Ass Over Tea-Kettle

I'm a scared. The accumulated drips, leaks, fallen limbs, occult car noises, and wild fluctuations in temperature have me spooked. I wander the house looking for signs - like Vincent Price in the 'Fall of the House of Usher', of our inevitable doom. This morning, like a mountain man checking his traps, I baby-stepped my way down the ancient river bed of a driveway that I am re-naming Bower Brook (more on that later)to the old new Camry - which had been positioned close to the road in case.. and, though the river bed seemed passable (having frozen, thawed, and re-frozen during yesterday's psychotic weather) the car itself would not come to life. It cleared its throat, fahrted, groaned, shuffled its feet and emitted an odor of un-combusted gas but would not start. So of course, dressed like a mountain man, in my Maine Hunting Guide boots, my jeans soaked to my shins, I felt no embarrassment at all popping the hood and pretending I knew what I was looking at. Actually, I hoped to see a hunk of ice draped over a fuel line or a cable. But seeing none, I rapped on the metal surfaces, pulled at a few cables, and gave it a stern look before getting back in and turning the key again and again until I heard the faintest sound of life at which point I force fed the beast a few droppers of gasoline and nursed it to a sputtering start.. Well, that's all for now. Hope all is well down in the flatlands.

Giddy-up

Gawrsh, wasn't the inauguration bootiful? I'm serious. I was at the Plimoth Plantation's theatre - which was full by the way, and the excitement of the crowd was palpable. Hell, people in the theatre were crying. I think if Obama realizes how much hope that people have invested in him, he can't help but succeed. Already the changes to the lobbying rules, the freeze on some salaries, the excitement at the State Department, the closing of Guantanamo, the withdrawal from Iraq, not to mention Aretha, Yo-Yo, Bruce - already the funk that was always there, in the shadows of the monuments, on the un-numbered streets of Chocolate City is beginning to overflow its banks and 'tag' the white-washed edifices of our Democracy. A President that can dance? A President that loves his wife? A President that shoots hoops? For all the wrong reasons it feels like were going to do all the right things.. Then again, maybe its just that George is back in Texas, for good.

Hansel and Bruno

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

It must have rained last night. The areas that I had shoveled last week, which had all but disappeared under a few inches of snow that had fallen since, reappeared, then froze. The cars are all at the end – the front that is, of the driveway. We haven’t attempted to drive them all the way to the house end for several days - having had to have the older Camry dragged out of the swamp by a AAA truck last week. Now the temperature is plummeting, expected to plateau around ten degrees by mid-afternoon. In many ways it feels as if we have moved north, to some primeval forest, where we have to haul water from the river, keep the fire going, hunt, chew our own food.. use the microwave no more than ten times a day. And in the midst of this new primitive life comes a knock on the door. Mormon Missionaries, no less. Two brand spanking new Latter Dayers bearing gifts. Of course I put them in a pot and, after a slow boil, made a column out of them. Hinted at Hansel and Gretel. Say instead, Hansel and Bruno. That’s all for now. Dad