Back Home

We put Louis to rest yesterday. He had traded his grave for a mausoleum recently, and the funeral was held in the interior chapel. Thankfully, it was air-conditioned. That chapel contains the urn of my high-school friend who died of AIDS 13 years ago. I didn't know he was there until I found his urn. I think he's next to his dad, who died in May.

The visitation on Tuesday night was in the same funeral-home room as Dad's, and I found myself standing in the exact same spot for three hours as we welcomed the mourners. No time could have passed at all. The only difference was that Louis was in the coffin instead of standing to my left. Your Sis drove down to make sure Mom and I had supper, and she drove back up the mountain that same night. She's insane and wonderful.

Mom is OK. I think she's mad at Louis, as I am. I'll go back Saturday to help her clean his house. I drove back home yesterday and barely slept last night. I'm exhausted. I'm afraid to drink coffee lest I become a jittery zombie. We saw Dad's grave as we left the cemetery.

Picture of the Day
No pictures please.

Weary

The visitation and funeral for Louis are today and tomorrow, and I'm exhausted just thinking about them. of course Mom has to deal with all this. She sounds OK, and she says she's surprised she has no tears. I think she's out of them. She says she doesn't cry about dad anymore, and that's good. They had prepared for his death since January. Louis has planned for his for about ten years, but it happened because he rejected the rehab. The oldest and youngest of the Clardy children are the only ones left out of five. It's Mom and Uncle Don.

I drive down this afternoon and come back Wednesday night. My suit still has the dry-cleaning tags following Dad's funeral. Your Sister and Parents will stay in North Carolina. The latter only met Louis at the funeral. Your Sister met him last year, and he was awfully sweet on her. Louis was a man with a broken heart and a sad knowledge of himself. He needed a woman like her to clean up his act but knew he couldn't keep her around.

The best thing I can possibly do for mom is to keep breathing.

Picture of the Day
Diving in.

Well, That Was A Weekend

We left Asheville early on Friday and arrived at Susan's around, um, 7ish? I can't remember. That sounds right. We thought we'd arrive much later, but I got away from work around 3. Susan's house is brilliant. I want one just like it -- the screened-in porch, the stairs, the shower and bath, the fireplace. Our house is a humble abode compared to hers and Your Brothers. But for the two of us, it's the right size. We'd waste more space if we had it.

Because we arrived in the evening, we could take Susan out to dinner, and she chose a seafood joint near Duke called Charlie's Garage. They offered three specials, and we ordered one of each and swapped dishes throughout the meal. We slept upstairs under open windows.

We woke up around 7:30 to get to Chapel Hill for the "Adventurs in Ideas" seminar on American Satire. The symposium wasn't at the campus at all but at some Leadership Campus a short way up 501 from the main UNC cluster. We got free food throughout the day and each lecturer spoke for about an hour:

Mark Twain -- a review of the pre-seminar assigned readings, unfortunately. We didn't learn much more about Twain than what we were give to read.

H.L. Mencken -- the Baltimore curmodgeon. This was a better presentation and a full biography.

Lunch happened her, and the two of use stumbled into a conversation on sitcoms and politics with a UNC professor emeritus of history, Peter Finele. Then he spoke on sitcom TV and cultural commentary.

The Daily Show -- an examination of political journalism and satire. This had lots of clips from the shows. A panel followed that wandered away from humor and into political discourse. But the whole event was a nice classroom experience with Your Sis. We haven't been in a class together before.

We drove throw a torrential torrent of torrenty rain before eatina Italian. Susan opted to stay home.

Sunday morning, mom called to say that she had found my uncle Louis dead. This was her brother who walked out of rehab after knee surgery. Susan said almost immediately that a clot could have killed him, and Mom confirmed it later that night when I talked to her at legnth. Four weeks to teh day that Dad dies, we lose Louis. But Louis, as examplified by his rehab behavior, did not take care of himself. I'm unabashedly angry at him. Instead of taking steps to really clean himself up, he handed ownership of all his materials to Mom within the last three years. He drove away prospective wives and crashed through his last years and the various debilitations.

As a result, he practically designed it so Mom would have to break into his house to find his body. And that's what happened. She wasn't alone, thankfully, but she knew before she got to his house that this was the likley conclusion. Louis was yher closest brother; they were the babies of the family. Louis was the class closn, the life of the party, the bigot joke-teller, and the messy bachelor. Mom was shocked by the pills and alchohol she found in his house, and she was a frequent vistor. They had supper together just a few weeks back. They talked on the pohone regularly. His latest girl pal was hysteriacl; she had no idea he would treat himself this way. He might have overdosed. he might have mixed the wrong elements. But the coroner was satisifed with Louis's medical history (long, storied) and recent operation to label him a death by stroke.

Mom is meeting with teh funeral home today (the same we went to for Dad's funeral) , and I'll hear the plans sometime before tonight. She said I don't need to drive down yet, but I'll got for the likely Wednesday and Thursday combo of services. This is going to be a seeming repeat of what we went through for Dad. I'm exhausted just thinking about it. i can't imagine what Mom is feeling. And that makes me mad at Louis again for doing this to her.

We had planend to attend the Charlotte comic show Sunday before we heard the news, and we went. If I'm facing another week attending to Mom, I wanted to get one day of escapism. So here's what happened:

HeroesCon
This was by far my best con experience. The stereotype of the typical con attendee is officially deflated; not only did I see families of all age ranges stroll around, but I saw packs of roaming college gals. HeroesCon is the Guitar Hero of conventions. Everyone comes to play.



She had not been to this before, and she appreciated the relative tranquility of the event compared to DragonCon. We strolled through the vendor tables first, where we picked up the Ringo "What If" book at the Heroes Initiative table [10]. Mike Weiringo, nice guy and good artists, died last year of a heart attack, and a scholarship has been established his his name at the Savannah College of Art and Design. This book is part of a fund-raiser for the scholarship.

She was stunned by the bootleg DVDs on sale and wondered how anyone keeps from getting arrested. We found a booth selling GI Joe figures, and she was temporarily mesmerized by them. We also decided she could easily be Lady Jaye at DragonCon (green jumpsuit, basbeball cap, boots). I found a classic Destro figure and the new Torpedo figure [4]. They also had the Star Wars figures based on Ralph McQuarrie's original designs, and she almost bought a few.

We found a booth selling stuffed microbe toys, and she bought one [5].

We ate paninis before hitting the artists tables. We used a chart created by an online acquaintance to find other online buddies. First up, we met Jeremy, from whom we bought a sketchbook that he was nice enough to sign [7]. In retrospect, I should have bought a GI Joe page (he did the issues packaged in two-figure packs).

We swung around to to the other side of the con floor and found Visible Light Comics selling their Beowulf title, and shw bought one [3]. She would have bought the t-shirt based on a comic panel to wear in her classroom, but it had the word "hell" on it, and that wouldn't fly at her school.

Next we found Kody Chamberlain, and I went gag-ga over his collage comic, Punks. I bought two issues, and he handed us a sketchbook [12] while showing us his original art pages and discussing his technique. We then found the Mike Oeming/Taki Soma table, and I finally got to meet Taki. They handed us a teaser image of an upcoming project [11].

I bought four minicomics ([8] 50 cents each!) from Roger Landridge (originally from New Zealand, now living in England). I almost walked right by Jim Rugg's table, but I specifically wanted the Afrodesiac mini (Medusa: Why aren't you turning to stone? Afro: Because I'm already rock hard, baby!), and I believe I bought the last one. I also got an impressive newsprint broadsheet comic he made and a copy of The Plan Janes [6], a comic geared toward teen girl readers.

Nice guy, but he was catching shit from Evan Dorkin (one of my heroes) about drinking at the show. And kicking his baby. And spitting on the floor. He then threatened to beat him in a Texas Death Match and rub his broken NWA title belt into Rugg's face. He wouldn't let up, and Rugg was too flummoxed to respond. So, my wife -- Your Sister, my delicate flower, my schoolmarm -- gave Dorkin shit, claiming a con rumor said he was charging for signatures and signing with invisible ink. Dorkin was stunned before she confessed she was joking. Then we chatted about Jack Kirby comics and gas prices. I got a signed copy of Biff-Bam-Pow [14], a comic created with his wife and fellow artist Sara Dyer.

We then found the Oni Comics table, and I bought the third and fourth volumes of fantastic comic Scott Pilgrim [2], and the artist was nice enough to sign my books, complete with a stellar sketch.



I offered to pay for it, and he would have none of it.

After meeting up with my ECU buddy Mark, we went back to the Oni table, met another online guy, and Mark sold me on Black Metal [9]. The Oni guy then asked Your Sister and I to get to it signed by the writer and give him shit about the upcoming volume two.

As we strolled the very back of the artists alley, we found the creators of Perry Bible Fellowship and Wondermark, the Victorian clip-art strip. I bought the new Wonder Mark collection [13], and the creator asked us to put up a review at Amazon after reading it.

As the con wound down, we hit the vendors for some deals, and I got the Promethea figure set for $5 [1]. It's the toy based on a comic of a literature-based Wonder Woman. And then we went home.

We saw costumes through the day, and here's the best of the lot.




This is a guy from my hometown comic store.




Spidey will save the day when he feels like it.

I should also mention Your Sister's revulsion for animal mascots. Streaky the Super Cat? Beppo the Super Monkey? Krypto? Ace the Bat-hound? She saw the various toys and was tempted to destroy them with her Swinging Backpack of Intellectual Superiority.

I found an original comic page of Spider-Man against sewer-dwelling monkeys wearing gangsta bling, and she almost vomited on it.

She kept asking "why?" and I kept saying "why NOT?"

When we got home, I called Mom for details, and she sounded OK. I'll see her in a few days, and we'll get her through this.

And then I found out George Carlin died, and that just drops me down another rung on the ladder of dazed exhaustion.

EDIT: I forgot to mention, I talked to the publisher of my minicomic and some anthologies my work appeared in. I was bummed about being left out of this year's theme-book (cavepeople), but he said the book was a mess to organize, and he'd be sure to contact me about the next book. That was a big relief. I thought I had lost favor somehow.

An Offer I Can't Refuse

We had dinner with the director of my last show and his wife. We're becoming a cozy couple. He's also the head of the script committee, and, yes, he gave me another script to read as we sat down. We talked theatre and Tonys and personal histories and the problems with the new performance space. And then he asked me, after a warning not to panic, if I'd be interested in joining Board of Directors.

Of course I would. I told him my opinion wouldn't be as informed becuase I'm new to the company. He said the board has so little representation of theatre people -- backstage or onstage -- that he thought the board was making bad decisions. Of course the board can use lawyers and accountants and realtors, but they need people who have worked an audience. He said the chairman of the theatre won't even step onstage, and I remembered that I hadn't in fact seen that guy speak publicly at any of their shows.

The company needs help, and it needs new ideas. The director was apparently taken with my notions during the committee meetings and the comments I made about the scripts. He thinks I have the right level of informed consideration for the board. Sure, yes, I'll give it a shot. I wonder if this will skew my chances to playing roles. I don't know if I have to be elected or simply tapped on the shoulder like a Harvard fraternity.

We're leaving today for Durham to visit Your Aunt. We'll also hit the Chapel Hill campus for a one-day class on American satire. I think Your Sis gets credit for taking the class; I'm just tagging along. On the way back, we're hitting the Charlotte comic convention. I might meet up with my ECU buddy there.

Picture of the Day
The mars Phoenix probe is finding ice just under the soil. It makes little trenches and bakes soil samples to analyze the content.

Wii and Corn

On short notice, I walked with Your Sister to a coworker's house for grilled dinner. It's Kat and Rachel, both whom we really get along with, and they made us pasta and salad. We talked up The Happening with a minimum of school talk to everyone's relief.

They have a Wii, and I finally got to play one. It's addictive, and the remote-control is nowhere near as difficult to learn as I thought. Your Sister, who you know doesn't play anything but Guitar Hero, was crying from laughter. She had no trouble learning the Wii, and after we made virtual avatars, we played for about two hours. She beat me in bowling. She had a blast, and she might be talked into getting one. We walked up around 11 p.m. under a bright moon. It was a fine evening.

I watered the garden this morning and discovered corn. They finally emerged yesterday, but they sprouts are random in the rows.


Here's what the pumpkin sprouts look like.


The tomatoes and peppers are looking good, but the garlic is still hiding.

Eating and Growing

I got home to find Your Sister had arranged an outdoor dinner. She grilled corncobs, stuffed apples, and steaks. We ate on the deck as the weather was great. I managed to break a wine glass for a five-minute clean-up session.

She wrapped up the official school stuff yesterday, and this was a blow-out ceremony for her. She's still getting calls from fellow teachers and spends a good deal of the evening talking in detail about class plans and administration baffling. Many is the time that a scheduled coach surfing has been demolished by an hourlong call from a co-worker.

We did manage to close down the phone to watch the Celtics beat the Lakers. That was an astounding performance. The Lakers were consensus pick to win. The debate centered on how many games they'd need to win.

Mom is currently focusing on setting up her house for the internet. She wants to find a Dell PC from Best Buy, and she's calling the cable and phone companies to find the best price. I'll drive down to see her probably next week, and we'll window shop for computers.

We have sprouted squash plants. I see nothing yet from the corn or garlic.

Picture of the Day
You might need this for your school studies.

Follow Up

I Googled the sticker I found Sunday evening and found a company called Silly Girl Design. They make the image I photographed, and I discovered the company's MySpace page. They're based in California, and I let the owners/spokesperson know they've reached the other coast.

They clearly borrow heavily from Obey Giant material, but they may be too small to notice.

The script committee exchanged notes on our readings, and I was given five more scripts. No one else is getting this many each time, but I'm reading them all. We're nearing positive consensus on a few scripts -- we've already shelved a handful -- and we may have chosen our mystery play. There's still uncertainty about the upcoming season: when it will start, how many shows could be produced, etc. The delay in securing a permanent space likewise moved back the process of renovation and using the theatre. It's, of course, way too early to see what my acting prospects might be but I think my unusual age for this group (between college and retirement) will continue to help me with auditions.

Our local shuffle radio station, named "Charlie," has just switched to yet another conservative talk station. Because we didn't have enough. Obviously. The iPod retains its belt as Sanity Preserving Heavyweight Champion.

A Weekend for H Movies

Here's a hint for school administrators across this great nation: Do not fire and rearrange teachers within hours of the big district-wide faculty party. It tends to cast a pall. The much-anticipated blow out took a turn. A significant turn. And the administrators, oddly, didn't show up. Your Sister wasn't directly affected, but she now has a new English teacher who, just a few hours before, was the head of the social studies department. There was movement among the coach/teachers to accommodate the new football chief, too. It was sudden and unexpected for the staff, and it happened on practically the last day of school. The party couldn't escape the topic, and I was desperate for something I could talk about. We left early.

As she went to graduation, I saw The Incredible Hulk, a movie very different from the Ang Lee Hulk film. It's a simpler story told with more energy, and there are lots of extras for the comic crowd. I was very happy with it; I had expected a trainwreck almost as soon as the project was announced. I don't know if you ever got to see the TV series from the '70s, but this film tips its hat to that show often, to the delight of geezers like me. Strangely there were single women watching this film, and I can only assume they came to see Ed Norton.

After we put away another class' research papers, we watched The Happening. This is a small film that will piss off a lot of people expecting The Mist or Dawn of the Dead. I enjoyed it. I think there's a lot of meat on the bone, and it reminds me thematically of The Mist or Cormac McCarthy's The Road. It's assuredly a post-9/11 film. But don't go expecting to see something veiled in the ads. The commercials show you all the R-rated bits.

While at the theater, I saw a strange sticker in the bathroom, and I don't know if it's for a local band or a movie-marketing ploy. But I like it.


We got home around 9:45 and caught the last half of the Tonys.

We've grown some more grass, and now a pumpkin plant -- my first pumpkin plant -- has sprouted. We're going to have a bouncing baby jack o'lantern.

I finished my five scripts for this week, including the farces Arsenic and Old Lace and Moon Over Buffalo, two murder plays, and a play that's either a parody of such plays or a very stupid straight version. I cant tell, but I say we play it campy. We have another meeting tonight and I assume I'll be given another handful of scripts. I've read around 20 already.

Maybe My Thumb Is Green

I've managed to grow grass. I noticed brand-new blades this morning as I watered the lawn, and I haven't been this proud about looking at the ground since we yanked up last year's potatoes. The ground is still patchy, and I may have to put down a second seeding, but a precedent has emerged. We have grass-age.

I bought some fertilizer spray for the veggies. It attaches to the hose, and it can feed a garden for 15 minutes. My plot is smaller than the square-foot suggestion, and I switched from that watering to the normal sprinkler. We haven't had the rain we were predicted (shock), making manual watering necessary again. The peppers and tomatoes look OK, the cucumbers are dead, the garlic is still buried, and the marigolds have lost their first blooms.

We hosted a teacher buddy for a dinner of homemade spaghetti. It went over well. We're all excited to see The Happening despite common comments that it's a hilariously bad film. But we have to hit research papers and play scripts before Tuesday. I might skim the scripts form here on; the last one I read was pretty bland.

I talked to my Greenville friend, and he's available to meet up with us the weekend of Aug. 15.

Picture of the Day
This is from the Seattle alt-weekly, The Stranger.

Theatre Doings

Last night's script meeting went well. We had a new member join, and our introduction was punctuated by his effort to remember where he had seen me before. Something similar happened when we watched the play last weekend; the box-office people called me by my last character's name. I do the same thing with other actors. We often call each other by character names as those are the ones we use the most often.

I had finished five of the eight scripts within the week, and I gave short reviews of them out loud. We have right at one month to make our suggestions for the season, and we've begun to cull the scripts that just won't fly. Both Neil Simons are out, unfortunately, as is Inherit the Wind (too huge), Dracula (too grim), The Hollow (the weaker of the 2 Agatha Christies), The Light in the Mill (too damn stupid), and a few others. We debated the merits of other scripts and disagreed professionally. The discussions are going really well. We champion some plays and defer to the consensus on others.

I was given five mores scripts to read, including Arsenic and Old Lace which I had somehow never read before. It's a stalwart of community theatre, as much as Oklahoma! and Greater Tuna.

Two bits of news caused ripples.

1) The renovations to the new theatre space might postpone the season until January. If we tried a full complement of productions, that might force a show each month. That's a large burden on our loyal audience and an even larger obligation on our repertory. It's possible the renovations can be done in phases, and maybe we can start the season in November.

2) The director of the courtroom drama -- the lady who was one-half of a horrible clash of egos -- not only emailed the theatre to ask for another directing gig, but she did it by contacting the guy she butted heads with. Of the committee members, I was the one directly involved with that mess, and I couldn't believe what I heard.

I also got confirmation of an ugly rumor where she dismissed a young male actor because he was black. She didn't believe he could credibly be someone in the 1930s drama. I saw this guy perform just last week and, hearing this, I got pissed. I remember how much trouble we had finding and keeping male actors, and we turned away a competent actor with a clear stage voice in the first day. We could have avoided that trouble for at least one role, and maybe the role we filled just two weeks before we opened . I said so and made sure to praise the guy who did ultimately rescue us. I don't know if that director knows that the high chief of the theatre is black, and word is that he decreed she wouldn't return.

I hope to polish off the five scripts while helping Your Sister finish reading research papers this week. She told me to stay away from Saturday's graduation ceremony, and I might watch Incredible Hulk.

Picture of the Day
Jesusmaaaaaaaaan.
Burning out his fuse up here alone.

Short Stuff

The only real news is that it finally rained. And rained and rained. I was able to sleep in this morning. I think we need to slap down some fertilizer on the new plantings this weekend.

We had a swank dinner out for the jailhouse-iversary, and we got a bit tanked on champagne.

Picture of the Day
"The Maze" by James Jean, who now does covers for comic books.

My Last Haul Perhaps

Because we're predicted to get big-mama storms starting, perhaps, today, I planted the rest of the seeds. These are actual seeds, mind you, not transplants from the high school. We picked out corn, pumpkins, a squash medley, and sunflowers. I demanded sunflowers. Pop had them, and I always liked them.

Things I learned when researching the plants:
1) Squash basically grows itself. You slam it in the ground and leave it alone.
2) Pumpkins take up a lot of root space and require hills to grow in. I had leftover mounds from the potatoes (And we're growing orphan potatoes from what didn't die in the fall. We've sprouted tater plants.)
3) Corn is going to be the hardest plant to grow to ripeness. Bugs, sickness, and birds will attack it always.
4) Cucumbers die pretty easily, as our vines are yellow and pale.

It took about two hours to finish the garden, and it really is finished now. There's no more room to plant more (unless I replace the cucumbers), and now I'm trying out watering patterns with the just-too-small rainbow sprinkler. But the rain this week will let me sleep later before work.

It's our jailhouse-iversary today, and we're going out for din-din. This means that today, three years ago, you and I became in-laws.

Picture of the Day
A Martian sunset seen from the Spirit rover.

I Have a Garden of Hate

Most of Saturday was spent proofing research papers, and Your Sis has asked me to help with another batch later in the week. This gives me no joy. But I want to be a nice guy.

We spent Saturday night watching the current show with my theatre bunch. I noticed in the playbill that two people were listed as voice coaches, and I knew that one of them was a tiny Jewish woman from New York. Sure enough, the play started, and the actors were using a heavy accent. When we did the murder play this spring, I worried about using the original British accents. We had so much dialogue to cover, and I thought accents might prove distracting to us, and bad ones would certainly distract the audience. We dropped them. Unanimously, I think.

I wish they had done so in this new play. They spent to much time learning the enunciation, they didn't have the melody. You can use regional rhythms without mimicking the exact dialect patterns. take the movie version of The Odd Couple. You can clearly tell these men are talking in New York patter even though they don't use the stereotypical accents. This new play, set in New Jersey, saw almost everyone adopt the broad, nasal inflections and word warping. And their efforts killed the comedy. They had no punch or flow, and I blame the director. He also had a supporting character express shyness and social anxiety by twitching and hard blinking. He looked like a bird. What made the show fun was the in-the-round format, a style I always liked.

The show's content gave me hope that the sex-farce script I read last week, Don't Dress for Dinner, could be produced next season.

My plan for Sunday was to wake up early, water the garden, and assemble the fence. We went to the local mom-and-pop hardware store and bought fencing, stakes, and a replacement staple gun. I knew exactly which one I wanted: an Arrow T-50.

I had one in college to stretch my canvases, and it always worked like a charm. It was a workhorse. It busted during a move, but I had plenty of staples. I found one at the store and bought extra staples. We knew the area of the garden we wanted to contain was roughly 50 x 16 feet. I set everything in the garage to put together the next morning.

Again, I wake up early Sunday and I water the garden. I turn off the water, load the staple gun, and give it a test squeeze. Nothing. Tried another row of staples. Nothing. I had a busted staple gun, fresh out of the box. It was 9:30, and the temperature was already brushing against 80 degrees. The local store was, of course, closed. I drove out to the big-box Lowe's with my new box of staples and picked out the same model gun. I asked the stockman if we could try it before I left. He loaded it, squeezed it, and out popped a staple just as designed. I thanked him, I bought it, I went home.

The first thing I did was dig a small trench around the perimeter. For a good rabbit fence, you have to bury the bottom edge. I used a spade and a shovel to mark out my trench, and then I drove in my stakes, roughly every ten feet. I flattened out the edge near the compost pile, creating a facet. Now, it was 11 a.m., and it was roasting. I put off the fence until the weather was cooler.

About five hours later, I graded the garden soil and started with the fencing. That's when I discovered the heavy staples in the bundles to keep the wire together. It took a while to remove each one, and I yanked them out with needle-nose pliers like a dentist. Then I got to stapling the fence to the stakes. I got to the tenth stake when the staple gun broke. I fidgeted with the first one, still on my work bench, and it stayed broke.

Back to Lowe's. I showed the gun to a new stockman, and he said immediately "the head is jammed. Let me fix it." I watched as he hit it with a hammer for five minutes before telling the customer-service cashier to let me get a new one. She was new. She didn't know how to work that button on the register. She instead gave me a refund and told me to go around to another register and buy the new gun off the shelf. I did that, after testing the new one, and returned home. I went straight to the garden and hurried through the rest of the stakes before this new gun decided to go on strike. It took much, much longer than it should have. My fingers are swollen and sore, my back hurts, and I lost some weight sweating for hours.



Of course, I expect to return home tonight to find the fence wrapped around and trailing a stupid-happy golden retriever belonging to some neighbor. Or a coven of rabbits wearing bibs and sitting around the new plants with silverwear in each front paw.

I hope to plant the pumpkins, corn, and squash before the heavy rains predicted for this week. That means I go back to the garden tonight. Now that I have fencing to keep rabbits out, I suppose we're obliged to grow stuff that might attract the rabbits.

Proof of Gardening

I watered again last night and then again this morning. I think I'll need to cut back to just morning watering from here on.


These are the tomatoes from the side. Notice the marigolds to keep bugs away. The plants may be too close together. These tomato plants will grow up not out, but I don't want the roots to collide.


We're maybe using half a row for the plants so far. From front to back, we have tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, and garlic. The mulch covers the transplant beds. All have greenery above ground, except garlic. You plant the sprouts downward to develop the roots. The patch on the left is where we cut away blackberry bushes and are trying to grow lawn.

Gardening at Night (and the Morning)

I bought a new rainbow sprinkler before attacking the garden. Your Sis bought veggie plants from a school greenhouse sale, and I put them in the ground yesterday. I checked a few online gardening sites to see the best way to handle them and had my checklist next to me as I shoveled into the soil. It's been a few weeks since we tilled, but the subsoil was still most and soft.

I planted tomatoes and surrounded them with marigolds to keep the bugs away. It was a tip from Dad. I also put in garlic (already sprouting), peppers, and cucumbers (labeled "burpless"). I have them all in one row next to my grass experiment so I can water them all at one time. I ran the sprinkler last night for a half hour; all the rain we were supposed to get this weekend vanished. I got up early to water the garden again and then I put down veggie fertilizer and buried everything in mulch.

Almost as soon as I was done, I noticed a golden retriever standing in the mud and shooed him away. As if I wasn't already worried about rabbits. We have wire, and I hope to put down a fence this weekend, at the latest. The heat is probably keeping them at bay. I see more rabbits when we get lots of rain. I'll wake up early each morning to water the garden, and spend the time reading from the new script stacks. I've already read and graded two scripts since Tuesday night.

Mom said the copy of the will she has isn't automatically recognized by the lawyer. The copies she has are of an older version, unsigned, and the presiding lawyer at the time has moved and can't be located. I will sign papers saying I won't challenge the old will. Also, Mom may have misplaced the tax folder I set out for her a week ago. She sounds OK as long as she has a task at hand. We got a ton of cards at our house, and I'll need to work on thank-you cards this weekend.

The cold is fading. Specifically, it's exiting from a very specific point, and it's not lovely.

Picture of the Day
"God damn, that DJ made my day."

Reading Material

The theatre script committee met again last night. The fearless leader has instituted a July deadline to choose the plays, and we now know how many we need -- four: a comedy, a farce, a drama, and a mystery. The musical, Christmas show, and kid's show will be picked by other folks. We were given a grade sheet showing what scores the scripts have so far. We were also assigned new scripts. I have eight. EIGHT. I don't know any of these shows, unlike with the last batch, but I'm already in the second act of the first script, a mystery-comedy.

I had no idea how expensive the big shows are. Hello, Dolly! will cost the theatre $3,500 just for the royalties. That's based on a 300-seat house. If we tried to sell tickets for the entire high-school auditorium, we'd have to cough up $9,000. The director is getting $5,000. I had no clue directors made that much money.

We toured the new theatre home after the meeting. it's the former Legion hall. It needs renovations badly, but it's a nice stage space. We'll have to use another space for musicals because the echo will ruin those shows. Inherit the Wind, a show I had high hopes for, won't be produced this year. We're still trying to present a flashy season with high-profile titles to raise money; the renovation expenses could run past $300,000.

I'm the youngest of the committee, but I feel like I can contribute decent opinions on the material. I don't feel like a token member, and I suspect I'm being groomed as new blood for the theatre.

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Don't ask where he keeps the steering wheel.

Sick

I officially have whatever hobo cough Your Sister has brandished since January. She doesn't believe me when I note it's lasted six months. I am light-headed and sleepy, and my tummy has no floor, and I don't want to be at work. But I don't have the gumption to stay home after already missing a week.

I watered my grass seeds yesterday and realized my cheap rainbow sprinkler is a cheap piece of junk. Your Sis won a Rotary Outstanding Teacher Award yesterday.

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A shining example of the first rule of copy editing: You have to employ a dirty mind.

Back to Normal

Well, sort of. Things are good until I remember Dad isn't on a long vacation.

We had din-din with Kathy and Travis Friday to catch them up on all the details of the past week. They announced that they are preggers again (by design) and will host another German student for a month this summer.

I drove down to Mom's house to help with small items. I figured out how to make their DVD player work with the HDTV. I fixed a broken tail light. I Drano'd the back shower drain that was probably clogged when Dad's hair fell out. We picked up a flag-display case at Michael's, and I'm somewhat shocked they carry them. I also swung by my hometown comic store; they ship my monthly haul to me. I put money into the donation jar for my high-school buddy recently diagnosed with intestinal cancer.

Mom sounds OK. She has several tasks at hand, and that helps her muddle through. She isn't buried in appointments but has enough to keep her busy. Also, I suspect she's rewatching the Stepford Wives remake on her now-functioning DVD player.

I planted grass seed next to the garden and began plotting how to arrange the garden with our veggies. We watched the new Indiana Jones film, and it's sadly disappointing. Harmless and light. Your Sis opened the birthday package and laughed at the socks.

The mixture of cigarettes, odd sleep patterns, and pollen have gotten me all sick like. I can't run as I'd like.

Picture of the Day
NASA says the Mars Phoenix probe may have uncovered ice already. We knew there was ice there. The question is "is there flowing water?"

What I Remember

I wanted to jot down the big moments that happened since Saturday. There's no order to these.

1) Mom didn't want a full military funeral for Dad because he didn't retire. He had a flag on his closed coffin. Dad didn't look like himself in death. The morticians did a fine job with him, but without a recent photo to work from, they didn't know what coloring was normal. He looked clean. But he didn't look like the Bruce everyone remembered. His eyelashes were gone. His eyebrows were gone. He only had wisps of hair on top. His nose was unmistakable though. So were the ears. He looked a lot like his dad right before his dad died. Mom thought he looked like a particular brother.

Anyway, about the flag, even though we had no color guard for the funeral, the funeral directors attended to the ceremonial flag folding. I had only seen this live once, and that was with my Uncle Ray last year. He got the full show -- bugle, 21-gun salute, the choreographed march, etc. And just as with Ray, two people picked up the flag from the coffin, stretched it out, folded it twice longways, and then made the traditional 13 folds, turning it into a padded triangle. It looks like a giant paper football. Then the lead director -- a guy named Scott Fowler who took care of us since Sunday -- handed it to Mom and gave the traditional flag declaration: On behalf of the President of the United States and the Department of the Army, this flag is presented on behalf of a grateful nation and the United States Army as a token of appreciation for your loved one's honorable and faithful service. Mom had often said that this would be the hardest moment of the funeral and joked she might fall into the grave herself. Scott joked that he could use a shepherd's hook to yank her out, and reminded her with a wink to not fall in after he handed her the flag.

When it rains, the funeral home will give you a plastic, transparent cover that fits the flag like a glove, and she cradled it while we stood and said goodbye to the funeral attendees. I promised myself that, no matter what, I would stay sober and dry when Mom took that flag. If she lost composure, I'd be secure for her to lean on. But she did fine. I whispered to her that we have so many reasons to be proud of Dad.

OK, I just now lost my shit. I felt it coming all day, and I wanted it to happen when I was alone, and it did. Finally. I kept it together since Saturday, and I think the majority of the exhaustion and weariness is out. It's a big relief. I've lumbered about all day with this weight.

Let me tell when I almost did crumble during this whole mess. I'll be quick.

a) When I walked into the emergency room for the first time. Mom and Mrs. Crow, the neighbor who called me about Dad, were standing in the small private room with what appeared to be an empty piled with bundles of blankets on it. Before I could get near to Mom, I craned to look at the bed and thought maybe they had taken Dad for a scan right before I saw the top of his head. He was curled on his left side asleep, and he looked to be about three feet long. He was diminished. A teenager would have made a larger profile on the bed. I saw his socked feet sticking under the blanket at the bed's edge, and this physical reduction almost did me in. Then I saw Mom's red eyes, and I had to keep together. I hadn't heard any details of his condition yet.

b) When they wheeled him to palliative care. They unlocked the room bed and slowly pushed it to the other side of the hospital. I had already been there an hour, and we knew he wasn't coming home. He was only hooked to a simple IV and a catheter. His breathing was like, well, an animal. A growing animal. As he made the first turn out of the room, I had to cough down the crying fit.

c) When I thanked the pallbearers before the funeral. Four of them I had known all my life. I had always thought of them through my kid memories of big adults, and here I looked them in the eyes. We were all adult men, and they were doing my Dad the biggest favor they could, and before I could even get the words of gratitude out, my mouth stiffened and stretched. I cleared my throat and shook their hands, and then quickly walked to the back of the chapel and ate it.

So back to the memories:

2) Your Dad's face when we first saw each other in the chapel. He gave me a bearhug, and I was tempted to apologize to him for being the means by which he had met Dad and was brought to this moment. I had just walked into the room, and was hugged by cousins and aunts I had never seen before. Some folks I did know. Lots of people told me then and the night before that I looked just like Dad, and I had the ready joke that I grew the beard for Mom's convenience.

3) Right after the funeral, I saw my local buddy Travis, Kathy's husband, and he couldn't even speak. He was on the verge of tears. I thanked him, told him to go if he needed, and that I'd call him this weekend. His reactions surprised me. Your Sis suspects he, as a new dad, has a fear of leaving his wife and daughter behind in a similar situation.

4) I met a church couple who have a son who only answers to Peter Parker. As a lifelong geek, I am both relieved and shocked I never thought of that. When we played heroes as a kid, I was either Batman (because I have the middle name "Bruce") or Superman (because I wore glasses as Clark Kent would).

5) I developed a politician's handshake at the visitation. I'd extend my hand and place me left hand on the person's back while we talked. My left shoulder was killing me when he left the funeral home.

6) Your Sister did a lot of emotional heavy lifting. Mom and I tagged off to juggle the workload, but Your Sis and I tagged off to juggle Mom. She deserved a better birthday weekend. I'm trying to make it up to her.

7) My uncle Louis made things difficult. He had knee-replacement surgery last week, but he was adamant he didn't need rehab. He needed a next-of-kin to release him, and he called Saturday night while Dad was still in the hospital. Mom, who has always buttressed him, didn't need this shit and shrugged him off. He left the rehab center. He was at the visitation with a walker and decided he was immediate family. I ran interference to keep him from hovering over Mom. But he tends to turn any occasion into the Louis Show, and he tried it that night. He wanted to stand with us at the casket, and I maneuvered him away from Mom and Your Sister. He likes to play women for sympathy. We had four stools at the foot of Dad's coffin, and he was furthest away. Then me, then Your Sis, then Mom. I think it worked OK. It let me introduce Heidi to people, and Mom could overhear the names to spark her memory. Louis also as an anchor at the funeral, but we minimized his impact.

8) Mom and I had a great conversation at the mall food court after buying her new shoes for the visitation and funeral. We're starting to talk like old friends instead of stilted relations. Might be the only good thing to come from all this. Your Sis and I also had good meals with my Uncle Don and Your Parents.

It's now Friday, and I'm mostly back to normal. I've called Mom twice, and she sounds OK. She suggested I stay home this weekend, but we need to keep momentum on our new friendship, and there are some things at the house that need doing. I've stayed busy; my momentum from the Saturday-Wednesday constant stream of task completion has got me stuck in a new gear. I can't sit still. I've washed the cars, done the laundry, bought gardening materials, signed my painting, baked bread, and barely sat through the Lost finale (which was good and gooder). I still need to mow the lawn and transplant the veggies to the back yard. I have quite a number of things to do. And new initiative to get them done.

The Day Before

Your Sister is sick, but she continues to work. I assume we'll go to Asheville this weekend for the restaurant, and we might pick up her car stereo too. Depends on how she feels. I handed her the bag from you and Your Parents, but she's too waterlogged to enjoy opening it. It sits next to the sick bed.

I feel a bit nervous about the race. I know my start time and where to go and when I should wake up and stretch and snack. But I worry about the crowd and preparation of the staff. This is no longer an official event for the Memorial Festival, and I hope the new organizers secured some police protection for the runners along those back roads. They're also running a 10K at the same time on the same course.

I don't feel like I've done enough to get into shape. I lost time to gardening and weather, and, while I feel lighter in some places, I worry about my legs on the hills. And the last hill looms. It fucking LOOMS. I'm determined to run until I vomit. I haven't done that yet, and I suspect I need that rite of passage.

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This is the kind of ads that can boost newspaper distribution.