01/03/00 - Well, here I am in the year 2000. Whoop dee doo. I'm still working. I'm still gaining weight. Not as big as it was cracked up to be, is it? Nope. Well, it's hot. Too hot for the darn sweater I wore... although sweater is an apt name today. Kara and I spent the holidays in the wreckedly cold reaches of norther Vermont. I believe it got up to a balmy 25 one day. The ground was frozen solid. The lake (Lake Champlain) was frozen solid (at least the bay outside my inlaw's house). Fascinating. I've never seen so much ice. And it frozen clear... although they called it "black". One could see to the bay's bottom which is unpleasantly unsettling. To see things drift along currents below your feet when hundreds of feet from shore is not calming especially when the ice is making growling whirring noises. But then folks are whizzing by with their entire weight borne by 2 itty thin blades... I guess my boat like feet are are at least spreading the weight out over at least a square foot... that's maybe a pound and half per square inch... I'm in no danger... but a scientific mind is only so comforting. I can stress how beautiful it all was though. Were I a better poet there would be a ribbon of words here conveying the sights and sounds of a southern boy's first New England winter. As it is you just get a haiku:
noisy ice expands
frigid wind tugs beard and nose
full moon brightens fields
01/04/00 - Calendar Drama... day 2. Near the begining of each year I go searching for calendars. They're cheaper when already in use, I guess. I know exactly what ones I want. I want "The Little Zen Calendar" page-a-day and the "Library of Congress Civil War Calendar"... the places I checked had neither... Eep! Why I didn't buy them both earlier is why I probably won't buy a new car: After a short while I can get the same thing much cheaper. The problem with this method is I'm often worried, once buying time arrives, that I won't be able to get exactly what I want. With new cars you can pretty much specify exactly what you want: I want a mold green Volvo wagon. With used cars your ability to choose is a bit more limited. I may be stuck with less that ideal calendars and that sucks. Hopefully I'll find the right things today, right?
01/05/00 - Memory is a bugger. Sometimes it works flawlessly and other times it reveals only shadows. Normally I carry a notepad for scratching clues necessary to retain ideas... but, alas, the notepad remains in Kara's car so clues go unscratched and the journal is boring. I know I had a great idea yesterday but there ends the memory. Mangos. I played with Mangos last night. 2 fresh ones. How convenient to pit they are. Stand them up, slice off the sides, turn the sides inside out and peel out the meat. The meat is then frozen and used in fruit shakes for breakfast (it's funny that a vegetarian eats meat, isn't it?)... anyway, the treat was eating the scant leftover clinging to the pit. Is it just me or do you taste a hint of pepper in mango? Marta. An anagram for "Am Rat" and she must be at least 40% rodent. Sometimes I think she is someone I really angered reincarnated; it seems her every action is often designed to get my goat. Who else but someone with an ax to grind woukld treat me like that... especially when I'm the person who feeds her? Oh well, I'm not good at dog psychology. It could be that she's just like this for no other reason than it's her nature. Boy, didn't Va Tech get hammered last night!
01/06/00 - Mmm, Mmm. Cold Coffee. Have I been through my theory about quality coffee/beer? Some coffee can only be consumed hot like some beer can only be consumed cold. If the beverage is not at its ideal temperature it sucks. Quality coffee/beer can be consumed at any temperature. True, it may be better at its ideal temperature but it doesn't suck when it approaches room temperature. Anyway, most of yesterdays pot of coffee sat until today. It's still good. Well, that didn't consume nearly as much space as I hoped it would. I guess I need to fabricate more stuff. Did you hear the one about the guy who went to work without his shoes? I haven't heard that one either. I bet it wasn't a cold day unless the guy had no feeling in his feet. It's really hard to not notice cold feet in the literal sense. My feet are slightly cool now. Geez, as a kid I used to stand at the bus stop in the cold... my feet got painfully cold. Strangely, thawing hurt about as much as freezing. I haven't had cold feet like that in a long time... like not since Dad and I sat in 20 degree wonderfulness watching back to back soccer games 5 or so years ago.
01/07/00 - Forgot to log this entry. I guess it's lost forever.
01/10/00 - It's one of those grey winter days famous for depressing people. I'm fine... tired but fine. The weekend worked it's wonders and I'm refreshed. It happens. Does anyone know who Billy Sheers is? My Mom, the miracle worker she is, found my calendars at half price in the mall. So on my wall now hangs amongst the other things, a "Lincoln for President" Banner; it's part of the calendar and somewhat... well, I don't know a good word for it so I'll say it thusly "Somewhat appropriate for the year." Back in 1992 I put "Lincoln for President" on my favoritre guitar; It's still there. For better or worse he started the big government trend that is with us today and likely responsible for the last 135 of US history. Well, he set us on the road to greatness... world domination with all its ups downs and dark undersides. Big government also means the President's job is roughly like guiding an iceberg; one person may talk big but the iceberg pretty much does what fluid dynamics and inertia dictate.
01/11/00 - Two times in the recent past I've forgotten to log entries. I lost one I really liked about Stompers trucks and I lost friday's that I can't remember some 4 days after composing it. How good could it have been? I had this discussion at the breakfast table with Marta. "So you lost it. Big deal. It probably sucked anyway." "Geez, Rat. I feed you and throw tennis balls to you and scratch your belly and you treat me like trash." "That's 'cause I know you're hooked. You couldn't be mad at me for more than a few minutes if you tried." "Yeah, I guess you're right." "Look, Lee, I know you're going to work but I'm going to be stuck in that silly crate all day. Can I have a beer with breakfast?" "What?!" "You heard me. I want a beer for breakfast... and not that 'Old Brown Dog Ale' stuff either. It strikes me as a touch too close to cannibalism." As you can see Marta really didn't help me that much. Well, maybe she did; she got my mind off the past's lost words and back to the present where we should all be anyway... with our dogs at the breakfast table drinking coffee, not beer. I tried to teach Marta that lesson but she probably caught on as well as she has to things like "Come" "Stay" and "Where's your ball?"
01/12/00 - George Harrison has been in the news recently for being attacked in his home. Have you noticed how similar he and Bob Dylan look? It's frightening. Also frightening is how much I like the "Let It Be" album. The first few times I heard I didn't think too much of it. It's not the as shiny much of their other work, but damn, if it's not an honestly good and heartfelt album. I think "Dig A Pony" may be my third or fourth favorite Beatles tune. Well, Marta and I went the grocery store last night for fruit and yogurt and milk and Ramen noodles. As we walked in the front door the produce manager stopped us. "Our rules say 'no dogs allowed'." "Marta," I said "you tell him our creed." "We write our own rules" she said. So Marta pulled the cart and I stood on the back axle, held on with my left hand and threw groceries into the cart with my right hand. Emelie woulkd have loved the trip but she was going to CVS to get prescriptions filled.
01/13/00 - Ok, now I guess I should explain the Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch. Actually, who can explain that? It's a cereal that tastes like brunch. By that I mean that you eat Sugar Bombs for breakfast but when you put peanut butter on them it smackss of lunch; Brunch is a combination of breakfast and lunch so that which smacks of both breakfast and lunch must be brunchish. And the Cap'n himself? wWell, he looks slightly like the Quaker logo but then he's a goofy cartoon. Kids like cartoons. Kids don't often know much about Quakers, but Pirates they know. Therefore when selling to kids can the Norman Rockwell Quaker dude and bring in the goofy similar looking cartoon pirate. With that said point your imagination back to Hannafords in Carytown. There's a goofy looking almost 30 yr old guy being pulled on a grocery cart by a 30 some pound hound rat mix named after Atlanta's mass transit system rounding the corner of the cereal aisle just a little too fast. The Cap'n display gets tapped. Really, it was just a tap. I'm sure the grocery intern didn't have the experience necessary to build a sturdy stack. Regardless, three flavors of Cap'n boxs are suddenly strewn across the top of aisle 3 and partial occluding access to both the Beef case and a display of Virginia hams. "Hmmm, Lee. Do you think we should help them clean this mess up?" "Marta, what did I tell you about Winston Churchill not liking sentence s ended in prepositions?" "'Prepositions' just ended your sentence." "No, I ended my sentence with a plural noun; you ended your sentence with the word 'up'. 'Up' is a preposition. See?" "Am I not going to get treats until I learn this?" "You'll get treats; don't worry." "Goody." "Do you know the proper way to ask your question now?" "Ummmm, no." "Just drop the word 'up'. Like this 'Do you think we should help them clean this mess'." "Well, do you?" "Maybe a little help... how 'bout we get some cereal for ourselves?" "Cool! Can we get a peanut butter box?" It wasn't until we got home that Marta pulled out the dictionary showed me how wrong I was about 'up'.
01/14/00 - Neither Emelie nor Marta nor I could solve this mystery. Emelie woke me up at 5:30a... "Lee, wake up! I need to pee." I got out of bed without a problem, which doesn't mean happily, stumbled to the back door, opened it and let her go do her business. I went back to sleep without a problem. At 6:45 I knew I had to leave bed for the day. It was sooo hard. It didn't help to have Marta tugging on my ear growling "Lee, wake up! I need to pee and eat some stuff." It took me 5 painful minutes to open my eyes, stretch, growl, stretch again... open my eyes again, pop a foot out of the covers... open my eyes again, pop another foot... "Hey, Emelie. Stop licking my toes please. And could you grab my sweats and that green fleece thing?" It was at this point I posed the question: "Why do you think it so hard to get out of bed when you know you'll not sleep again for at least 16 hours? Geez, 16 hours. Do you realize 1.5 of those hours will be spent doing things around here this morning PLUS an hour will be spent driving to and from work... then there's the 8 or so hours at work and the half hour I should be eating lunch... that leaves me very little time for honest sloth." The dogs agreed "That sucks, Lee." "Sure as shooting does. So do you guys know why it's so tough getting out of bed at the begining of each depressing waste of time we call a day?" "You know, Lee, we don't have a tough time getting started in the morning... but then all we do during the day is sniff and scratch and chew on stuff; it's very satisfying. You know, I think you answered your own question, Lee." "Shut up, guys. I still have problems on saturdays and sundays." "I guess it is a mystery. Are you losing your hair?"
01/17/00 - Saturday I was struck with the strangest craving... Budweiser?! I headed to the trashy grocery store down the street just in time to see the cops drag out a handcuffed shoplifter and run into the man who is probably had the best hand turning my impressionable mind toward history's joys: my 11th grade history teacher Mr Abbott. He wasn't the shoplifter. It turns out Mr Abbott lives around the corner from me. He and his wife even looked at the house Kara and I now own. I wonder why they didn't buy it? But that's beside the point. I told him I taught history at UR... then I told him what I really do. Well, I felt bad being caught by an idol heading into a trashy grocery store. Did I mention Mr Abbott didn't carry a brief case? I don't either. Well, after the short chat we parted ways. I was really thankful Mr Abbott didn't catch me coming out of the trashy grocery store carrying nothing but a 22oz Bud. Well, at least I paid my $1.03 and left with unbound hands. Arriving home I eventually opened the Bud. No wonder it's packed in brown bottles; Budweiser is the pee-est beer I've seen... and it tastes like college.
01/18/00 - Someone burned the Robert E. Lee banner on Richmond's flood wall. It's a pity but I guess until the world improves, bad behavior can be expected. I understand, to many, Lee is a symbol of racism. Unfortunately, most know him only as General for the armies of a failed government not as a gentleman, an educator, a moralist and a world class leader. It seems to me his image now is not based on HOW he lived but WHEN he lived. Lee is a man worthy of a much better reputation. Here's the deal... People are not attacking the problem; people are fighting over their view of an icon. A fight rooted in ignorance and misconception will not end until only one side remains. What kind of world would that leave? Learn about Lee. Learn about Robert Gould Shaw. Learn about William Tecumseh Sherman. Learn about the time in which they lived. Learn about Reconstruction. Learn about the horrible problems of racism and discrimination that have plagued the United States before, during and after the Civil War. Learn, like my father said, "Life is not fair"; for no other reason than better luck, someone is going to have it better that you do. Most importantly learn to treat people with the respect they deserve as human beings no matter when they lived, the color of their skin, their gender, their sexual orientation or how ignorant they may seem.
01/19/00 - Were he alive today Robert E Lee would be blowing out 193 candles on his birthday cake. If each candle needs a square inch then the cake would need to be either round and 16 inches in diameter or a 12 x 16 sheet cake. I, of course, would vote for a keylime cheese cake which would probably be round. For the sake of celebration let's talk about the Honor Code Lee began at Washington College which, on his death, became Washington and Lee University which in 1992 graduated me. In the years since his death the Honor Code has become more codified but it's its essence which guides my life. "There is but one rule: all students must behave as gentlemen." Violation meant immediate expulsion. Luckily, in my life the penalties have not been as severe as they were at school. No one is perfect... well, no one I know. The point is that Lee's idea has served as a touchstone. When I fail I know I fail and I try to learn from my mistakes. Lee was asked once to define "gentleman". I put those words in this space before and will do so again today because I like them:
The forbearing use of power does not only form a touchstone, but the manner in which an individual enjoys certain advantages over others is a test of a true gentleman.
The power which the strong have over the weak, the employer over the employed, the educated over the unlettered, the experienced over the confiding, even the clever over the silly--the forbearing or inoffensive use of all this power or authority, or a total abstinence from it when the case admits it, will show the gentleman in a plain light.
The gentleman does not needlessly and unnecessarily remind an offender of a wrong he may have committed against him. He cannot only forgive, he can forget; and he strives for that nobleness of self and mildness of character which impart sufficient strength to let the past be but the past. A true man of honor feels humbled himself when he cannot help humbling others.
- Robert E. Lee, "Definition of a Gentleman"
01/20/00 - It's snowing. The roads are actually pretty good, though. By "Good" I mean if you drive methodically and carefully you cause problems. This is Marta's first snow. She pooped on her feet. I let her out at 2am and when she came in she had poop all over feet. She went straight into the tub. Luckily we have a dog rug by the back door so no poop was tracked into the house. I'd guess you don't care about that, though. I'm pretty sick of poop. Frankly, even though the roads are good I'd rather be home playing in the snow with the dogs. I bet they'd fetch snowballs. Maybe we could build an awesome snow fort and have a snow ball battle. You know how much snow weighs? When packed it's pretty heavy. It blows my mind to look at all the area covered in snow then figure the weight of that much snow then figure out how it got up in the air in order to fall in the first place. Random thought.
01/21/00 - Drat, Drat, Drat! By the time I got home the snow was gone. There was a smattering but the temperature was dropping so it was almost unsnowballable. At least the yard wasn't the mud pit it would have been had it been slightly warmer. "Please come play with us, Lee" said Emelie. Marta couldn't speak; she was too busy barking at the back door. She thinks we're in StarTrekLand where doors open for you. "OpenOpenOpenOPenOpenOpenOpen..." is all she can say sometimes. The door opens and they dart off to find tennis balls. They're good in that, once they find one, they come back to me but they have not yet grasped that, if I have no tennis ball, I can't throw one. "Hey guys, FETCH!" I say as I feign a throw toward the grill. They drop the balls and take off. I pick them up and toss one before they see I've tricked them. The things dogs learn quickly are the things you wish they'd never grasp... like the bathroom dog won't close all the way and a simple bump is enough to throw it open. Anyway, it's important to not let the dogs know a feigned throw and a real throw are two different things. Once the game is going they're pretty good about dropping one ball when the next is thrown. I learned something new last night, too. The ikk on a doggy tennis ball doesn't freeze solid... it freezes into a sticky, slimy paste. Ug. p> 01/24/00 - More snow this weekend and a head cold. More snow forecast for tonight. Chances are the head cold and I will enjoy it together. H C (that's what the cold told me to call him) and I could separate we'd get bunches is done. I feel fine during the day. In fact, yesterday I did all the laundry, organized the pantry and the can cabinet and started organizing the attic. HC just napped. When it was my bedtime HC said "Hey Lee, let's do something!" I should've kicked his ass right then and there but I was pooped so I tried to sleep while he banged around inside my sinuses. It worked for a while but then HC and Marta started talking and before I knew it they wanted to go play ball in the living room. I tried to blow HC out of my nose but I think he hung on tightly and started throwing pieces of brain to fool me... I think he tossed to part that let me do that thing I used to do so well but can't today... what was that? Well, never mind. I fooled them both by sitting up in bed and sleeping in 5 minute intervals. Well, HC is with me a work right now. He's asleep in my left nostril. I'm afraid to blow else he toss more of the brain.
01/27/00 - Whoa, we got walloped. The official measurement was 12.5 inches. In our yard about 10 inches fell... the other 2.5 inches is stuck on the roof. Marta got sick tuesday afternoon and had to go to the Emergency Vet. She can't drive so we had to take her... In a blizzard! Of all the crappy times to get sick! She's fine now but she still can't got outside alone. Everytime she yelps at the backdoor I have to boot up and follow her into the ice pit. Did you hear about the ice storm forecast for this weekend? Joy. So long as we maintain power I'll be happy, though. I guess if things get really bad I can bash up the big logs on the back porch... it's not like we'll ever turn them into tables like we keep thinking we will. They'll burn. We'll be slightly warmer than we'd be outside. And my tent can go on the living room floor. That keeps me warm in the woods when the temperature dips down to single digits; it should do fine inside during an ice storm. Hopefully Marta won't get anything else stuck in her guts until the weather calms down. I used to love weather like this... now I'm scared of it... weird, isn't it? I feel like ending today's entry with this, hopefully correctly spelled, word: Wasabi.
01/28/00 - Today's entry is called "A Stupid Southern Boy Avoids Disaster". It goes something like this: Lee leaves work at 5:11pm on Thursday January 27, 2000. The road conditions are still lousy following a blizzard-like storm 2 days earlier. He decides to take the scenic route down by the river. The roads are windy, hilly and, as he probably could have guessed, crappy...as in "packed ice wide enough for 1 car and bordered by drifted snow of unknown depth". Driving slowly this stupid southern boy makes safe progress. He climbs and decends steep hills by putting his front wheel drive car in low gear, making sure the way is free of traffic and not stopping. He gets within .25 miles of his house when he must climb the mother of all icy hills. He starts up the hill, getting at least 60% up when he must stop as am even less wise southerm mother of two has her GM station wagon in the ditch... front wheels squealing madly... kids screaming louder. The stupid southern boy is forced to stop his ascent or risk bad things trying to squeeze through the available space between the jittering car and the unknown shoulder. "Ma'am, let me get up this hill and I'll walk back down and help you." He tries to resume forward motion but cannot. Long story short: The boy and the woman try several times, against the boy's advice, to get the wagon up the hill. Finally both the boy's car and the wagon head down the hill to find another way home. Remember, though, this boy is stupid. He decides, if he hadn't had to stop he could have made it. He finds away to turn around. As he gets ready to head back up a 4 wheel drive pickup goes in front of him. The boy pauses, counts to 10 then heads up the hill. As he nears the top he sees the pickup spinning on the ice. The boy has to stop. "DAMMIT!" he says as he back down into a drive way and turns to go back down the hill. The pickup frees itself and goes forward. The boy reaches the bottom and makes certain NO ONE is ahead of him. In low gear he starts up the hill. He maintains forward momentum and keeps his right wheels in the powdery snow at the roads edge. Praying the whole time he skids and spins not once before reaching the top. The lucky stupid southern boy vows not to do that again. The End.