Cold Running

I'm running my 5ks again. It's darker and colder, but the only effect is with breathing. The cold air makes me think I'm running harder than I am. I'm feeling it in my legs as I run every other day again, and I'm reminding myself to keep my chin up; that seems to stave off the rib pains. I turned in the exact same time yesterday as I did Tuesday, and I blame the football traffic. I had to run around a truck stopped at an intersection, and a car tailed so closely behind my on the last road that I ran into a lawn to keep from being run over.

It's a runners' town. People like me are all over the place, and I suspect some drivers don't know what to do with us. I admit I don't run with traffic. I don't trust the drivers. I'm off the sidewalks only briefly, and it's on a stretch of road wide enough to accommodate two cars, me, and a bicyclist. I'm always tempted to yell "cheater" at the bikers when they whiz by.

Your Sister drove her motorcycle to work a few days this week, and the kids who see her in her gear enjoy it. It became cold literally overnight, and we've made our biannual rearrangement of the bedroom. I get too cold, and she gets too warm; she moves closer to the window, and I move closer to the closet. I hear you now: Don't y'all have gas heat? Yes. Yes, we do. And I hope to convince Your Sister to turn it on before January. I mean, it's cold, but not cold cold. We have lots of blankets. We look forward to cranking up the new gas stove in the library.

Mom has worked a full week and feels OK. She wants a smaller weed-eater. We bought her one a few months back, but it's too big for her. I should have considered that; her yard is bigger than ours, and I picked out the same machine I use. She has some achy mornings, but she's off the pain medicine so she can drive.

Picture of the Day
We need a set of these.

The Wind in the Trees

Your Sister is taking advantage of the great riding weather to zoom her motorcycle all over the county. She armors up to ride the eighth-mile to work. She takes the long way home. It's fall in the mountains, and the leaves have agreed to parachute down in waves and skitter along the road just as you drive by them. We finally have sunlight, and it's properly cold at night. We've smothered the bed in blankets, and we're eating hot soups for dinner. I made a fish dish last night on a long-tended whim and posted the recipe on FaceBook. It was good-esque. Your Sister wants to go to bed earlier and earlier as her hibernation instinct kicks in.

Our NFL Bet
Her Teams (boo!)
AFC
New England (2-1)
Pittsburgh (1-2)

NFC
St. Louis (0-3)
New York Giants (3-0)

My Teams (yea!)
AFC
New England (2-1)
Pittsburgh (1-2)

NFC
Philadelphia (2-1)
Atlanta (2-1)

The garden is on its last legs. The tomato vines are dead, and the remaining tomatoes are clinging to a stick. I hope they redden before the bugs get them. The peppers are tiny and few, and the corn is a write-off. I don't think I'll try corn again next year. We're thinking of sweet potatoes.

Picture of the Day
Satellite photo of Kansas crops. They're circular because of the irrigation system.

And That's That.

Check FaceBook to see Your Sister and I eating the snacks from Snazziland.

+ + +

I finally had the phone call with my theatre liaison. He emailed me this weekend to pitch me again on stage managing his show; this follows weeks of phone calls making the same pitch with the disclaimer that I should talk to him when Mom was stable. She is and I did. Some small talk about the show led to me telling him my heart wasn't in it, and I could only promise a half-ass effort. I am unreliable for this, and he needs to find someone to depend on.

Now this stage manager business is required by a theatre tradition of a director releasing the reins when a show opens. I can understand this for professional open-ended shows. When you don't know when a show might close, a director can't commit to being there every night to make the show run cleanly. I guess. I mean, the paid actors and crew have contracts that stipulate they have to be there. The director would have begun his work earlier in the production. Stage managing also allows an apprenticeship of sorts for those who might later direct a show. But they may just as likely shift into a specific tech job.

Also, sure, a stage manager can run the show as the director talks turkey to tech folks. Again, a big-time show will require his attention in all areas. He can work backstage while an assistant cracks the whip.

A stage manager isn't so necessary for a community theatre production with a definite close date. Particularly when that show might only run two weekends. When I directed the one-act (twice, it turned out), I didn't consider a stage manager. It seemed irresponsible to mold a show and then set it adrift while I stayed home with the TV. There was no reason to bring in someone else to mind the script or set the props or corral the actors. I was there. I knew where everything was to sit and move. Who needs a Scooter?

That wasn't my argument with this director. He operates under that tradition of managers sitting in for rehearsals, learning the show, and running it when the audiences arrive. It's not that I'm so philosophically opposed to being a stage manager for a three-act show. I've done it before, and nothing caught on fire. I simply want to be home for a while. I'm burned out from the one-act and the later anthology lasting from spring through summer. And I don't trust the theater's resources and decisions.

Case in point: The smallest part in this fall play was given to Marley from the Scrooge play. If I had to manage that guy for a whole month, well, he'd be dead in two weeks. His diva behavior is inexcusable, and he's already bristling at such strident demands such as "learn your lines." Unlike the Scrooge play, this time he's working with people who will have their material down cold. I'd like to hope this standard would inspire him. I doubt it, however, and would not be shocked to hear the director take over the role a week before the show opens.

Picture of the Day
I caught the last home bout of rollerderby this season on Saturday, and the Blue Ridge Rollergirls won, 155-67. Team members Mazel Tov Cocktail and Rigor Morticia were strong for the home team again. They're really good. The people in the front of the photo are sitting in the "suicide seats." A number of the girls slid into them during the night, and it looked painful. But some of the rollers were cute enough to make it worth it.

Putting Me to Sleep-ing Beauty

I'm going to email your brain a pillow made of chocolate. You're on the other side now.

Because I posted a Maleficent sketch on FaceBook, Your Sister and I decided to watch Sleeping Beauty last night. She hadn't seen it but remembered a collection of records Your Grandparents had that told the story. I saw the film once when Disney put its classic films in theatres to bolster videotape sales. This was the late '80s. The DVD looks great on the PS3, as they all do, but the story is weak.

It should be renamed The Three Round Fairies and Their Sometime Adventures with Tall People. It's all about the faerie godmothers. There are clearly scenes padded out to extend the film length. But my witch gal still rules the film, and her dragon form is a great design. You can see moments that influenced Fantastia -- extended bits without dialogue, dancing brooms and buckets, dark imagery. I think they were test driving the elements before making that film. We yawned a lot watching this film; it's not designed for adults.

Your Sister had her second appointment today, and the diagnosis is good so far. But the results won't be known for another two weeks. I had to Google some of what she told me.

Picture of the Day
Easier than turning into a car.

Quickly

I made fajita-rritos last night, and sketched madly. I wish there was more to say. They were good.

The school yearly raises funds by hiring out student volunteers to work around the community. The school gets an hourly rate from the locals. We've considered hiring a kid to work around the house, but we don't have much for them to do.

In AIDS News
The AP reports an AIDS vaccine cocktail has shown some success in a 16,000-person trial.

In Music News
The nominees for next year's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame have been announced. Let me speak on this.

First-time nominees:
KISS -- No. They took the theatre of Alice Cooper and David Bowie and made it cartoony while pretending it was dark and cosmic. They neither advanced a musical genre nor added anything to rock and roll.

Red Hot Chili Peppers -- Yes. They did fuse sloppy punk and '70s funk into something new, and it went big. They enjoyed the explosion of indy music in the '90s. They almost single handed dragged SoCal rock into national dominance. The late '90s bands, including Green Day and No Doubt, owe their souls to the Chilis.

Genesis -- Iffy. If we're talking the entire work of the band, yes. With Peter Gabriel, they continued prog rock's early' 70s march. And when Gabriel left, the band went pop. I'd argue that Gabriel should be inducted for his total work, including his advocacy of world music. If induction is influenced by reocrd sales, then, yes, Genesis has earned it. But for "rock and roll," no. They haven't done rock in almost 30 years.

Hollies -- I know exactly two songs: Bus Stop and Long Cool Woman. I have to pass.

LL Cool J -- Yes. I love LL. He hit MTV right when my ears wanted new music, and he has maintained a respectability in a genre that shifts quickly. I attribute his success to his producers, but his content showed rap could deliver ballads on par with those from soul and R&B. he expanded the genre, and that earns a spot.

Jimmy Cliff -- Yes. I know nothing of reggae, and I know this guy's name. That's gotta be good for something.

Returning Candidates
ABBA -- Yes. All they did was move the world from disco to New Wave and '80s pop single handedly. Madonna and Blondie would be trivia questions without them. As significant to music as the Temptations and Led Zepplin.

The Chantels, Darlene Love, Laura Nyro -- Don't know them.

The Stooges -- Yes. The Rolling Stones to the Ramones' Beatles.

Donna Summer -- No. She's a product of producers, the real power of disco.

The hall will only accept five inductees, and I'd go with ABBA, Cliff, The Chilis, LL Cool J, and The Stooges.

Picture of the Day
An Ira Glass image I did not make.

Taking Inventory

The garden held up better than I expected. A number of tomatoes were smacked to the ground, but the corn and pepper plants are intact. Depending on who you ask, we had anywhere from 13 to 22 inches of rain in less than a week.

As Sketchtember comes to a close, I hope to move to a painting. I have that photo I took when we went to the NC museum in Raleigh, and I still think it will make a good painting.

I ran yesterday for the first time in about two weeks, just enough to clean the chimneys. I want to get back to a 5k-exclusive route within a week and keep at that until the Halloween race. But I'm fighting a reduction in sunlight.

The prospective senior-project student emailed me to ask how long it would take to make a 5-page comic. I said it depends on what he wanted to do and how feasibly he could do it. He has to determine what kind of story he has in mind, if he has one in mind. But I told him we'll make it work.

Moving Picture of the Day
We noticed this TV ad recently and remarked how much the woman looks like you and Your Sister.

Drying Out

We didn't get hit as badly as parts of Georgia, but we did get hit. The school is on another 2-hour delay as we wait to see at what height the rivers will crest. We personally are fine. Our house is high enough to be above any river or creek threat. I should check the gutters this weekend to see how they're holding up. The garden may be finished this season.

That back pain is 90% gone thanks to wife care and small adjustments. The heavy bedspread helps me stay flat during the night, and I'm minding my desk posture. The pain has never faded this quickly before, and I'd really like to run when I get home. The Halloween race is five weeks away, and I want to be ready.

Mom is doing OK. She pushed it too hard last week and decided to scale back a bit. Her digestive system is in a higher gear now, and the doctor said it might plateau. Or it might not. Everyone's different.

House veered away from the formula last night, and it was interesting if not totally successful. The success of the season premiere will depend on how well the series follows up on the character's progress. I missed the supporting cast.

Picture of the Day
I listen to old-time radio shows all day at work, and the ads are a hoot. This print ad is in the same vein as Lux Toilet Soap and Signal Oil.


I also enjoy hearing all the wartime solicitations for volunteers and donations.

Bossh Office 3

Rain and rain and rain. Your Sister has a 2-hour delay this morning, and our garden is a swamp. The weather kept us inside and productive. I'm sending you shirt notions today. Check your email. I worked on sketch requests. Your Sister tried to update her school grades, but the rain clobbered the school server.

We watched The Mist again last night. The DVD has a b/w version of the film that truly makes for a better experience. It and the rain underscored that fall is here, and Halloween is just a month away.

We also watched Elizabeth: The Golden Age off Netflix, and that means ... Bossh Office!

Chipper Bossh: What a gorgeous film. The colors, the costumes, the visuals. I dub this "production porn." I loved watching it.





Surly Bossh: This is a pile of movie pieces released as a film. The scenes are disjointed. The editing ruins any flow. It's a TV miniseries crumpled into a movie.





Chipper Bossh: Wait, that's actually a proper critical comment. I'm ... I'm surprised.





Surly Bossh: I'm not saying the film wouldn't be better if the queen sicced TIE Fighters against the Spanish Armada. But if I'm going to be charged for the price of a movie, I want a MOVIE.




Chipper Bossh: Well, I got my money's worth. Cate Blanchett is never not good, and the director makes with involving camera work.





Surly Bossh: You know what cheeses me off? What makes my cold blood warm by a half-degree? They cut Elizabeth's famous speech to her troops. They squished it into a bland Braveheart scene and rejected a fine, real troop-rallying cry by the queen. Check this shit out:

And therefore I am come amongst you at this time, not as for my recreation or sport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live or die amongst you all; to lay down, for my God, and for my kingdom, and for my people, my honor and my blood, even the dust. I know I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart of a king, and of a king of England, too.

Chipper Bossh: That is good.






Surly Bossh: That's a woman you follow into battle. I'd vote for that queen.







Chipper Bossh: You don't vote for queen.






Surly Bossh: No one told Padme that.






The actor who plays Benjamin Linus on Lost won a dramatic supporting actor Emmy last night. The guy who plays Locke won the same award last year.

Picture of the Day
Barack Obama even sounds like a Jedi name.

Me Make With Blah-Blah

I've screwed up my back again, and I again blame the office desk. It was installed for a small person, a dainty person. I am neither, and now I am in pain. I've switched chairs again from ergonomic to traditional. I know this routine: The pain will linger for a week or so, and I'll grit through it and avoid pain pills. It's almost a fall tradition. Maybe it's temperature related.

Someone at Your Sister's school thought it would be a great idea to have the drama kids act out a play in the library. I couldn't even talk in a normal voice in my school libraries. Civilization is crumbling. Obama is to blame. I bet he whammied my back too.

Your Sister's classroom bookshelves are stocked to provide a variety of literature for the kids. One book is Enemy at Home, an infamous screed against the "cultural left" by a Westerner raised in a Muslim family. The author's claim is that the West exports secular liberalism to an Eastern culture that can't abide it. This is why we were attacked on 9/11:Al Qaeda was defending the Muslim culture. I knew of this book. It's one of a hundred of rants blaming someone else for 9/11.

This one lumps all the alleged bad guys together. He says the left is working to the same ends as Al Qaeda and cites such inflammatory practices as homosexuality, abortion, and feminism. Then he starts to lump in "working women," and one realizes he's not protecting the sanctity of Muslim dogma, he wants to rewind the hourglass back to global patriarchies. 9/11, he's saying, is a high-tide buoy signaling the world has gone too far afield.

Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson said the same thing when we were attacked. It was the feminists and secularists and abortionists that brought this upon us. I tend to blame the people who actually planned and attacked us, but then I'm not using end-times rhetoric to make a buck. The same babble comes from those claiming 9/11 was an inside job. The allure of imagined conspiracy blunts the horror of a real-life conspiracy. It's pathetic.

Your Sister defends the book's presence in her classroom. The kids need a spectrum of perspectives. They need to build critical muscles to agree or denounce such material. I agree. And I agree, of course, that he has the right to peddle his wares, hokey as they may be. But a muckraking huckster is still a muckraking huckster. The book ends with an Enemies List of the people he claims made 9/11 happen with their comments and actions. If you're pinning the deaths of 3,000 people on Rosie O'Donnell and rationalizing the schemes of Bin Laden, you are wearing crackpot undies. You've lost your way.

I'll read the book, as I promised Your Sister I would. She thought my initial comments were unwarranted. I say no salient examination of moderate Muslim indignation can rationalize 9/11. So far, I'm not reading anything to change my mind.

Moving Picture of the Day
Here's the Wednesday concert's best moment.

Bruuuuuuuuuuce

According to the Census Bureau the midwest stretches from North Dakota to Iowa to Michigan. Fuck. I owned up to it on the drive to Greenville last night. I confessed I will not look up its definition of Texas; I didn't want to lose two battles in one day.

I got home a little early, and, we zipped down the mountain to see Springsteen. We batted around ideas for your t-shirt, and I'll send you sketches this weekend. They aren't finalized notions, but they can spark brainstorming. I saw the seating chart for our tickets yesterday, and they were almost behind the stage near the roof. When we handed them to the last ticket checker, he took them and upgraded us to dead center. No one sat in our original section, and they squished the audience together to face the stage. We found ourselves sitting in the row of people who won tickets from local media outlets. The woman on my right just got her tickets a few hours earlier.

All I knew about Springsteen shows was that they are long and they are religious experiences. I'm not a big fan. Your Sis loves roots rockers like Bruce and Fogerty and Mellancamp. I know some of his songs and suffered through dily play on the classic rock station during my alt-weekly paper days. I suspect DJs play Born to Run when they need a bathroom break.

This was transcendent. We were buffeted by the music for three hours. They took the stage at 8:17 and left the stage at 11:07. They did not stop. There was no intermission. The encore has more than half an hour. Bruce accepts requests from the audience on handmade signs, and the band played the Stones' Satisfaction for what they claimed was the first time ever. It was the best version I've heard. In fact, every song last night was my favorite song. That band brings the gospel of rock and roll. It's a tent-revival meeting with 15,000 people screaming for three hours. I am beat up. Not as badly as I was after Nine Inch Nails, but still. I knew much more of his songs than I thought and sang as loudly as my lungs would let me. Your Sister couldn't stop smiling the entire time.

We drove back home up the mountain forests listening to the remastered Beatles tracks, and they are a revelation. The music has more character. It breathes more. I'm hearing pieces of music cut off on my original CDs. A Day in the Life, for example, has a weird Number 9-like coda. Paul's vocal range is clearer, and Ringo's drumming gets a lot of love here. This is worth the money. I suggest Abbey Road above all the others.

Starbucks got us down the mountain. Pepsi got us back up the mountain. Caffeine is proof Odin loves us.

Picture of the Day
My new hunting trophy.

Here's Why She's Wrong

One of our longest lived arguments concerns the direction of Texas. She says southwest. I say south. She considers culture, and I only consider geography. If you put a compass on a map of the U.S., dead South is Texas. It's smack in the middle of the bottom of the country. It's the epitome of south. Is it The South as in Civil War? No. But neither is it southwest, as it has two large states and half another to its left, very much west of it. This has gone on for years.

It happened again last night watching Jeopardy. A clue identified Detroit as a mid-west city. I said this was a bad clue as Detroit is better stated a northern city. She wouldn't have it. It's a plains state, she argued. It's over Ohio, she argued. It's squarely a mid-west state. I countered that more than half the country is to its west, and it's east of the Mississippi. More important, it's over 80% of the contiguous states. To go to Detroit, everyone has to go northward. It's north as north can be. It's over all of North Carolina and half of North Dakota. (Thank God she didn't remember it's to the left of West Virginia). She pulled out a map. Much pointing to states ensued ("St. Louis is the gateway to the west." "Do you think Kansas is a western state?"). She agreed to disagree, and I agreed that she's wrong. And then we ate ice cream in the ancient Viking peace-accord tradition.

Tonight we see Springsteen live, and, judging by the seating chart, we'll be lucky to see his face three times. We're sitting in the back corner, probably staring at the tushes of the horn section. But, hey, it's Springsteen. And we can imagine everyone else is shouting for us. Your Sister is vibrating with glee.

Picture of the Day
How to read an Aztec calendar.

A Slim Offering

A late night at work for Your Sister allowed me to watch some football and draw today's Sketchtember artwork. A senior asked her about the possibility of me mentoring his project: an original comic book. Yes, I think I can help. Hello, caller. I'm Dr. Gregory, and I'm listening.

I'm working on ideas for your t-shirt, and I can give you sketches after the weekend. I don't consider any of them home runs, and we'll need to noodle this through.


NFL Week One: I Prematurely Claim Supremacy!
Her Teams (boo!)
AFC
New England (1-0)
Pittsburgh (1-0)

NFC
St. Louis (0-1)
New York Giants (1-0)

My Teams (yea!)
AFC
New England (1-0)
Pittsburgh (1-0)

NFC
Philadelphia (1-0)
Atlanta (1-0)

I'm also tied for second in my online fantasy league. I'm not juggling a fantasy roster. I'm picking which teams I think will win each week.

The theatre script committee suggested Glass Menagerie for a drama for next season, and it struck a nerve. The argument now is that it won't bring in audiences. It does, however, fit the criteria of a simple-set, small-cast production with name recognition. There's one actress who is dying to play the mother, but good luck finding the two young male actors.

I hear you now: I thought you were through with this bunch? All I'm doing is emailing to other committee members. It's a passive contribution.

Picture of the Day
Beware the Kitchen Sarlaac.

We're All Booked Up

I didn't realize how tired I was until I got home. I could do nothing but lazily anticipate the embrace of the bed. Your Sister may have snuck some ill-conceived notions by me, and I agreed to them in my goofy haze.

The cabinets look sharp. We spent Saturday morning organizing and shelving virtually every book we own. It took hours. The installation company are not my favorite people. First they lie about the agreement with Your Sister to work unsupervised. Then they cut a shelving unit to the wrong size. Then they try to install the wrong sliding drawer pieces and inform us the real ones are on back order. There's no telling when the shelves will be finished. I hope they enjoy not getting paid until then. Otherwise we're tickled with the shelves. They smell great, they look great, and there's room for a library ladder.

Your Sister did much schoolwork, and I mowed the jungle outside the house. The garden corn is on the wane, but the tomatoes and jalapenos will not stop. The new mailbox is still standing, and that's a daily victory.

Picture of the Day
Fringe comes back very soon, and we are thrilled. The entire first season built toward a major plot turn in its last episode, and the new season can go in many directions. I love the potential.

I Am Ready, Thanks for Asking.

Another football season has begun, and I always forget how much its absence saddens me. I am lighthearted again. I am glee manifest. Your Sis and I reviewed the New York Times team previews for our annual bet. I am the defending champ-een.

Her Teams (boo!)
AFC
New England
Pittsburgh

NFC
St. Louis
New York Giants

My Teams (yea!)
AFC
New England
Pittsburgh

NFC
Philadelphia
Atlanta

Yes, we picked two identical teams again. Great minds.

I watched the first pro game last night in Dad's recliner. I've been sleeping in his room and his bed, looking up at a ceiling yellowed from cigarettes and surrounded by plastic-wrapped suits. It's time to go home. I need to go home.

Mom is incrementally better. She's walking more, and the DermaBond is itching. I should be able to leave today. We've already arranged her upcoming household chores to exclude any lifting.

Picture of the Day
Someone didn't think this through.

Progress Dissolves

Not much to report. I'm hovering at a distance while Mom vegges on the couch. She's taking her medicine and says she's feeling much better this morning. I've read and sketched and fiddled online.

The house is affecting me. it's virtually unchanged since my childhood, and I too easily forget my life outside it. I feel as if I never left, never had great jobs, never got married to Your Hot Sister, and never did anything but sit in this red-carpeted room and wondered what fun existed beyond the wood-paneled walls. It's dreary. It's always been dreary. The windows are always covered. No wonder I read so much Poe as a child. It's a Suburban Ranch of Usher. I even had a stupid, stupid argument with Your Sis last night over the phone. I have to go back home Friday. I must make amends and shake off the gloomy stupor. She went to a lot of trouble to spring a surprise on me for my return, but I went Hulk when she let slip some trouble with the laborers.

I did run today, and that helped. I hope to cruise the town a bit this afternoon while Mom watches more TV. I won't get a chance to see old school buddies before I go home, but I will make lots of progress in this John Adams book.

I listened to the president's healthcare speech last night, and it was just what he needed to do. I also heard the S.C. Congressman bark out an accusation at Obama in mid-speech. Of course, he's from S.C. He's apologized, and House action may be taken. His outburst resulted in thousands of overnight pledged contributions to his opponent for the mid-term election. I'm sure he'll be a folk hero to the political shock jocks. I'm disheartened (but not surprised) to see the tone of the raucous town hall meetings has slouched toward Congress. Hacks and goons are infected with a combination of St. Vitus Dance and Tourette's. I'll be glad to see it shamed into silence.

Not that I behaved any better over the phone.

Picture of the Day
Muslim prayers in Kashmir during Ramadan.

Post-Op

I'm typing this from my childhood room, a room I last slept in more than 14 years ago. The carpet and walls are exactly the same. It was made into a sewing room, then Dad's TV room, and now it's the filing and PC room. I won' be sleeping in this room. I'm in Dad's old room, in my old bed. It's very small now. I feel 12 feet tall in it. There's a lamp on the wall that might be older than me. It has a brass pepper mill, and I wonder who thought that was a good decorative item for a four-year-old boy.

Mom is slowly falling into a drug coma after her 9:30 Darvocet pill. We arrived at the hospital at 10 a.m. as instructed for the pre-op preparation. She was supposed to be wheeled into surgery at 1 p.m. They didn't fetch her until 3. We sat in that tiny room for four hours with Mom hooked to an inactive IV drip. The nurse-anesthetist, the anesthesiologist, the surgeon, and the attending all came in to cover her drug allergies (briefly: all of them). The surgery started at 3:30, and she was done in an hour. About 90 minutes later, she was awake and snacking, now devoid of her gall bladder and sporting four tiny belly holes. They found one gall stone and sent it away for testing. About half an hour later, we drove to the local store to get her prescription. She says she already has relief from the bladder pain, but she'll feel the surgery tomorrow.

I read an entire Sunday NY Times while waiting today. The staff were helpful, but that was some wait time.

I hope to be back home Friday.

We visited with some of Your Sister's school pals this weekend: a high-school friend and her husband and baby Saturday, and a college pal and her husband and kids Sunday. It was a fine time. Lamb schwarma one night and s'mores the other. We cooked out Monday and ate many veggies from the garden. The corn was mostly a loss. It was puny and rotten. These weren't the stalks that got the baby oil; they're still growing.

I have a pile of books with me to read the next few days, and I might try to run one morning if I can avoid the school traffic of blasting sun heat. I stockpiled drawings for Sketchtember.

Oh, and this is the 800th Letter to Holly.

Picture of the Day
Just a matter of practice.

Slippery Situations

A coworker of Your Sister suggested dropping mineral oil on corn to keep the bugs off the cobs. I had no idea where to get mineral oil. I looked at the Lowe's website, and the monitor shrugged. Some more research told me that mineral oil + fragrances = baby oil. Ah. The grocery store had it cheap. Allegedly, you coat the corn silk just as it emerges. I did that when I got home and drew a bit until Your Sister got home from the parent meetings.

The theatre liaison says he found someone for the role he asked me to do, a guy who will commute from Greenville each night to rehearse and perform. That's a haul. That distance is a crucial reason why I looked for a job nearer Your Sister instead of commuting to my old one. My finely honed and inerrant theatre sense says he'll back out. According to the liaison, he will be leaving a current backstage position (for a play that's just about to open) to take this onstage role. That's not a good sign. He's already backing out of one commitment before taking on a very large one. I hope his withdrawal, if it does happen, occurs early on in the rehearsals. Imagine the meltdown that would ensue if he backed out right before the show opens.

The liaison also asked if I would stage manage this show, and this makes the tenth position I've been offered within a year. It would be easier than the last production to manage, but as I don't know who is tapped to work the sound, I can't agree to it. I'm willing to bet money it will be the same woman, and I will be too tempted to behead her. Again I told him I'd have to see how work and Mom develop over the next weeks before I can say yes to anything. What I really need to say is no to everything. Just the idea of it is exhausting.

I was a zealous theatre worker earlier this decade. I was a bachelor, recently divorced. The distraction of constant stagework helped. So did, it goes without saying, Your Sister. Now we're married. I have to ration out my time for the theatre, and it has to be a project I can feel safe committing to. Everything with this group feels shaky right now. They still don't have a season to advertise. It's this fall show and the Christmas show, and that may very well be it.

We don't have Labor Day plans as we usually do, and I'll pack for the week of babysitting Mom.

Picture of the Day
President Chewie is outta here.

Different Directions

I'm trying to keep the garden plants alive, but Your Sister says they know fall is coming, and it's their time to wither. Well, that's sad. And I won't have it. I'm watering and composting and babying. I'm keeping them alive as long as I can. The latest plucked jalapeno is turning red on the dish rack and grows more evil as it brightens.

I ran my second 5k route this week yesterday as Your Sister sold soccer tickets at the school. When I cleaned up, I sat with her as the boys started playing, and we talked to another teacher. Her marriage is ending, and we know both spouses. It's sad. I tried to offer notes from my divorce, but the circumstances are too distinct. I'm not much help.

I also was told a couple I had known from my late high-school days are breaking up, and that reeks of madness. They have four grown kids. What happened just now to wedge them apart? What do they need now they didn't need before? The bookending separations weigh me down more than it should. The latter couple were the parents of my first real girlfriend, and that family treated me better than I could possibly ask. Their split hits me harder than that of the teachers. It's seismic. I hold Your Sister a little closer these days.

I slept badly in the sick bed as a precaution last night, and I'm dragging this morning. Wah.

Picture of the Day
That's no moonwalk, that's a space station trooper.

Drawing Conclusions.

I didn't expect someone to kick off Sketchtember by requesting I draw myself as a superhero. I've gotten the Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic comparison before; we both have the gray temples, and I'm thin and tall. It would make for an easy costume one year in Atlanta. Instead of practicing piano or running, I banged out the sketch when I got home last night. I recently discovered iTunes offers a free streaming station for old radio shows, and I listen to it whenever I'm in the workshop. I love those old shows: mystery, comedy, thrillers, westerns -- doesn't matter. I gobble them up.

Your Sister's first public meeting went well. The school holds an open house Thursday, and I again offered to pretend to be a parent and commandeer her allotted facetime. But she isn't wary of any parents so far, and she's not worried about meeting them. She recently heard back from an administrator about a persistent whiny parent who objects to her teaching Kite Runner. She's taken it way too far, including calling up the superintendent to gripe. Your Sis prepared a syllabus of required reading -- hers and all the other English teachers -- for the school board to scan. The administrator said the memo and accompanying letter went over well, and I don't see that parent gaining any traction in her book-burning campaign. I suppose she could go to the governor ...

Look, I hate the book -- it's simple pulp masquerading as capital-L literature -- but I can see its use in the classroom, especially when we have troops on the ground there. It does the mountain kids good to read about the other side of the world. A full fifth of her students could be over there within a year. We did run into a recent grad who's joining the Marines within a month.

Picture of the Day
The Venn Diagram of Mythical Creatures

Angered by Corn

Again, I have grubs and worms eating my cobs. I sprayed this year with Liquid Seven, a pesticide so toxic that it requires eye and mouth protections and gloves and suggests you wash your clothes after application. I sprayed the garden four times. I still have grubs. I am confused.

We plucked some cobs last night from the oldest stalks and cut away the damaged kernels and the attached creatures. The good stuff boiled up fine and ate even better. But I'm bedeviled by the monsters. Did I pluck the cobs too late? Does our heavy rainfall dilute the pesticide? Do we have mutated worm families? No other plants were bug-ified. It's a mystery.

Also, I can't help but compare my corn to those from the stores, and I know -- I KNOW -- the grocery cobs are unnatural. They are engineered (engine-eared?) to be fat and large. My cobs are lean and small. But the kernels are, as the French say, pretty fucking awesome, yo. My last stalks should give us corn in mid-October.

The garden is peaking, and we've eaten tomatoes, cucumbers, and corn within two days. Pieces have gone into the Spaghetti Bucket. We also have new jalapenos that we eye warily. We hear them snicker at us, eager to rake our eyes with their evil residue. We'll show you, peppers of peril. We'll show you.

Sketchtember has begin on the Book of Face. Your Sis is doing better and hopefully will be out of the sick bed tonight.

I have your t-shirt suggestions on my office wall, and I'm running through notions.

Travis called me last night to say he heard the news about Disney buying Marvel and wondered what the geek universe thought of it. Some factions are greatly afeared, but if Disney can stomach the primetime offerings of ABC (which it owns), they should have no problem with the comics Marvel publishes. Marvel recently started making their own movies and worked out deals with studios to distribute; Disney has a distribution system with very little original content, and they are desperate to lure teenage boys. This makes a lot of sense for both companies.

Picture of the Day
By Jove!