early halloween....

So, the dog got in the Halloween candy. I don't think he ate many, but who knows. I was out on the deck and wondering why he wasn't complaining to join me. When I came back in he was near the chairs in the little kitchen sitting room and ran up the back stairs. I came on up to play hearts (I really am addicted to hearts on the computer...I must apologize to everyone I ever looked askance at for playing computer games) and instead of staying in the office area he went down the upstairs hall--odd for him.

Shortly I heard bern in the kitchen. "Who got in the candy and left some on the floor?"

"Not me," I said, though if I had known it was there I would have--but not leaving evidence on the floor.

She comes up and grabs Bela by the ears and smells his breath.

"Chocolate breath", she said.

He ate wrappers and all so we've been watching for the evidence--besides the breathalyzer test--of his pilfering. (If you own a dog you know where you find such evidence...nuf said....) No wrappers yet so maybe, if we're lucky, he only ate one or two....But he was restless last night and kept me awake for several hours moving, scratching nests on the floor, jumping on the bed and laying on my head, panting, stuff like that....

The other Puli we owned, back when we were childless and clueless, had a terrible sweet tooth. When we lived in Alexandria, VA and I was going to seminary, he would find ways to snatch sweet stuff from surfaces he shouldn't have been able to access.

Once he got a bear claw--you know, one of those pastries about the size of your head--off a side table and when I came in he plunged into a corner and ate it as fast--actually 'faster'--than you can imagine.

That night he jumped on the bed and threw up on my head.

When we called the dog trainer for Bela's home visit and subsequent lessons (none of which took!) he asked, "What kind of dog do you have?"

I said, "a Puli...."

After a moment, he replied, "Why?"

He did tell the other dog folks in the obedience class that "there's more dog in this Puli than in all the other dogs here."

At the time I took it as praise lavished on Bela's head. No more....

so....

So....I did turn my computer off and my dashboard came up when I went to blogger.com! Yea...

This weekend was a bummer. The Yankees lost the Pennant, West Virginia University's football team lost to Syracuse and I lost the election for General Convention. That anti-incumbent sentiment again....Only two of last GC's deputies were elected. One did get 1st alternate in the lay order and will go to Convention. I'm 2nd alternate in the clergy order so if anyone above me gets called to another diocese or gets knocked off by some guys I know....forget that! then I'd go.

Actually, I'm more upset by the Yankees and the Mounties than I am the Episcopalians.

I actually think I may have a mental disorder because I love sports so much....well, not sports, certain sports teams: Yankees, WVU (any sport), the Lakers and the Chicago Bears.

I love the Yankees because my father loved them. He was in NYC waiting to ship out to England in WWII and someone gave him and two buddies tickets to a Yankees/Dodgers world series game. He decided, having never seen a major league game before, to make which ever team won "his team". Well, Yankees/Dodgers...not much doubt who would win....So, here we were, Hill Billies who rooted for a team in NY.

The WVU connection is obvious. I've been to several of their bowl games with Bern and will be at UConn on Friday night. Plus their men's and women's bb team are both top 20 picks this year. the men went to the final 4 last year and the women, from no less authority that Geno A...."are final four quality...." Besides, their soccer team is doing well and the rifle team, not unsurprisingly, won the national championship...Don't mess with a West Virginian with a gun....

The Lakers--well that's a West Virginia Story as well. Jerry West--the greatest of all WVU basketball players, was an all-pro for the Lakers for years and then their general manager. When Jerry West went to high school, he lived in a town called East Bank. After they won back to back state championships, they changed the sign to West Bank. The federal government wouldn't let them change the post office's name, but they tried. You know the logo for the NBA--the silhouette of a player dribbling--that's Jerry West, for goodness sake! How couldn't I root for the Lakers?

(The thing is, I root for uniforms as much as I root for players. If Big Poppie or Jonathan Papplebaum or that little ogre who plays second base for the Red Sox (I hate them all more than most people can imagine I hate!) were traded to the Yankees, they'd be my new heroes. Same with the Lakers--both Bern and Josh (who are fans of most of the teams I am a fan of--Mimi thinks sports are stupid) left the Lakers for other teams when Kobe Bryant was accused of rape. Everyone in the gold uniforms could be mother killers and I'd still root for them. That is a distinction I've noticed in other people: I root for the TEAM while some people root for the Players.....)

And since I'm a 'uniform guy', the reason I am a Bears fan is that I love their uniforms--those black helmets with the red and white C and the black jerseys (or 'almost black blue', really) and the white pants with the black and red stripes. The first time I saw them play, when I was a kid, I loved the uniforms. If they switched to green or scarlet or maze....that I wouldn't like and would probably become a fan of another team....Like the WVU football team has a dark blue helmet like the bears and at home wears dark blue jerseys with old gold numbers and either white or tan pants. A few years ago they started wearing, for certain games, gold jerseys and pants. I hate that. If they had made the helmet gold as well I would have killed myself....)\

Maybe I need a 12step group for fans who are too fanatic...

but I'll have to eventually

So, since I will have to turn off my computer eventually, if I don't write each day it is because I can't get to my blog....

bitter anguish

So I've been bad mouthing Google for days now because they wouldn't let me get on my blog!

They want me to have a gmail account and I don't. I have a bloggecom account but
Google apparently bought Blogger. It said I could log on with me old account but when I entered the blog name I was informed no such blog existed. I tried to open a g-mail account and keep the blog name and was told by the computer that blog name was taken.

I filled out pages of stuff that didn't ask the right question--kept wanting to tell me my forgotten password--and sent several messages about my problem. each one was answered by a form email about how to find out what my forgotten password was....

A note at the bottom of each email said they no longer answered calls about fogotten passwords. So I sent a bunch of messages about my problem and how the question of how to get to my blog wasn't on any of their forms and I really needed to talk to someone. I gave my phone numbers and begged and pleaded and threatened bodily harm.

I talked to several computer gurus who told me to go to the help section and write my problem where others could read it since chances were a thousand percent better that someone else would have had the same problem and solved it than the chance of having Google respond to my bitter anguish.

I was going to do that but, being a glutton for anguish, decided to try one more time with my old account name and old password and, lo and behold, it opened up.

So I'm back to writing but I'm afraid to ever turn the blog or the computer off again....

the pain of this all

Ok, I've been trying for days to get on my blog. I've had wondrous, humorous, profound things to write about and the damn sign in place--having switched to a gmail format--couldn't or 'wouldn't'
(I think the latter since I believe all Internet stuff is possessed by demons and sprites and unspeakable horrors from the beyond. I tried, literally, for days to get on. I sent ever more hysterical emails to google, since none of the questions which I went through dozens of times asked
"do you have a blog and the assholes at GMail just won't let you get to it?"

I got on tonight through the back door. After 15 minutes or so of dealing with the "Help", which is no f-ing help, section I found myself at a place with a dozen or so little screens on my big screen of places I had visited most. So here I am. Someone, if anyone still reads this since I couldn't blog for weeks, send me an email Padrejgb@aol.com to let me know. So I'll see if I can with any consistency get on this way...if I can find the way to get on again....

What you missed since I couldn't write:
Why the Tea Party is really the ME Party
The amorous squirrels in my back yard
The absolutely true 'meaning of life"
First Autumn full moon
What I did on summer vacation...
Why I hate--really hate--LINDA and all her signs and mail she sends me and why she'll never deserve to be known by one name like Cher or Sting or Madonna
My favorite pork recipe

And I've forgotten why I would have written about all or any of that and what I would have said.

You probably didn't miss much.

creatures in the night

ok, so I'm watching one of the Yankee/Twins games--could have been any of the three since they all turned out the same..."the Yankees win....the Yankees wiiiiinnnn...." when Bern yells out to me from our bedroom--across the hall from our TV room (we believe TVs should be on the second floor...) "Luke has a creature!!!"

He's been staring at walls--our cat, Luke--for years, but apparently something came out of one of them and he had it in his mouth. So I chase him down the upstairs hall to the back steps and down through the kitchen into the dining room where he lets the creature go and it it alive, before I can grab it, knowing it is a mouse...tiny at that...he scoops it up in his mouth again and runs up the front stairs to the bedroom and under the bed.

Something vital is happening in the baseball game--but never mind, the Yankees win and the Boston Red Sox players are all home watching or out stalking children--all Red Sox players are pedophiles at their best....

Luke runs under our bed--or, to be precise, our futon...so it is hard to get him. But I grab his tail and drag him out and the mouse runs away behind the dresser. Bern is still yelling but the only thing to do is let Luke catch the creature again, so I go back to the game and Bern goes back to bed, as if she could sleep with a stalking cat and a mouse in the room....

Luke apparently catches the mouse again and leaps onto the be with it because Bern is hysterically shouting--"It's in the bed!!!"

So I go in, grab a shirt and catch the tiny mouse in it and carry it out on the deck and toss it off into the pet graveyard....two dogs, three cats, a rat and a multitude of genuine pigs are buried beyond our deck...

Then I go back to watch Mariano Rivera do what he does in the 9th inning,

The mouse is gone. Luke is still sniffing the bed. The Yankees win. All is well in the world.

WASHING DISHES

I start the dishwasher
during the Yankees game
after she goes to bed.

The dishwasher is stainless steel
and smarter than me--
She is flesh and blood
and also smarter than me.
What a quandary:
a woman
and a machine
both smarter than me.

I empty it after the game
(win or lose)
late in the night sometimes,
especially when they play
on the west coast.

Glasses go in the cubbard
as well as bowls and plates,
cooking dishes in the drawers.
Like base runners,
I line them up.

Cups on the hanger.
Implements: forks, spoons,
knives
all where they belong,
like players in the dugout.

Wiped counters and
water barely dripping
from the faucet--
like the 9th inning.

Now I can sleep.
Having done what little
I do
to make myself
useful
to her.

Home Run.
Walk Off.

riding the train

I went to Baltimore on the train and back as well, since I couldn't walk...I love the train. It takes about 45 minutes less time to get to Baltimore (even on the NE Regional since I'm too cheap to take the Accela). And, since I'm not driving, it is great.

Something I've learned about riding the train--always get on the last car. You have to walk down the platform quite a ways, but it is more than worth it. Nobody rides on the last car. Going down there were four other people and coming back, three. Both directions all the other cars were pretty full, but people who get on near the front of the train give up and take a seat in an almost full car before walking all the way to the last one through the train. I know the other cars are almost full because you have to go through them to get to the cafe car. But the last car--well, nobody there. Amazing.

I shouldn't have told you since now you'll be going to the last car and getting it all crowded. Alas, transparency isn't all it is cracked up to be.

While in Baltimore, I spent time with my first cousin Mejol and her daughter (my second cousin) Elizabeth. My parents, who thought they might not have any children, had semi-adopted Mejol before I was born. She went on vacations with them to the Smokey Mountains (imagine driving 5 hours or so through mountains to get to mountains....) So she was like my babysitter/almost sister/omnipresent cousin. I think I've mentioned that when I was 13 or so, Mejol locked me in her room with a copy of "Catcher in the Rye" and a Bob Dylan album. That was the afternoon that changed the direction of my life. (It was "Highway 61 Revisited" I believe--but Dylan is Dylan. Our son's middle name is Dylan.)

Over the years we have been in and out of touch. I've been terrible about 'keeping in touch', I don't know why. I believe my parents' only friends were 'family'. I grew up surrounded by 'family' but I never kept in touch. Alas.

Josh calls it my age showing itself--my sudden interest in family. But Josh and Cathy were so gracious to Mejol and Elizabeth. I really think they could be friends with Elizabeth and her husband and with Fletcher and his wife who have 2 boys a few years older than the twins. That would give me great joy. But then, everything IS about me, isn't it?

Being an only child I've been pretty self-sufficient and I've always been able to 'create' family from friends. But now I want it back.

I regret almost nothing about my life so far except that I never kept in touch. I'm pondering that a lot recently--my age, as you know, showing itself....