose for nearly 12 hours to (begin to) get caught up after a challenging mess of a set of flights home from Albany.

What happened, you may ask.

I may answer.

Friday morning Jimmy came by the Fairfield Inn and we took the Purple Charger to breakfast. Or we took ourselves to breakfast. A skip and a jump up the highway to the Rio Café we went. It's a cute little place with a back lawn hosting well spaced picnic tables and we took one, chatted about the play and life and family, just enjoying one another's company. It had been 7 years since we had been geolocated and it felt so, so good to be with him. And it had been around 42 or 3 years since we had met as young men in Alaska, becoming fast friends who have stayed in touch along our meandering paths through lives. I love him and trust him completely. 

After a tasty breakfast, I took a selfie. This is us, together and happy. 

Two old friends at Rio Cafe

We hugged goodbye a couple times in the motel parking lot, bid each other see-ya-later, and he drove away to his next rehearsal. I had already checked out and minutes later I was on the road northwest to Albany. I called Lee Ann and chatted a few minutes. She was elated to hear that Seamus was home from the hospital, beginning to recuperate after his two latest brain surgeries and The Virus (that's all I'll say but it was a challenging few days for my brother). I told her that since I had several hours before the flights home (an optimistic assessment), I was thinking about spending one of them at the Turn Park sculpture garden, an attraction along the way. but as we spoke I encountered a sign that said "Berkshire Botanical Garden" and quickly came up on it, turning into the entrance. That's my favorite way to travel, friends, making it up as I go. Like life, you know.

I took a number of photos during the hour I enjoyed strolling through the gardens, but I'm going to save some blog-time here by sending you to the Garden website photos, which are generally mo' better than mine. I do like this pano though, so click on it to view it larger and scroll it, then click here to see the official pics. 

Berkshire Botanical Garden

I was sweaty enough after an hour or so enjoying this beautiful set of gardens so I returned to Purple and hit the road. In Albany, I returned him and got inside through security uneventfully. I figured I would have a beer or two over the next few hours and grab a salad. 

I found my parking spot before flying home!

I spent a couple hours working on my previous post and ate a bad salad with undercooked chicken which I scraped toward the side of the plastic go container, along with two 20 oz. local draft beers, and headed to my gate at the appointed time. On the way, my phone vibrated.

What? 

In a nutshell:  Look here, there's a message from American Airlines that my flight has been cancelled. I rushed to the gate counter and sure enough, it had. No line before me, I approached the harried but really helpful service counter attendant and after some discussion of alternatives was booked on a new flight to Nashville, not through connecting flight to Chicago, but to Charlotte, North Carolina. And not arriving that night, but flying out at in an hour or so and out of Charlotte at early AM the next morning. I grabbed my phone and found a room at the Hampton Inn at a sale rate (what a deal--not subsidized by AA and costing me 250 dollars and tips for shuttles and grabbing me oh about 4 hours sleep before grabbing a Lyft another unexpected expense, at 5 a.m. to get boarded for home. The flight to Charlotte was half hour late but hit the sky, in an hour or so hitting storm turbulence that elicited at least one scream from a passenger. Perfect. 

I called the motel upon landing and barely caught the last shuttle, got into a weird suite at my ersatz bargain rate, hit the 7-11 next door for a turkey sandwich, a breakfast sandwich to micronuke the next "morning," (it already WAS morning by then), wolfed down the first, drank a canned margarita and half a liter of water, laid down on the giant bed, and did not move until my 4 a.m. alarms went off. I showered, dressed, inhaled my bad microwaved 7-11 breakfast sandwich, and raced down to my Lyft, which got me to the church on time. I had no bags to check and things went well at the airport so up in the air I was.

Let me hold forth a bit about COVID-19. I am quad-vaxed. I wore a KN-95 mask on my trip anytime I was anywhere in close proximity to strangers. I was never harassed about it, only got a few demeaning looks from others, and hated the claustrophobic feeling of the hot breath for hours at a time. In airports, I was in the fairly small minority of folks doing that, but I did not give a hoot. I'm pretty sure I do not have COVID. Enough said.

Lee Ann picked me up and home we went. I went straight to bed because we were flying at 5 something the next morning, bound for Montana. 

I'll consider this the end of my Berkshires trip, and a memorable one it was. Will I continue this blogfest with descriptions of my week-long trip to Montana? Maybe. We'll see. 

Sojourn to the Berkshires Day 2 -- some walks, a dinner, and a play

 OKAY! I'm in the Albany NY Airport, and I've found a perch at the terminal walkway bar table  counter, on a stool with a nice draft local hazy IPA beside my laptop. I have 3 1/2 hours before my flight to DC boards, but I did save a little $ on Bruno the Purple Charger by getting it in a bit earlier than the reservation. 

Yesterday morning I slept in until around 7, grabbed a decent and filling "free" breakfast in the motel lobby, then drove out to the theater to make sure I knew where I was going when I had a curtain time to honor. It's a good thing, because pulling out of the parking lot I went rogue on Waze directions and found a shortcut that bypassed all of the roadwork that slowed down my drive there. I made a note to go out without cell phone directions and to turn on Tacatonic Road to get there that evening. That night, after the play, I drove out at waning dusk onto the road bordered by fields of high wild grasses and lit by more fireflies than I have ever seen in one place. I almost pulled over to video, but decided to save the image in my old brain instead. 

As I have shared before, my mantra is "I am good, I am well, I am healthy I am Happy I am whole." Yesterday I changed this to "Healing Seamus Seamus Healing" and will continue utilizing that for the immediate future. He is healing and he is home from the hospital as of last night, but I figure anything I can do, you know, on the spiritual plane... The benefit of this tack, as opposed to praying, is that no deity, no higher power, needs to hear and respond. I am certain it is at least as effective. After all, if there is one God, she must be checking those mantras, right?

Okay, I'm getting all non-linear again. Jimmy and I talked about that at breakfast this morning. He cam to the hotel and we took Bruno ("because your car is cooler") up less than a mile up the road and ate outside at the Rio Cafe. Really good stuffThanks for breakfast, buddy, if you're reading this. Who is linear anyway? "Oh, there's a dandilion. Oh, that thing I did in high school." Right? But. That discussion was today, and we were talking about yesterday.

Let's pop in a picture to break things up, shall we?

After breakfast see ya later hug at the Rio Cafe

Okay then. After leaving the theater on my scouting mission, I hit downtown again, and found a place to park at an entry point to River Walk, an attraction that came up early in my searches. It was attractive enough, and everyone needs to see it, but it turned out to be only maybe a city block long. I took some video along the way, and a couple pics--note the two of a dark barn with a bright little something in its darkest region, then the close up. Class, folks, that's class. I wish I'd got a pic of the road-facing wall of the building. It's just an old barn with two big doors and nothing else, but I can imagine families starting here, on a cool fall night with the disco ball fracking the room.

I walked the little downtown, saw some cute shops, refrained from buying art at some really inspirational studios, took a pano from a corner, and noted the location of The Well, a restaurant and bar I had my sights set on for the next night's preshow dinner. 

Okay again. First little thing after my scouting and my Riverwalk aside was to head up to Housatonic Flats. I pulled into the parking lot with only one more car there. It's been quiet in GB during my stay. Jimmy says they are getting big weekend tourist hits, but luckily my stay was Wed-Fri. Here's Bruno at the trailhead. I was hoping it was a bit longer than a city block. But, it calmed me down nicely. 

Bruno the Purple Charger at the trailhead

I checked my shoelaces and hit the trail. 

Trailhead at Housatonic Flats

Flats sign with explanation. It's a buffer, ya'll.

Trailhead sign closer and clearer

First bench stop with an aside trail to the river

Two dandelions

Pano at the river, click to enlarge-o

I just liked the color here and think it might be fun to paint

And a video... Ducks, ya'll...

It was a quiet, wonderful walk. The trees are taller, older, up here, I think. And the tall wildflowers grow taller before they dry and turn to seed, as they are doing in Tennessee as I type. I just cut mine down in my little back "yard," though I really enjoyed the Queen Ann's Lace and the tall clover that I let run out its time in my "meadow," as I like to call it.

I drove back to the motel and after an hour in the pool with an intervening hot tub soak (excellent power in those jets, Fairfield Inn by Marriot). I took a nap. I got into my nap by meditating on my new mantra, "Healing Seamus Seamus healing." With the help of a phone alarm (I left my iWatch charging at home. I hope it's good for it) I got up, showered, dressed, and drove.

At the Great Barrington Community Theater, Bard College Daniels Cultural Center (say that three times really fast), I parked and moseyed inside, where my ticket was awaiting me. I jacked into the play, which I thoroughly enjoyed and believe is going places, but will not review here. No photos were allowed after I took this one 

of a couple audience members (Sandy and friend, as I found out later) awaited the dimming of the lights. Turns out it was a preview performance with opening night tonight (as I write from the airport). There were only about 20 of us in the small theater audience. That's all good. It was spectacular, and intimate, and I enjoyed emersion in the world I only peripherally experienced. Jimmy called me the day of the diagnosis. I remember it so clearly--I was helping a kindergarten teacher, Mary McCullough, set up her classroom printer and begged off that to go to a corner of her bright, welcoming, kindergarten classroom to talk and to weep a bit. I do that, and it was certainly all right to do that day. From my perspective as a retired human person, I now know that the right thing to do was to fly out there. I did not. I wish I had. Jimmy and I have talked over the years, and I didn't get far from Seamus's recovery, but neither did I really get close to it. Regrets. And healing, which this trip generated, at least a little.

"Leave your Fears Here" is  a "Rememberer" play, a Father play, and a play everyone should experience. I got to meet both Robert Egan and Michael O'Keefe, sat next to Michael for the preview performance. More on all that later. 

That's freakin' it! I'm ready to fly om the morning. I am ready to be home. I love you, Jimmy. Keep plugging into that impressive piece of writing you've created and bringing it alive. You are going to awaken a whole new audience to this kind of journey and its kaleidoscopic complexities and contradictions, and to your beautiful son, to your beautiful soul mate, and to your beautiful self. I love you.

Sojourn to the Berkshires Day 1

 Good morning from the Berkshires, Great Barrington, Massachusetts, particularly. I'm going a-walking this chill morning. I'll start a little travelogue here and update it to keep records of images I'll collect in my travels here. The entire Google album of my little sojourn will be archived here.

It's only a two day trip, as mentioned in my previous post, but one of my new goals in iPhotography is to collect images I may want to paint in the future. 

Tuesday I walked my best buddy Watson and tossed him into Casper the Friendly Kia to take him to K9 Logics, his home away from home, for fun on the farm. He initially wanted to drive.

No, Watson, you may not drive Casper the Friendly Kia

In the afternoon I met my dear bud Rocky at Tailgate Headquarters for a bite to eat and a beer, capped off with a cigar. After an early to-bed, Lee Ann and I were up by 4:30 so she could drop me off at BNA for the trip.

I made my away through the crowded airport through security and after grabbing a turkey tomato sandwich at the high tech Amazon islands (how cool to register your handprint to a credit card, get want you want, and leave without any further interaction with a cashier--bye-bye jobs) boarded a 7:07 AM American Airlines flight to Albany, NY, via Chicago, IL. The first flight was on a 737, so I crossed my fingers a lot. All good excepting the flight was around 40 minutes early arriving and we sat on the ORD tarmac for 45 of that awaiting permission to dock. I had around 30 minutes left to snag my flight to Albany. That turned out to be on a teenyplane, you know the ones with two seats on the right and one on the left and not enough headroom for 6-footers. I power-walked and they were just calling Groups 6 and 7 to board when I huffed up to the gate, which was about as distant from my landing gate as they could make it. That flight was fine, just cramped for leg room, and I made my way to the car rental tables only to find the Enterprise booth empty, with a sign on the plexi telling me to "Please proceed to the Alamo, National rental station in the parking lot." 

I did so and the nice attendant-of-many-rental-services, Sam, who gave me my options. There was a Dodge Charger, a Toyota Camry, and a Kia Forte. I asked Sam which one he would pick, just for fun. He unhesitatingly said, "I would personally take the Charger. It's sporty and a little ballsy, you know, a muscle car, and not too hard on mileage." I did. Little did I realize it would get even better. I walked the way Sam pointed and found the purple car:

Bruno the Charger

What hat a lovely drive down southeast to my motel. Here are two quick snaps I took whilst the car was resting:

Waiting for his master's voice! Nipper is patient.

One of those bridge-is-one-lane red lights

I made it to my motel around 3:00, after winding through blue highway small towns and enjoying the view at every turn. I plan to take my time up to the airport for my late afternoon flight on Friday and see what I can see in some of those towns. Though I see on the news that beaucoup holiday flights are being cancelled all over and I should give myself 3 hours at the airport. 

I got settled and drove out to explore a little and catch that late lunch I needed, landing at the picturesque and friendly Barrington Brewery and Restaurant only a couple long blocks away from the Fairfield Inn by Marriot where I am staying. I caught a beer at small but cozy bar

 

and after Jimmy called to say he was on the way I moved to a table where we could talk privately. We hadn't seen each other in 7 years--since my lovely daughter Miranda's wedding in Nashville--and I got a little weepy for a number of reasons when I got my long delinquent hug. We sat, talking for a bit. There have been some complications that I gather could have been much worse (thank you, universe, for it not being that) that have precluded Riad, Jimmy's beautiful wife, and Seamus, his son and my godson, from attending, which was the plan. I won't elaborate here, and though I am disappointed to lose those hug opportunities it is what it is, and everyone is predicted to be okay. These complications bring an oddly absurd level to the performance I will see tonight and which Jimmy will repeat for every night for the play's two week run. I am certain it will be powerful however it goes: One accomplished actor, around 2 hours, ~11,000 words, in the small Leibowitz Black Box Theater at Bard College, taking us into the present tense beginning 12 years ago in the family's hospital "home."

Jimmy had to leave to run lines with his director, Robert Egan, and to get some rest. I got a selfie, finished my delicious BBandR fish and chips, and headed back to the motel to get some rest myself. I slept pretty well. Got up this morning for the "free" breakfast, came here to blog. As you know, I'm committed to adopting that habit more consistently. Enjoy it or not, it's my "book."

Here:

Me and Jimmy, a few years later; see previous post

More later. It's 9:12 in the morning and I'm going Great Barrington exploring.

Alaska Photoarcheology

 There I am making up words again. But seriously, I had some fun over the weekend unearthing some ancient history. Back before the dawn of the computer, people used devices called "cameras" to record and share images. Sometime later, as we all know, cell phones put a camera in everyone's pocket. 

Well.

I am heading up to Massachusetts a week from tomorrow to attend opening night of my dear brother-from-another-mother's one man play, running two weeks at the Bard College Leibowitz Black Box Theatre in Great Barrington. I'll actually fly up to Albany, NY, where I'll pick up a rental car and drive down to Great Barrington, stay a night, explore what I've been told is a great (sorry) little town, see the play, take another motel sleep, then get up and drive back to Albany. I'll fly back and prepare for a sojourn with my life's love, who is coincidentally my much loved wife, to Missoula for a visit with our son, Colin and his lovely Kat (and their lovely two cats). 

Anyway, where was I. Oh. Right here.

I am SO excited to reconnect with James Morrison, known in my personal brain as Jimmy, and to see 

.

The play centers around my godson Seamus's cancer and recovery in his 10th year on the planet. It's around 11,000 words in its final state, and I am incredibly pumped to witness its delivery to the world on the 30th of June. just nine nights away. I understand that Riad and Seamus will also be there and I'm excited to see the both of them, too! I gather the playwright will be there, too, because he will be acting the role of himself, onstage. Win-win. Win.

I've been doing some reminiscing lately about our time in Alaska, and that led to some googling. I managed to move through several dead ends to the little treasure trove of the University of Alaska Archives online repository, where I discovered some things I hadn't ever seen. Here's one: 

Fantasy Factory improv group nominally entertains a group of little kids, somewhere in Anchorage, circa 1977-8

I don't see Jimmy in there, but look closely and you will see a tree that looks a lot like the 27 year old me. Let's see another:

Scene from Diamond Studs, 1978, Fairbanks, Alaska. Luan Schooler and I had the spotlight, but there are plenty more talents in the pic, including a 22ish year old James Paige Morrison (kneeling, red bandana). 

That denim vest was handmade for me by a dear friend as a parting gift upon leaving Knoxville for Anchorage in 1975. It's Don Ruddy behind the bar, and I see Susan Mendel behind the mic stand, Ernie Norris catching a bit of spotlight behind me, Warren Elkins playing bass, and I can almost recall the name of the fellow in the bottom right, but not quite. Another one?

Alaska Repertory Theater apprentices/stagehands for Four Poster, UofA Fairbanks, 1978. 

Top to bottom it's Chris Fairbanks, me, Jimmy, Susan, ?, and Luan Schooler. What the hell am I wearing on my head? Doesn't matter. I do recall that for the run of that play I ran the light board, and important and fun job. I also helped hang them, straddling 50 foot a-frame ladder to get that work done. If I were to try that today I would so end up a bag of broken bones at the ladder's foot.

I'll end this post with a pic I have in my own archives; from a visit to LA long ago, it's two young men with an abiding love for one another and everything out in front of them. So long Memory Lane, and I will see you next week, old friend, brother, hero.

Goodbye, Huey

 It's approaching seven o'clock in the morning on New York Avenue here in Nashville, Tennessee. Good morning. 

In around two hours, a tow truck will pull up to my house and a dear companion of 12 years and I will part ways. Goodbye, Huey. I hope you can bring some income to my favorite NPR radio station, 89.5 WMOT Roots Radio! You have aged well, though mechanical and cosmetic issues abound, and you have been a reliable friend. Bon Voyage.

Later:

...and a Google Photos album with pretty much every photo I have of Huey, may he RIP.

Later Later:

Watson and I took a very short walk before the truck arrived--it's right at 82 degrees and I wanted to get out there before the sun rose high enough to steam us edible in the near 100 percent humidity. Watson clearly agreed, since the duration of the walk was 12 minutes and we literally travelled one block. Back at home, I took a leap into the past.

I popped onto my laptop and visited Google Photos online, looking for pics of Huey. I found a bunch. I will now spend a bit of time curating some of these to celebrate a long relationship and its passing into memory. So.

In August 2010, we needed a new car. The old Mercury Villager van had outlived its usefulness and we could look down the road to a time when both grown kids would be out of the house. As we'd done before, we started at Carmax. I'm a fan, even if my last two cars were bought from dealerships. After assessing the condition of the Villager, they offered us $500 in trade. I thought I could do better than that selling it and began doing some research. That led me to the CARS Program, an Obama administration effort to stimulate economic growth by pulling new light car sales "...forward from a far more distant future, and thus represented an important increment to aggregate demand at just the time when such demand was sorely needed." Read more about CARS, commonly referred to as "Cash for Clunkers."

sI

I was zeroing in on a Smart Car. Why? I really don't remember, though its unique appearance and fuel economy were attractive. We drove out to Cool Springs to the Mercedes dealership and I test drove a red Smart ForTwo Passion Coupe. I LOVED it immediately. After discovering the CARS program would provide us a subsidy payment of 4500 dollars for the Villager, I signed all the dotted lines and drove away with Huey, whom, I recall, received his name on the way home. 

Why Huey? Easy. 

image from https://paramountcartoons.fandom.com/wiki/Baby_Huey 

Baby Huey

My Huey looked nothing like the 50s era cartoon giant baby duckling, but I remembered Baby Huey fondly and cheerfully, and I knew that I had chosen to name him appropriately the first time I drove him around Nashville. Seriously, people on the street would smile, often laugh, and sometimes point at us as we cruised through traffic. I thought of him as my "smile making machine." I quickly fell further in love with that aspect of my new buddy. Later on, as my son would ride with me, Colin would see pedestrians or bus stop folks and reach into the glove compartment were I stored two foam red clown noses, and ask, "Dad, should we nose 'em?" We often did. 

I never took Huey on a road trip, though he never put me in a position to use roadside service. He had no spare tire, you see; and because the tires were two unusual sizes and not readily available on the road, I never roamed past, say, Ashland City or Marrowbone Lake, or to my former job down off Nolensville Road. In the just under 12 years we were together, he and I racked up only 106,773 miles. Okay, that's still a lot of miles together. 

I used to talk to him, sometimes petting the little hump over the radio/CD player console as I did. It's okay. I talk to my dead brother and to both parents, though both of them are in the ground (on opposite sides of Thompson Lane in Woodmont Cemetery). With these last, it's a good way to work stuff out without paying a therapist. With Huey, it was just companionship, aided and abetted by a stiff dose of anthropomorphism. 

I want to thank Chet and Mike at EurWerks garage, and the lovely Melis, for being my go-to Huey maintenance team for nearly a decade. I want to thank Huey, with the hope that he will bring supporting income to WMOT either by resale or sale for parts. I want to thank you for reading this foolishness.

Now to take a ride in Casper, my 2022 Kia Soul. I think we have a long ride in front of us!

Friday ramblings

Hi. My goal is to be mostly scheduliberated. I can do this.

Let's see. Today is Friday and as of 5:36 this morning I have no appointments, just a loose commitment to Rocky for breakfast in Ashland City. There is no time set for that but it'll likely be early, in the 7 to 8 o'clock range. According to my iWatch it's only 61 degrees out there so an early walk with Watson, my "Australian Healer," is also likely. I primed a few rescued pieces of scrap lumber for painting yeseterday, and I have the image of the eerie cinder block wall mystery exterior door up on both monitors for reference, just waiting for a paintbrush to touch the wood for the first time. One "canvas", 10 1/2" by 5 1/2",  awaits on the tabletop easel I treated myself to last week. I will continue my online mandolin class with Sierra and that's at least an hour, maybe two. I doctored the hot tub chemical balances yesterday but I will check with a test strip today and do that again if needed today, though that's improbable. I may need to go get new kitchen flowers today since the yellow roses I bought and set out three days ago seem to be choking already. None of them has necked but it's in the near future according to their sad look. If the wind remains still out, I plan to finally pull out my drone and get it airborne again. Lots to do.

That's my report for the morning. I will check back here and assess my day in late afternoon. My plan is to make sure I am living healthy, practicing self care, making/creating, and doing just fine without a schedule. My goal is to be mostly scheduliberated. I can do this.

Good? Good.

LATER

Hi again. Immediately after typing the above I went down a rabbit hole at about.me, revising my info to reflect my new status as retired. Contacted Rocky and verified 9am at Cody's. Now I'm off to walk with my best canine friend.

MUCH LATER

Saturday morning. Up late, like right around 7:30, and spent some time at my desk cruising Instagram and posted a pic from the work finished to date on a new painting. I fleshed it out yesterday and added to it today, Just pencil on primed pine 2x6 lumber around 10 or 11 inches wide. Here's the pic:

I'll wash and sponge paint and who knows what all with this one. I love that the lumber piece is flawed/scraped along the top. And I will likely carry the image along the sides and bottom like I did for the goingdown Rocky's driveway painting. I think I'm on to something. At any rate, it's fun, and it's a new body of creative work for me. Ya.

I met Rocky's at Cody's right at  did not do 9. We had eggs over easy, bacon, grits, and biscuits and gravy. A heavy breakfast but it served as lunch as well. I did not do my mandolin class. Instead, I decided to change my strings on my damaged A-5 Gibson mandolin and my father-in-law's Framus classical guitar. That took, friends and neighbors, around 2 1/2 hours to do right. Then it took maybe 45 minutes to play it into keeping a tuning, as strings kept sliding and thankfully finally tightened up. I had to google how to tie classical guitar strings at the bridge. I don't think the beautiful guitar had been restrung in 3 decades or more--my father-in-law had it hanging on his wall and to my knowledge never played it. It all worked, and I then noodled on the thing, improvisationally, for another 45 minutes. Time flies when you're having fun. 

I did treat the hot tub. I did not go buy flowers, though I did toss the old ones out and get the dishwasher run and the kitchen parred up to neatness. Nor did I drone. But look at how many good things I have to choose from tomorrow, and the next day! Today, Lee Ann's home and we're planning a Saturday together. That, I love. 

So, that's a one-shot window into my retirement plan. I will not be doing this sort of blog post often. My retirement plan is: do something creative every day, spend good time walking my old pup, fish when I can, exercise and eat well, be with friends or enjoy my own company as often as I can, and spend time with my lovely love whenever I can. Music. Art. Writing. Gardening. Being. Exploring.

More later.

Scheduliberated!

 Happy birthday to me, celebrating 72 trips around Old Sol. AND happy retirement, only 2 days away as I write. I want to say a few things about retirement, or rather about the generally accepted social descriptor for it: "retired."

Thinking about actually being it, I began letting friends and colleagues know my plans a month or two ago. It took a good long while to jump through the hoops a "retiree" needs to master, but I was generally feeling pretty darned good about it all. Then I began noticing:  Nearly everyone who discusses it with me brings a number of negative connotations into our communication. 

"What are you going to do?" "Won't you be bored?" "You'll be looking for a part-time job, won't you?" "I'd be so bored." Or, from several folks' personal experience, "I got tired of sitting around at home, so I got this job/volunteered here. It keeps me busy." That's the  story I have heard from a tenured now 120 day former retiree in my school, from a clerk in a liquor store in Chattanooga, and from a dear man who brings meals to my school (soon my former school) on a weekly basis. I am certain that I'll hear it again.

Well. My dear old daddy used to tell us whiney boys, "If you're bored it's your own damned fault." Really, he did. And I took it to heart, I guess. 

1. I will not be looking for a part-time job. Or a full-time job.
2. I do not get bored. 
3. I love my home and keeping it a nice place to be (which is work, by the way). 
4. And I will be just as busy as I want to be. I'll fish, I'll write, I'll get better at my mandolin and my guitar and my  bass guitar. I'll draw and paint. I'll spend more time enjoying my life with its one true love, Lee Ann; I'll be more available to my beautiful children--Miranda and Tim and Colin and Kat; I'll explore Tennessee; I'll travel frequently/ I'll, I'll, I'll...God knows what, you can bet if it's interesting I'll be doing it.

What is a way to refer to retirement that does not drag in all the negatives? 

A search for synonyms at Thesaurus.com yields 29 synonyms for "retired." These are arranged in three tabs for one's viewing pleasure, according to that respectable resource. The next time a new aquaintance asks me the most common question any adult asks a new aquaintance, "What to you do do?," how do you think I might reply? Should I choose to respond with one of these? 

• The first tab is "adj. having withdrawn from active life." Ow. Its examples are:
• elderly
• resigned
• superannuated
• emeritus, emerita (I kind of like that one)
• in retirement
• The second is "adj. having been withdrawn, with
• detached
• removed
• secluded
• sequestered
• apart
• isolated
• retreated
• seperated
• withdrawn
• distant
• The third? "adj. done working"
• discharged
• humble
• sequestered
• withdrawn
• inactive
• retiring
• immured
• shy
• cidevant
• otiose
• cloistered
• secluded
• superannuated
• emeritus
• unfrequented

What the hell does "otiose" mean, anyway? Further investigation brings up "idle," "indolent," "listless," and "slothful" as synonyms for otiose. Dig this: its definition at Dictionary.com is 

adjective

1. being at leisure; idle; indolent.
2. ineffective or futile.
3. superfluous or useless.

So friends, I'm over it. That may be a little odd, since, really, I'm just beginning it. But here, I'm coining a word. Right here, right now. Ready?

New acquaintance: "So, what do you do?"

Me. "Oh, I'm(image from cooltext.com).

There. And, from my dear friends Matt amd Anitra, a birthday treat: