Stoned
November 4, 2009
A beautiful morning. Walking down the farm road with a moon two-days-past-full up in the western sky, throwing strong black shadows of the newly-denuded trees. The two bulls sleeping in the field on the left, largish black mounds on the silver grass.
Just as I swung my eyes to my right there was the flash of a shooting star, not the narrow pencil-line type but a broad white wash there, then gone. Further down the road, the northward-pointing spotlight on the stone barn wasn’t on, so my walk continued in the moonlight.
Headed north, the moon on my left, the increasing glow on the eastern horizon to my right, a balance began to emerge, of moon and sun opposed and coexisting. One of Those Moments. It seemed to be the appropriate time for the Ritual of the Stones.
Ritual of the Stones
Find two flat stones, large but still small enough to be gripped in your hand with the palm held facing downwards. With your arms naturally at your side, face your objective, in this case the small brilliant diamond of the morning star, orienting your shoulders perpendicular to a line drawn between you and the objective.
Raise your arms, holding the stones palms downward, pointing straight to your left and right. Slowly bring the arms towards the front so that the hands meet, palms towards one another, fingers pointing towards the objective. Sight on your objective through the notch made by your thumbs.
Breathe deeply twice, exhaling fully. Repeat – not aloud – a short incantation appropriate to the time of day.
Return your arms so they point straight to your left and right, palms downward. Pause for a count of two, then simultaneously drop the stones. It is desirable to have the stones strike the ground at the same time. With your arms at your sides, pause to reconsider your objective.
Done correctly, the Ritual of the Stones will start the day.
I walked back up the road past the farm. The bulls were up on all fours, their coats beginning to show red with the increasing predawn light from the sky. The day had begun. The sun would appear.
Note: The Ritual of the Stones is repeated daily around the world. My friend Larry would recognize it from the first time we observed in on the tenth hole of the Audubon Park golf course in New Orleans. Groundskeepers on golf courses would also recognize it as the manual placement of tee location markers. The Strong-Schlueter Institute for Ephemeral Archeology has also recorded an instance of the Ritual of the Stones evidenced by footprints in the dew on the 5th hole; ritual writ on water, mirabile dictu!
A photo taken last Saturday: The morning was less dismal and foreboding than it looks.
A great morning
October 6, 2009
Another one of those early mornings that makes you feel up and ready to go. The moon was two days past full, sitting about a third of the way up from the western horizon, and it was simply bright out. I felt as though there was enough light for my eyes to be perceiving color in the grass.
The morning before, with about 50 percent cloud cover, I had been able to see the skunk from about 12 feet away, rather than becoming aware of him by detecting his movement in the dark. Which made it easy to avoid him.
But this morning I started to wonder how far away I would be able to detect my doppelganger, Ed, in the moonlight. I figured at least a hundred yards away. As it was, he was coming up the other side of the bridge over the Mill Gut, so he was probably only about 75 yards away when he became visible.
I had also wondered whether the new guy with the dog – and the flashlight – who began showing up about a month ago would be able to see well enough to forgo the flashlight. Although he has been getting better…over the past few weeks, he’s stopped flicking it on pointed at my face, now directing it towards his feet instead.
The guy who drives up and parks on the circular lookout just before the bridge and leaves his headlights lit for two minutes, shining out into space and burning the night vision out of the walkers was there, though.
No boats were on the water this morning – whether because of the full moon, the low tide, or the 12 to 17 miles per hour winds, I don’t know. I assume they were launching from another location this morning.
The floodlight mounted on the wooden pole next to the two defunct toll booths at the entrance to the park has been lit 24 hours a day since Saturday, and it was still lighting up a small circle at the entry. That one will be self-limiting. The flood light will burn out in a couple of days at the most, and it will probably be six months before it gets replaced.
The Phantom Bike Rider (an old guy dressed in black on a dark bicycle who rides the streets of Bristol in the pre-dawn hours) came up on my right shoulder as I passed Harbor Point at the head of the harbor, the noise of his bicycle cloaked by the sound of the wind. “Good morning,” he said into my right ear, and I almost jumped out of my skin.
Still, it was a great morning.
Trying to figure out if this will be the latest sunrise on a morning with a full moon visible to me this year. Next full moon is on November 2nd, but because daylight savings stops the morning before, due to the switch to Daylight Spending Time the sun will be rising earlier for that full moon than for this one. November 1st will have the latest sunrise of the year, 7:15 a.m. (it was 6:48 this morning).
On the other hand, because December this year will feature a Blue Moon on December 31st, and because the earth is slow to swing back on its axis, the sunrise time on December 31st – and for several days on either side of the 31st – will be 7:13 a.m. So that will make it the latest sunrise of the year for a morning with a full moon.
Whether the moon will be as visible on any of the next three full moons is another question. Like most of the things on the morning walk, you have to take what is given.
Took this on Sunday morning, a morning of interesting light and mist, in the Coggeshall farm dooryard. Put it up on the Wunderground photo site and the “Approver” made it one of his/her “Choices,” and as a result it was seen and rated by several times the usual number of viewers. Currently has an average rating of 9.4 out of 10 with 69 people rating it (full disclosure: I rated it myself, and gave it a 10).
With a little help from my friends
September 8, 2009
In a quandary this morning. I can understand some things pretty easily, like how General Motors can claim that an electric car that has to be plugged in every 40 miles can get 230 miles to the gallon. I am, of course, a university-certified Marketing Wizard.
Other things I understand pretty easily include the idea that pine tar soap should help my scaly scalp condition. I can understand that because it’s one of those things that people just wouldn’t do if it wasn’t good for them…like mixing sulphur and molasses into a poultice and spreading it on an aching joint. That still leaves me with the problem of why the first guy with an itchy scalp thought it would be a nifty idea to spread pine pitch on his head; there are lots of other nasty things that you can apply to your head. Maybe he’d tried all of those. Which makes you kind of sure he was a social outcast.
But my problem today is that I just unwrapped a new bar of soap from the Dial soap people and I need help in understanding it. The wrapper claims that the soap is made with cranberries and is a great source of antioxidants. The scent is correct, although probably artificial. But why am I rubbing antioxidants on my outsides? Why couldn’t I just add a quart of Ocean Spray to my bath? Am I in danger of serving the Thanksgiving turkey with a slice of Dial on the side? Why is there no blueberry soap?
While I work on the answers to these questions, I offer you this image of the hawk spotted during yesterday morning’s walk. The birds in the neighborhood were all chattering, making sure he felt like an outcast.
Picnic Bench Wrangler: Platonic occupation
August 9, 2009
I’ve had my eye on this one for a while. The picnic benches at Colt State Park tend to migrate, sometimes singly and sometimes in groups, sometimes in daylight and sometimes overnight. Park administrators, however, clearly have ideas about the correct arrangement of benches across the landscape.
This creates the occupation of Picnic Bench Wrangler, something I’m thinking about for my retirement. Here’s the current wrangler in action, warily approaching a stray picnic bench that has wandered off by itself.
Picnic Bench Wrangler approaching a stray
It looks like a great outdoors occupation, combining all your basic outdoor skills and understanding of picnic bench behavior with the operation of noisy machinery with big tires. In addition to hunting down strays, the Wrangler also has to cull the herds to maintain their proper sizes.
Picnic Bench Wrangler culling the herd
Having cautiously approached the herd to avoid startling them, the Picnic Bench Wrangler deftly snags the chosen bench with his lift fork and reverses quickly away.
Picnic Bench Wrangler relocating culled bench
The Wrangler moves rapidly away from the previous herd and then deposits the bench in its appropriate location with the new herd. The Park Administration has clearly marked each bench and designated the specific areas for them.
At the end of the day the wrangler can be seen at the top of Surprise Hill, gazing off to the West – towards Westerly, RI, in fact – across Narragansett Bay in a pose reminiscent of Curly Washburn (the Jack Palance role in City Slickers).
A-yup, seems pretty idyllic.
Resistance is useless…
July 18, 2009
Friday evening, this email arrived:
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Mr. Xxxxxx,
Would you mind commenting at all on signing on as city manager in Ferris?
What are you looking forward to bringing to the city? Any changes you see that need to be made in a timely manner? How do you feel about the transition from Ennis? Any other thoughts or views you would like to share with our readers?
I look forward to meeting you and thanks in advance for your time.
My deadline is noon Monday.
fnu LNU
The Ellis County Press
972-***-****-office
972-***-****-fax
Which was just too hard to resist. Did a little research on the background via the Ellis County Press and Google Earth, then composed my reply:
| from |  <yxxxxxx@gmail.com> |
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| Sent at 7:37 PM (GMT-04:00). |
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| to | fnu LNU <**********************@gmail.com> |
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| date | Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 7:37 PM |
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| subject | Re: Press Inquiry – Deadline |
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I think that the new catch-and-release program that we will institute at the animal shelter will sharpen the skills of the staff there and will tend to reduce, over time, the stray population in the city because of simple exhaustion rather than the unpopular euthanasia program proposed by some of the interim city personnel.
I’m sick at heart that we have not found someone that I can feel sure will even duplicate, much less exceed, the success that Buck Rogers has had at Ferris High. It is imperative that we find a way to bring the image of prosperity and success to the city that comes with successful athletic programs, to say nothing of the contribution that such programs make to the well-being and motivation of the youth population of our city.
I welcome the challenge that the City Managership of Ferris brings. I am relieved and grateful that my exile in Ennis has come to an end and that I can rejoin the American mainstream in Ferris: It’s only 15 miles, but it has been an awesome journey!
* * * * *
To quote my daughter in Wisconsin when she found out, “Bad Daddy! Bad Daddy!”
* * * * *
Monday afternoon brought this:
fnu LNU ✆ to meThank you for the reply.
What is the new catch and release program about?
Look forward to meeting you soon,
fnu
I fretted about a response, but as I tried to figure out what to do, this arrived an hour and a half later – noting gratefully that we were now on a first-name basis:
fnu LNU ✆ to me
Hi Yyyy,
Would you be able to provide me with a head shot for the paper this week so I may introduce your face to the residents this week? We go to press tomorrow at noon. Thanks!!
fnu
So, despite the really great plans I had to innovate with a humane animal control policy – that combined human physical fitness with animal well-being – I felt I needed to ‘fess up. (And listen, folks, it’s getting bad out there in Texas. Today’s issue of the Ellis County Press quotes Dr. John J. Pippen thusly: “This order will force the Ferris animal shelter to revert from its incredible turnaround under Misty’s [Clark, animal control officer] [sic] into an animal Auschwitz.” [Emphasis added] Yikes.)
So my brother chipped in with a vintage photo and it all ended like this:
Yy Xxxxxx ✆ to fnu
fnu -
Sorry that I decided to be a wiseguy. You might reasonably expect that “yxxxxxx@gmail.com” would be an email address for Yyyy Xxxxxx, Assistant City Manager at Ennis, Texas. On the other hand, it could belong to a lot of other people, one of whom is me.
You should call Yyyy for his email address…and probably ask him for his photograph, too.
In the meantime, here’s mine from 1958.
El Carpintero, 1958
Auto rants (Part 2)
July 14, 2009
Chrysler set a record for passage through bankruptcy, just in time for GM – a more complex financial beast – to emerge even more quickly: In on the First of June, out on the 10th of July. Three days later, Advertising Age asked the first-page rhetorical question “Is this the right guy to run GM’s marketing?’ next to a photo of Bob Lutz.
The answer to that question should have been clear from the July 14th Wall Street Journal headline advising that Mr. Lutz was toying with the idea of breathing some life into the almost-dead corpse of the Pontiac division by resurrecting the Chevrolet Caprice model name and putting it on the Pontiac G8.
The answer is no, Bob Lutz is not the right guy to run GM’s marketing.
He’s 77. He’s retired from GM once already. He is steeped in the tradition of the US automobile industry. The G8 fizzled after it’s 2007 introduction, but sales are picking up…so the logical conclusion is to make sure we hold on to this model, “citing nascent demand.”
In the depths of the Depression, Packard Motor Car company hired production and sales executives from General Motors because Packard didn’t understand how to make or sell a popularly-priced car to save their souls. It worked!
The equivalent in today’s market in which GM has been unable to sell automobiles profitably would be for GM to hire marketing and production executives from Toyota.
Mr. Lutz, you have to narrow the range of models offered by each of your surviving divisions, not broaden them; you have to reduce the overlap of models, not further confuse them.
Clarity, Mr. Lutz. Focus. One big winner, not a half-dozen stunted, resource-sucking minor models that you produce for inventory (not demand) and then have to liquidate.
Blues, running
July 7, 2009
Yes, there was a time when this title would have been about a New Orleans footrace. But today it’s about bluefish in a feeding frenzy.
This was one of those mornings that I wanted to change up the daily walk routine. Yesterday I’d missed the moment of sunrise because I was behind a hill and some trees; Nick had mentioned on Sunday morning that the sunrise had been beautiful at the crest of Asylum road next to the North Burial Ground, so today I took the camera and walked from the Coggeshall Farm entrance up to the burial ground.
As it turned out, there was a bank of clouds that obscured the sunrise and kind of changed the timing of the coloration of the sky, so things were interesting and beautiful but not spectacular. Harrumph.
Sunrise, North Burial Ground, Bristol, RI (1920 x 1200 pixels)
But there was this kind of feeling that there must be something happening out there that had nagged me into bringing the camera out and changing my route. So I went back by the marsh where the heron and the egrets hang out, pretty sure that I’d catch them there. They had been there yesterday when I didn’t have the camera, so I anticipated the possibility of a heron shot or two.
Heron in the salt marsh at the head of Bristol (RI) harbor (1920 x 1200 pixels)
And sure enough, there he was. But too close to the edge of the road to really let me get both close and unobstructed. An egret hung about for a bit but got spooked and flew off. So, a little bummed out, I took my heron shots, hoping that I could get a shot of him as he flew off – it’s usually just a matter of time before he tires of my stalking him.
A sound of waves behind me distracted me a little. It was a still morning and I couldn’t figure out what could have made waves in the harbor. But the sound was enough to make me miss the heron’s takeoff; I snapped off a shot as he circled to the harbor side, but all I got was the tip of a wing, out of focus, at the edge of the picture.
But just as I returned to my bummed-out state, I realized that the sound of waves was actually the sound of hundreds of bodies slapping the water as the bluefish worked their way towards me, chasing the menhaden into the shallows at the head of the bay.
Which, of course, made my day.
Bluefish chasing menhaden, Bristol (RI) bay (1920 x 1200 pixels)
It made for a few minutes of novelty, bluefish bodies slapping the water (one’s body is visible in the foreground, above), seagulls hovering and wheeling to pick up a leftover tidbit, and one very busy cormorant (head visible to the left of the two seagulls on the left side of the picture). The egret even made a slow pass overhead but appeared to decide there was just too much going on to feel comfortable about going in low. Two fishermen on the seawall pulled in bluefish every time they cast.
Which, of course, totally vindicates my having hauled the camera along and changed my route. Except that I missed Nick who had come out to walk with me assuming that I would use my regular route. I told him it was all his fault anyhow for having told me about the sunrise Sunday morning.
Skeeball Wizard
June 30, 2009
Laurie took three tokens worth of practice Sunday night at the carnival on the town common. The crowd swirling around included the usual town suspects, clouds of teenage girls, swaggers of teenage boys, mothers struggling with strollers in the grass criss-crossed with electrical cables overlain with rubber doormats.
Last night we went back to the common and I got Laurie five tokens for Skeeball. In the 24-hour hiatus, she had apparently been thinking about her lack of success on Sunday when her high game had been 110 points. The minute the token fell and the balls were released, she went into her old-school stance and concentration, right arm holding the ball high in front of her while she visualized the coming launch of the ball.
Five balls snapped off in rapid succession, she waved to the attendant, pointed to herself and mouthed, “I won!” For which she received a rather tired nod, and in a brief consultation Laurie was told that she could only win twice – but if she did win again before she ran out of tokens, they would be repurchased.
Five more balls, 160 points, another win.
Two stuffed bears and three dollars were exchanged for the remaining three tokens and a most pleased smile broke out on Laurie’s face. She strolled the rest of the evening cuddling a bear in each arm.
Most satisfactory.
Skeeball Wizard
Coyote
June 17, 2009
Feeling pretty sure it was a coyote, I said to Nick, “Think I saw a dog,” not wanting to be misbelieved.
Nick said, “Must have been a coyote.”
Too early for a good image: Coggeshall Farm, Bristol, RI, 17 Jun, 2009, about 5 a.m., Saved at 1920 by 1200 pixels
Anti-quark
June 17, 2009
This is Ed, who walks the opposite way ’round from me in the morning. Like the two cartoon sheepdogs clocking out: “Mornin’ Ed.” “Mornin’ Ed.” Only twice, since we walk in overlapping loops.
We can tell ourselves apart because I’m the one with the faux hip, he’s the one with the pacemaker…or, wait a minute, is that right?
Photo: Poppasquash Road, Bristol, RI, June 17, 2009 around 5:30 a.m. Saved at 1920 by 1200 pixels.
