catfish 31

 I didn't recognize Bob Dylan's Dream from the lyrics.  Sounded like early Bob but I couldn't place it, but when I went to you tube, I recognized it right away, from The Freewheeling, with Suze Rotolo hanging on his arm as he ambled through a winter New York street, an interesting story about that photo which we will skip for the morning.  Like I said, I had never paint that much attention to the lyrics but I got the message from a song that came out a few years later, Those were the days: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3KEhWTnWvE

It seems to me kind of a universal phase of growing up when you suddenly realize everything is not as hunky dory as the elders have told you and you are somewhat surprised that they could be so morally blind, and you think that you, and your friends, who have also realized the immorality of the current state through their idealistic eyes, will do something about it.

That is the time I was talking about that music and painting takes me back to in the morning.  But then you know, shit happens.  Things turn out to be way more complicated than you thought they would be, and you are not as strong or as stalwart as you thought you were, and you shake your head ruefully and sing Bob Dylan's Dream or Those Were the Days.  

  I don't think of art as an illusion, but rather an elucidation.  The artist points something out to us and, once it has been called to our attention, we realize that it has always been there and wonder why we never noticed it before.  

Life is not meaningless, life justifies itself.  The meaning of life is life.  

I was thinking of mounting an argument against this because it seemed all wrong to me, but the more I thought about it it sounds close enough.  After all what is the meaning of meaning?

When I say life is meaningless I basically mean it doesn't mean anything outside of itself.  But within itself it is full of meaning, because it is all that there is.  

I like thinking about that stuff and I like trying to describe it with words, but it does make a body dizzy.  Let's get down to Earth with some Catfish.

When Ron dropped me off at the address, there was Gina, kind of dressed up, a fancy white dress, and the realtor, kind of skinny and wearing a suit and looking serious.  Together they looked a little like the bride and the preacher, and here comes the groom. I shuddered and wanted to step back into Ron’s car, but he was already speeding away.

 The place looked okay.  There was the fireplace that Gina was so excited about, but it turned out that it wasn’t really working, the chimney needed some working on, which disappointed Gina as she was into oh popping popcorn and roasting marshmallows, and she and the realtor guy got into some discussion about when the chimney would be fixed, and bored, I took a little walk around.  Refrigerator looked like it would hold enough beer, and the bathroom had well, everything that you would expect a bathroom to have, and the bedroom had this huge bed.

 Huge bed, and a water bed.  I put my hand down on it and ripples went from my handprint on down to the edges and then came rippling back.  Damn.

 “I think I’ll take it,” I announced walking back into the frontroom.

 The realtor guy was all smiles, but Gina wasn’t.  “The fireplace,” she protested, “It doesn’t work.”

 “We’ll be fixing that,” the realtor said quickly.

 “When?”

 “Soon.”

 “How soon?”

 “Right away,” he said.  “We’re taking bids.”

 Gina looked at him like she didn’t believe him.  I didn’t either, but it wasn’t something I was concerned with.  “Gina, take a look at this,” and I led her into the bedroom with its huge bed.  “See?”

 “See what?” she was still peeved about that fireplace thing.  To get her mind off that, I walked over and gave the bed a flick and those little ripples went across it. 

 “See?”

 I didn’t get the big smile I expected in fact she curled up her nose a little.  “Is that what it’s about to you?” she wanted to know.

 Well yeah, hadn’t that been the whole plan, the whole idea of me getting this place, the whole thing about having a place where she could drop by?  “No, of course not,” I answered.

 The realtor guy had hung back in the frontroom while we had been having this conversation pretending to be inspecting the fireplace, poking one of those metal sticks up it.  “We’ll think about it,” she told him.

 We?  Wasn’t this my apartment?  Wouldn’t I be paying the rent?  This whole thing was, oh that’s right, it was her idea.  I was perfectly happy living in the bunkhouse.  It was only because of the thought of her dropping by, of her dropping down into that huge waterbed, shedding her clothes one item at a time.  Oh damn, that stupid fucking fireplace.

 “Darling,” I said, “I think we should talk about this.”

 I settled her into the couch facing the fireplace, but she had her arms crossed across her lovely chest, “Oh yeah?” she wanted to know.

 “Yeah, yeah, you know I would never rent a place that you didn’t like, that you wouldn’t be happy to, you know, come by sometimes and we could cozy up, and I cozied her up a little bit but she was having none of it.

 “In front of a dead fireplace?” she wanted to know.

 “No not dead, just needs a little fixing up, is all,” and here I pointed at the realtor guy who wasn’t helping out by bringing clouds of soot down on himself and his fancy black coat.

 “I think it’s the flue,” he said.

 “See, it’s just the flue,” I told her, “Nothing to that right?” I asked the realtor guy.

 “Oh yeah, nothing to that,” he answered, “You just have to uh, straighten it out, just a little adjustment, nothing to it.”

 “See,” I told Gina.

 “What’s a flue?” she wanted to know.

 “Oh it’s just the thing that, that lets the smoke out, just a little thing, isn’t that right?” I asked the realtor guy as if either of us knew what we were talking about.

 “Absolutely,” he answered.

 “See?”  I closed my case.

 Her arms were crossed under those sweet plump breasts which I could see bouncing atop the waterbed, her cute little nose crinkled up in that way I had always found charming, except for this time when she ended up saying, “No.”

 “No?”

 “Yes.  No.”

 Shitfuck.  And you know, this was all getting to be more trouble than it was worth.  Maybe Ron was right about her.  Just a few feet away stood that waterbed which would never be used.  Shitfuck.

 There was some unpleasantness on the sidewalk afterwards, Gina and me and the realtor all going our separate ways.

The Meaning of Life

I've been thinking all weekend about how to respond to Uncle Ken's last post, and it just occurred to me that there's an old Bob Dylan song that pretty well sums up what I wanted to say:

Bob Dylan - Bob Dylan's Dream (Audio) - YouTube

Dylan must have been a teenager when he wrote that song, and so were we, but he was able to project into the future and tap into the feelings that we all would get someday when we looked at our lives in the rear view mirror.

There is nothing quite like the Catfish life that Uncle Ken lived during his Champaign days in my experience, yet our conversations about it over the years have made me so familiar with it that, when I started reading the fictionalized account, I felt that I could walk right into the Great Wall Bar and feel right at home.  I don't know much about art, but I always was drawn to artists, like Dylan before he went electric, that could say something that I would have said myself if I had thought of it first.  I don't think of art as an illusion, but rather an elucidation.  The artist points something out to us and, once it has been called to our attention, we realize that it has always been there and wonder why we never noticed it before.  

Life is not meaningless, life justifies itself.  The meaning of life is life.  

catfish 30

 Just something to chew on a bit over the weekend along with the latest chapter of Catfish.  I was writing a letter to an old friend and I wanted to express something and this is the way it came out.

When I paint in the morning and I am listening to my music, I get this feeling like the way I felt way back when, I've targeted it to between 66 and 71, the draft was tailing me, I was working shitass jobs if at all, often broke, was drunk a whole lot, not much to recommend it, but there was that feeling.  I'm not a spiritual guy by any means, but back then I still felt there was Something, the secret of life, falling in love, maybe just hanging with really cool people. I don't know, Something that would explain everything and put me on the right track. 

Not that I am unhappy with the way my life has gone since that time.  I have had more good times than bad times, things have always been interesting enough, it's been okay.  But I have been having this fantasy of late where I finish my beer, brush my teeth, say goodnight to the kitties, and lie down on the futon and drift off, and the next thing I know Somebody is shaking my arm and I am in my bed at 501 E Healey in Champaign, and when I sputter, but, but, the mysterious stranger, laughs and says, "Oh forget all that shit, that was just a long strange dream, now get up and get dressed, the Wigwam bar will not tend itself."  

I'd go for it.  

Back in that those days, I often had that feeling like I was missing something, I couldn't say what it was but I'd know it when I found it.  But I never found it of course.  I gradually thought about it less and less, and now I am pretty sure it never existed, though the illusion comes back to my when I am painting and listening to the music of my youth.  I'm pretty sure that life is meaningless and it seems to me that the goal of the artist is to create the illusion that it isn't.

Well you can make of that what you will.  You can, in a phrase I have become fond of of late, like it or lump it.

“So what did you think?” Gina wanted to know that Sunday night when I slid into the stool next to her.

Kind of a strange thing for her to ask.  I had no idea that she was keeping up with the softball team.  “Tell you the truth, I thought that Tiger was just some wino, but damn he sure can pitch, and those Tinkers and Evers, kind of odd guys if you ask me, but they sure can play ball, I think we might have a great team.”

“That’s great,” she answered, but not very enthusiastic, “But I’m wondering what you thought of the apartment.”

“Oh that, I thought it was great, just great.”

“So you had a good look at it then,” she purred. 

“Uh?”

“Like you said you would Tuesday night,” and here her fingers which had interlaced with mine when I had slid in tightened.  Tuesday night, had I said something like that?  Seemed like I might have.  Damn.

“Sure, sure, I had a look at it, looked good, looked great.”

“So when can you move in?”

“Well actually, I just walked by it.”  Actually I hadn’t even done that.  There was all that Tiger stuff back at the bunkhouse, and then practice and then Friday and Saturday night at the Great Wall, a couple pretty good nights with the guys who’d been kicked off the team not pissed off at all, but kind of celebrating never having to go to practice again and buying rounds.

And what the hell had I been thinking because here was Gina, just a signature on a lousy piece of paper away from our big first night after all those doors closed in my face, already untangling her soft pink fingers from mine and turning away.

“Gina it’s just-“

“Just what?”

And she is angry, but anger is good, it’s something, and I reach back, words don’t fail me now, and I say, “I just didn’t want to rent a place without you seeing it first.”

Sounded good, maybe just a little bit hokey.  But hokey can work in your favor sometimes.

She turned back to me slowly, “Really?” she wanted to know, and I could hear a little skepticism in her tone.

 Really, really,” I assured her, “absolutely.”

 We’ll look at it tomorrow then,” she said.

 Absolutely,” I answered.

 That Monday after work I was urging Ron to drive faster, even though his driving always scared me a bit, “C’mon let’s pass these slowpokes, already.”

 "Damn, what’s your hurry?”

 “Well, I gotta see this guy about an apartment.”

 “You’re getting an apartment?”

 “Yeah.”

 “Well good for you.  So you’re moving out on your buddies at that bunkhouse?  It’s about time, those losers.”

 “They’re not losers, they’re good guys.”

 “Have it your way.  Who’s this we then?”

 “Well Gina, me and Gina.”

 “Gina, that cocktease?” he snorted, “I thought she had the hots for your buddy Itch.”

 Okay I’d talked to him about Gina a little, long ride to and from the big job every day, got to talk about something, so maybe I’d left myself open for that crack.  Didn’t like it though.  Didn’t grace his comment with an answer.

 “Hey little buddy, didn’t mean anything.  Not my kind of broad, but she does have some good tits on her, it’s about time you were getting into, uh –“  and he held himself back here, “Into making sweet love to her.”

 The way he said it he might as well have said, “her pants.” But still he had shown a little restraint, and we were both men, and working the big job, so I responded, “That’s my plan.”

 And here he pulled out from behind that slow pickup truck and went past it and the minivan in front of that at which point he should have pulled in, but held on to pass another couple vehicles.  “Just be careful,” he said.

 “Careful?” I asked as we slid into the right lane just before the honking semi came around the bend.

 “Well next thing you know she’ll be wanting to buy furniture, and then she’ll decide it’s more economical to for the two of you, and you’ll be two of you by then, if she just moves in, and then as long as you’re living together you might as well tie the knot.  Know what I mean?”

 That buying furniture thing didn’t sound too good, that moving in part didn’t seem so bad, but that tying the knot thing, kind of like that semi coming around the bend.

many topics many comments

 My garden is indeed an oasis in the land of stone, glass, and steel.  Mostly what happens is a battle between the morning glories and the tomatoes.  The sunflowers can hold their own but because they grow only straight up they are not part of the fray.  The peppers and petunias cower but manage to survive.  I have photos but that will have to wait until tomorrow.

I have always been forgetful and not too good at names, but lately my writing has suffered.  You Dawgs may have noticed it in the way I sometimes use the wrong word.  I reread my posts before I send them and I always find mistakes like that, though sometimes I don't notice them even then.  One peculiar thing is homophones.  I will sometimes like say four instead of for, even though one word has nothing to do with the other.  One would think in that great dictionary in our brains we would have words with the same meaning stored together rather than with the same sound.  But we learn to talk before we learn to read.

When I first decided to post Catfish, I remembered that I had sent Old Dog the story, but there had been little response and I wondered a bit if he had read it at all, so I just started serializing it without saying anything about it.  Maybe it is best read in little pieces.  When I was writing it, it would be after a few beers, and I would never reread what I had read before, also I didn't do much planning ahead, later I would have to deal with inconsistencies and putting the stories together.  You have emails from four years ago?

Three things I remember about smelters; they had this fixed stare across the water and did not react with passersby much, even in the nastiest weather they had a can of beer in their hands, and that beer was always light beer.

Many years ago there were a few trees on the north bank of the river by the Merchandise Mart where now they are putting up the last of three steel and glass towers.  They were cleaning up the river even like thirty years ago and beavers began to show up on the banks and gnaw at those scraggly trees so that they had to encase them in wire cages.  River otters would be swell but maybe a simpler idea would be to give Canada geese a taste for those mussels.

Some Republicans have muttered nasty things about Greene, but nothing they couldn't take back or carpet over if The Great One should decide that she is the all American girl.  I find it passing strange that he has as yet said nothing about her.  But then you know he is the god of the republicans and god likes to test us, so maybe he is testing them before he thunders down his decision.

Puking Tammy is not out of the story yet.  I regret that I do not have enough time to post a chapter this morning, but Friday I will give you an adventure to chew on over the weekend.

Same Old Trump

 I clicked on Uncle Ken's link to the Trump site.  Looks like he hasn't changed much.  I don't know about that Greene woman.  Maybe Uncle Ken's right, she was sent by somebody to give Trump a bad name, just like Trump was sent by somebody to give the Republicans a bad name.  Either way, it doesn't look good for the Republicans in the next election if they don't clean up their act by the end of this year.  Many people have short attention spans these days so, if they can clean up their act by year's end, the voters might forget about all this foolishness by election time.  If not, the Grand Old Party might end up on the ash heap of history.  

I haven't been fishing in a few years but, last I heard, the zebra mussels had settled down and found their own niche in the Cheboygan River system.  I have head that several fish species had found out they were good to eat, and I have personally witnessed ducks eating them.  The ducks were pulling up long strands of seaweed from the bottom and vigorously chewing on them, but the strands didn't appear to be getting any smaller. When I went in for a closer look, I saw that some of the strands were covered with zebra mussels, while others had been stripped clean.  

I wondered what had become of Puking Tammy.  Ron being the kind of guy he is, the thought occurred to me that he might have done her in.  I still think that Dan is nuts but, then again, I think that about most all sports people.   

Musseling in

...maybe thirty pots in all.

Holy Horticulturist, Batman!  When Uncle Ken used to describe the plants on his balcony, I pictured a much smaller number, no more than half a dozen or so.  Seems to me that he has a healthy pair of green thumbs and is the resident expert of Marina City's community of high-rise gardeners, another feather in his cap.  That spot of green among the steel, concrete, and glass must look like an oasis to the birds and insects.  Do many bees and  butterflies come to visit?

-----

Because of family history, I'm always keeping an eye out for certain age-related health information.  A lot of items have been popping up lately about the symptoms for dementia and Alzheimer's and it can get scary.  Whenever I can't remember any odd bit of trivia I start to wonder, "Is it finally happening?"  So far it's all been false alarms; ten or fifteen minutes later the forgotten piece of information makes it through all the other memories and I can say, "Ah, Ha! I knew it!"  Haven't lost track of my marbles, yet.

That's one of the things that's been bugging me about the tale of the Catfish, it is all too familiar to me.  I know I read it before, but where, or when?  A little sleuthing was in order and I tracked it down to an old email from Uncle Ken more than four years ago.  There was an attachment, a story titled Catfish, maybe seventy pages long.  I liked it then and I like it now, but the shorter, daily format works better for me now.  The small bites give me time to savor it, if you will, and I enjoy the story more than if I read it all in one sitting.  And another lost marble is accounted for.

-----

I haven't given smelt much thought, and they used to be such a big deal.  Since Montrose Harbor was just a few miles down the road, a lot of the neighborhood men got into the annual ritual of smelting.  Some of the older guys pronounced it shmelting, but that could be their German heritage peeking through.

Anyhow, from what I've recently read the smelts have indeed disappeared, but it isn't from disease or predatory fish.  You can blame the invasive zebra mussels.  Since they've entered the Great Lakes they've been sucking up the plankton, the very same food that the smelt depend on.  Less plankton, fewer smelt.  Fewer smelt, fewer trout, and on and on.  There's no easy answer to the zebra mussel problem, and smelt may soon be just another memory.  The only thing I can think of is the introduction of river otters to the local ecosystem.  Among other things, they eat mussels.  And they're cute, it could be a good tourist attraction to watch the river otters coming out to feed.  It might not be a preposterous idea; I read a while back that there was a beaver sighted in the Chicago River but maybe the coyotes got it.  And if we could train rats to swim and dive to eat the mussels our problems might be over, and then the recently released feral cats could eat the fat rats.  The wheel of life continues to turn.

 

 

catfish 29

 It's not a penthouse.  A penthouse is a little house on top of a skyscraper so that the roof becomes like your lawn, so I imagine you could be napping under a tree and wake up and stroll away and there you would be at a 60 story drop which seems a bit eerie.  It's just a balcony, although a pretty good sized one.  

When I lived in Texas I had a little balcony at the back of my 2nd floor apartment.  It didn't overlook anything just some weed trees and the dumpster, but it was nice to have a bit of the outdoors just a doorway from your indoors.  

When I first went condo hunting I saw a lot of highrise apartments where you walked right up to a floor to ceiling window and that was it.  The view was good but you were sealed away from the outdoors like a human sardine behind cellophane.  I didn't like that at all.  

Those were older buildings.  Buildings built in the past twenty or thirty years all have balconies and when they convert warehouses and office buildings to condos the first thing they do is punch these little metal balconies into every window.  But if you look up, even on a really nice day you hardly ever see anybody on them, I don't know why.

The latest poll has 52 percent of Republicans believing that Trump won the last election.  Astonishing, but I think maybe it had been higher earlier.  I wonder how the pollsters determined who was a rep or a dem or an ind.  A lot of these Trumpsters had no party before Trump, and I guess maybe they call themselves reps now.  But still there were a lot of conservative and even some moderates in the party before Trump,  Nasty peckerwoods to my way of thinking, but still, you know, sane.  Now it looks like a large percentage of them have drunk the Trump-Ade.  

I went to Trump's new spot:  https://www.donaldjtrump.com/desk 

Now that he is bounced off twitter, and it's just so ho hum.  It is still a pack of outrageous lies, but all dressed up in paragraphs and stuff, it just has no punch.  Here's hoping he will fade not with a bang but a whimper.  I think Beagles still thinks that Trump might be some democratic agent.  I wonder what he thinks of this Marjorie Greene, in her actions she often seems like somebody placed there to destroy the Trumpicans.

Meanwhile the story becomes a little surreal as Dan propels the team to greatness.

 

Tiger was at least clean when we got him out to the practice field.  He was muttering, shaking, but he was at least clean.  Dan led him out to the pitchers mound and then I noticed the two new guys at second and shortstop.  They were like Greek statues, except they were wearing clothes, big beefy guys, hanging there in the middle of the infield, caps creased like in the majors, like I had tried to crease mine in the mirror, but could never get the hang of.  They had their hands on their knees, slouching like they weren’t paying any attention, but their eyes, ice blue, they were both fair haired boys, were fixed on the pitch and when the weak grounder went to the left of the infield the one guy charged in and scooped in and got to it, and in the same motion hurled it to the other guy just as he was crossing past second who gave it a hard sidearm right at first.  Itch threw up his glove just before it drilled him between the eyes, staggered back a little, and pulling off his glove shook his hand in the air.

 “Who are these guys?” I asked Dan.

 “Tinkers and Evers,” he answered.

 “Huh?” But by then Dan had gotten Tiger to the mound and was waving his arms in the air.

 “Team meeting,” he announced.  “First thing,” he started, “You guys,” and here he pointed at the bunkhouse guys who had been our shortstop and second baseman, “Are out.  Get the hell out of here.”  And I have to say they didn’t take it too hard, heading back to the Great Wall to make last call for happy hour.

 “Second thing.  This here’s Tiger,” and he slapped him on the back too hard sending him face down onto the mound, and helping him up announced, “He’s our new pitcher.”

 “Third thing.  These two guys,” and he gestured out to the middle of the infield, “are our new shortstop and second baseman, Tinkers and Evers.”

 “Tinkers and Evers?” Itch asked from first base.  “That’s not their real names is it?” and he looked at them, like maybe they would say something, let him in on the joke, but they just slouched their athletes slouch, eyes forward, not even turning to look at him.

 “As far as you’re concerned, and as far as anybody else on this sorry piece of shit team is concerned, those are their names.  Not that any of you need to concern yourselves with it because I don’t want any of you bums talking to them.  I don’t want any of your Cub fan loser ways rubbing off on them.”

 “But Tinker and Evers, they were Cubs,” Itch objected.

 That stopped Dan a little bit, but he came back with, “That was before Wrigley Field,” and that seemed to stop all conversation, that and the way Tinkers and Evers didn’t even seem to notice or care that they were being talked about, slouching in their positions like horses in their stalls on derby day.

 Dan handed Tiger the ball, and Tiger just stared at it until Dan pointed him at home.  I was trotting into the outfield, but I caught the word, “Remember?” and also caught Tiger’s shake of the head.  A pint of ruby port came out of Dan’s back pocket.  He quickly pulled it away from Tiger’s lunge and walked it back to home and settled it back behind the catcher.  Tiger’s gaze never left lt.

 “Throw it,” Dan said and Tiger went into a windup.  Dan threw up his hands and walked out to the mound.  “You got to throw it underhand,” he told Tiger.

 “Underhand?” Tiger asked.

 “Yeah underhand, like so,” and he showed him the motion.

 “How come?” Tiger wanted to know.

 “Because this is softball, it’s the way it’s done.”

 “Softball?”

 “Yeah, it’s just like baseball only the ball is bigger.  And you have to pitch it underhand.”

 “Underhand?”

 “Yeah, like so,” and he made the motion again.

 “How come?”

 “Just the way it is,” Dan explained and headed back behind the plate, kind of waving the pint all the way back, set it down just behind the plate, just where a strike would bounce after crossing the zone.

 Tiger shrugged his shoulders, crouched, and lofted the ball up in an arc and it came down splat right on top of the bottle knocking it over, but kind of gentle like, so it just bounced back a little into the soft dirt behind the plate.

 Damn, I thought it was just a lucky throw, but the next one went to the same place, and the one after that, and the next one.

 “Okay then, batter up,” and that happened to be Ted who was standing closest to the plate, and he whiffed three times just like that, and I’m wondering how he missed them because they all looked so fat. 

 And then I was next up, and I’m thinking I’m going to do better than Ted because by now I have that keeping my eyes open thing going and I’m going to at least hit a grounder or two and that ball came in so big and fat and all I wanted to do was meet it, but it was something strange it just seemed to veer off somewhere and I couldn’t touch it.

 Nobody could.  Well Tinkers and Evers could, but even them it was just pop ups and lazy fly balls.  Pissed them off a little, I could tell that even though they were too cool to let on much.

 Wasn’t much of a practice really, with Tiger on the mound, except for Tinkers and Evers nobody was hitting anything and so nobody was getting any practice in the field either.  Usually it went on for at least a couple hours, but Dan called it off after one.  “I’ve seen enough,” he said smiling to beat the band.  He walked out to the mound and handed Tiger his pint.  Tiger was smiling to beat the band too then.  He emptied half of it before Dan had walked him back to the plate.

 As I was heading out to The Great Wall with the rest of the guys, Ron came up beside me.  “Hey Catfish,” he wanted to know, “Want to go out to Club 45?”

 Club 45 was this roadhouse, halfway up Route 45 to Rantoul, had kind of a rough reputation.

 “Ah, I don’t think so.”

 “Wild women,” he urged.

 “What about Tammy?” I asked.

 “What about her?” he looked at me like I’d said something stupid which I guess I had.

 “Well I was just wondering, haven’t seen her the last couple days.”

 “She’s been, not feeling too well,” he said veering off to his car.  Didn’t like the sound of that.

Over the Edge

 All the Catfish characters are a little quirky, some more than others, but it appears that Dan has gone right over the edge.  No good can come of this.  Maybe Gina and Ron are right, Catfish should get out of that loony bin and find a place of his own before Dan drags him and the other Bunkhouse Boys down into full blown madness.  

I'm glad to hear that Uncle Ken's penthouse garden brings him so much joy.  It's still a little early to plant around here unless you're willing to cover your stuff when frost is predicted.  It was hot today, but a cold front just blew in at midnight, and the man says we might get a touch of frost by the end of the month.  

I see that many Republicans are still making fools of themselves.  Liz Cheney is a voice crying out in the wilderness, they should listen to her.

Uncle Ken's garden

 Went down to Gethsemane Gardens yesterday.  Rode the Red Line down.  As we came into the open air just before Armitage I realized that I have not ridden this since early in March of 2020.  The city is always changing ad it was an exciting ride.  I exited at Bryn Mawr and walked half a mile west and I was there.  

I used to favor the little six packs in black plastic that went for a dollar or two with a tiny seedling in each cubicle.  But unfortunately they are hard to find these days so I pay three bucks a plant which is outrageous, but the plants are much larger, and it starts the garden with a bang.  I bought eight tomatoes; regular, heirloom, and cherry, and four peppers of which two unfortunately are habaneros.  I can eat jalapenos straight out of the little glass jar with nary a tear, but one bite of one tiny piece of habanero and I am crying for my mama.  Well I paid for them so I will grow them, if they can overcome the morning glories that will try to swarm them.

I shall never forget the tomatoes Mom used to grow along the fence that separated the bungalow backyard from the next one.

But after leaving home I didn't have access to open land until 1970 when I was living in a trailer in southern Illinois, and I tried to grow a sunflower but the landlord's daughter didn't take particular notice of it when mowing and that was that.

In 1975 I was back in Urbana and rented a place with a vacant lot next door.  I had a fine garden there, maybe fifteen feet by thirty feet, grew all the regular vegetables and even stuff like Brussel sprouts, kohlrabi, and okra.  It was a fine garden and I was out there every morning to inspect the troops and to pull out weeds and what not.

But then it started getting really hot, and buggy, and I figured the plants could fend for themselves, and it ended up a big weed patch by the end of summer.  The guy who owned the lot was not pleased and after three years that was the end of that.

I didn't have another garden until the spring of 93 when I put a few pots out on my new balcony.  Every year I added more until now they span the edge of the balcony, maybe thirty pots in all.

The first year I grew tomatoes but did not get much.  Maybe not enough sun I figured and did not plant them again.  I grew mostly hot peppers, which grew well, and a motley assortment of flowers.  Not a big fan of flowers.  You can't eat them.

And then one year for some reason I tried tomatoes again and they grew just fine, so maybe that first year was just a bad year.

I was always pretty tolerant of weeds, if they weren't choking out my main plant I let them lived.  One year this curious little fellow grew out of the pot, grasped a railing and started twining around it, around and around.  What manner of plant was this?  Out for a walk one day I noticed a plant just like it and following the vine I came across a flower, a morning glory flower.  Well how about that?  Each flower lasts but a day and produces a seed so there were plenty of seeds around for the next generation and the generation after that.   One year I found a fence full of pink morning glories.  I came around in the fall and harvested seeds and now they have joined my purple flowers on the balcony.  I have a friend in Texas who has a fence full of Heavenly Blues, and she has sent me seeds, but thus far they have never popped up.  I'm giving them one last chance this year and then maybe I will buy a packet of seeds from the store.

My neighbor a few doors down grew sunflowers.  Nice guy, Willy, came over to the USA from Germany just after the war and I suspect he may have been in the wrong army.  Was a waiter at The Bergoff since he came here, but one day he died and I got a hold of his tall white vases and ever since then I have been growing sunflowers with the rest of the brood. 

One year I grew eggplants and one year I grew pumpkin vines, and I can't think of what else.  Have a hankering to try corn.  Not for the ear, but just to watch them grow.

Four of five years ago my sunflowers enticed some house finches, who were fine company, and I got to buying seed for them.  Early this spring a mob of sparrows moved in and drove away the finches, but now they are gone and the finches are back,  And I have pigeons too.  I like them well enough but I know a lot of people don't, and it's against the rules to feed birds so I worry about that.  But sometimes they just look so damn hungry I toss some sunflower seeds into the bowls.

I moved here the day before Columbus Day 1992, and the next morning I leapt from bed to survey my vast balcony on my first day.  I expect my plants are waking the same way this morning and I will be going out to survey them forthwith.

catfish 28

 I was on a jury many years ago and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised at how seriously they took their work.  There was a woman who had experience in negotiating who volunteered to be the foreperson and we voted her in without any trouble, and she did a good job.  It was about a sheetmetal worker who got injured on the job and he was suing the contractor he worked for and the Nabisco plant at 73rd and Kedzie where it happened.

There were a couple guys who didn't give a shit and sat at the end of the jury table and muttered to each other, and voted for whatever looked like it would bring the case to the end.  The rest of the jury was about evenly split, but when we discussed things we did it logically, there was no name calling. and everybody remained polite and civil, and eventually we came to the logical conclusion and when we rendered our verdict and the judge thanked us and we returned to our normal lives.

Some people believe that at the core Americans are decent people, if you cut away all the politicking they are honest citizens wanting to do the right thing.  I don't actually believe that myself but in this case that is the way it went and I hope it goes so for the MICRC.

And here is your Friday Catfish where we introduced to a pitiful player.

She looked up at me, the first time she looked up from her newspaper which I noticed then was turned to the For Rent section, and put down the waitress pen that she had been circling with.  She put her hand to my face and guided me into her eyes and just as I was puckering up she broke into The Sing of the Valkyries, “You are my warrior,” she said after just a little bit of it.  “You met on the field of battle, your double is a little doubtful but you made some great catches.”

 “You noticed?” I asked, because I had looked her way after every one and she had never seemed to be watching.

 “I did, my warrior,” she answered, “And I am here to collect you from the field of battle where you performed admirably, and take you to a better place.”

 Oh yes, I am thinking as she wraps her arms around me and presses me into her sweet breasts.  “Where?”

 She kind of gives me a shove, away from her bosom and then a newspaper is in my face.  “Maybe this second floor apartment on Elm Street, it has a working fireplace, wouldn’t that be cozy?”

 Sure would be.  “Sure we should do that, let’s do that.” And maybe I am not thinking too far ahead, but I never had.  “Sure,” I repeated and I was drawn back again into that bosomy softness.

 We get into the backseat of somebody’s car headed back to the bar and we’re just necking like crazy all the way back to The Great Wall, and I am still a little woozy stepping into the bar when I notice that Dan is walking up and down the bar.

 “You pukes,” he is saying.  “You make me sick.  Twenty seven to three!  You worthless Cub fans.”

 And the guys are just sitting there across two or three tables a pitcher on every one, and they’re happy enough, the games over now it’s beer time.  What’s the fuss?  What’s up with Dan for Chrissakes? 

 “Geez Dan, it’s just a game.”  I would have advised that comment.

 “Just a game?  Just a game?  Just a fucking game?”  He’s got his hands jammed onto the railing that separates the bar from the tables and his face is bright red and I’m expecting him to explode, jump the railing, do I don’t know what.  But he just stops.  “Very well then,” he said quietly, “Very well then gentlemen,” and he was out the door.

 The next day when I got back from the Big Job Dan was gone, left town was the word, but that’s all he said, nobody knew why.  Everybody was a little nervous, what if he was so pissed off that he was never coming back?  What would happen to the bunkhouse, to us, if he never came back?

 Not so much a problem for me because I would be moving into that fireplace place.  Damn that would be good.  Gina had written down the number for me, I was supposed to give them a call and I meant to, but somehow I never got around to it. 

 Thursday night after the beer run, after the beers, when we were just settling into our couches and our beery dreams, there was a ruckus at the front door, and there was Dan with some bum.  “Gentlemen,” he announced, “This is Tiger,” and Tiger, with a little shove from Dan, sprawled facedown on the floor.

 Okay, in our own way we often referred to ourselves as bums, but this guy was the real deal.  His pants and shirt were torn and grimy, but more to the point, he stunk.  It hit as he crawled across the floor towards the pile of the remnants of the beer run, the crumbled cardboard and the crushed cans and somehow he plucked an unopened can from it, held it aloft with a gap toothed grin.

 “Good eye,” Dan complimented him.  “He’s got a good eye Gentlemen,” he told us, and looking around at us sitting up in our couches, “A good eye, and a good arm.  He can thread the needle,” and we’re just staring at him and at Tiger who is having a little trouble fumbling to open the can, “or he used to, back when he was in Triple A.  Anyway meet our new pitcher.”

 And just when he said that Tiger figured out the can and it exploded a little, what with the shaking in his hands and all, but it looked like he got most of it down in his first gulp.

 It seemed to calm him a little bit and Dan took him by the scruff of his grimy neck and dragged him off to the other bedroom in the apartment which we had always assumed was Dan’s study or whatever, anyway we had never asked about it because we were always happy enough with our couches.  “This is Tiger’s room,” he announced.  “Here’s the rules for you guys unless you plan on living somewhere else.  No booze for Tiger on Thursday nights before practice, no booze on Tuesday before the game, after the game I don’t care, any other time I don’t care, that’s the deal.  And just to make sure,” and here Dan produced a Master Lock and threaded it between a couple hasps that had recently been drilled between the door frame and the door, and snapped it shut.

 As he was walking back to his bedroom Ted called out, “What’s the combination?”

 “You don’t need to know that.” Dan answered.

 “But what, what if he has to use the bathroom?”

 “I put a pail in there.”

 “Geez Dan.  What if there’s a fire or something?”

 “Save yourselves,” he answered, and then he was gone.

 Not that there had ever been a fire or anything, no reason to think there would be, but Ted walked over, examined the lock and the hasps.  “Well he could probably put a shoulder to it or something, could probably break it open.”

 “You think he could do that?” somebody asked.  “I mean do you think Tiger could do that?” and we remembered him crawling on the floor.

 “Probably not,” Ted shrugged, and we all crawled into our couches.

 Sometime before the sun rose there was noise from inside the door, a kind of scratching, a kind of moaning, and then there was like this really bad smell.

 Normally I went straight to the Great Wall from the Big Job, but I was a little curious and stopped by the bunkhouse first, and there was Dan leading a bare-naked, dripping wet Tiger out of the bathroom.  He was skin and bone and shakes and shivers.  “Hey give me a hand here,” Dan requested, and to be honest I didn’t want to even touch the guy, but it was too late to back out.

 We guided him over to one of the couches where Dan had laid out some clothes.  He had me lift him up by the arms so he could slide some underpants under his legs, some sweatpants which were way too big for him, likewise the tee shirt, the sweat shirt, and all the while Tiger is muttering, his eyes darting around.  “He’s looking for a bottle,” Dan explained.

 He went into the kitchen, leaving me to put on Tiger’s shoes and socks.  Even after the shower Tiger’s feet were disgusting, well I won’t get into it, and just as I was lacing up his shoes Dan reappeared with a cup of coffee.  Tiger’s trembling hands grabbed it from Dan’s, and he poured it, boiling hot down his throat.  Halfway through he maybe realized his mistake and coughed it up and threw it up and just for good measure pooped his pants.

 Back to the shower, back out again, another set of clean clothes, and I’d like to say he looked almost human, but that would be exaggerating.  As I’m lacing up his shoes again he’s coming around a little.  “Fuck you fuckers,” I can make out.  “Fuck you, you fucking,” and a little pause while he’s looking for a word, “You mother-fucking fuckers.”

 “Here’s the deal,” Dan starts out.  I’m getting a little tired of this phrase, a little tired of hauling this human wreck around.  “What is the fucking deal?” I want to know.

 “Went to high school with this guy.  He was a couple years ahead of me.  Greatest pitcher in the history of St Rita.  Threw two no-hitters.  We won the city championship twice, two years in a row, never happened before and since.”

 “Really?”

 “Really.  Drafted by the White Sox, into their system, and not a blazing fastball, no curveball to speak off, but what he had was control.  He could put the ball wherever he wanted to, make it look to the batters like it was going somewhere and it went somewhere else.  Best pitcher ever to come out the farm system.”

 “Oh yeah,” and here I am looking at this guy who can’t even lace up his own shoes.

 “Yeah, would’ve been in the bigs, was up for spring training after only two seasons.  Made the team, the fucking team and then the last game before breaking camp came in on relief, game on the line, a runner on third and one out. Long fly to right, easy enough catch, but the catcher couldn’t get his mask off, it was stuck or something, and he’s still standing there yanking on it when the throw comes in so Tiger, who was backing up the play ran towards home and speared it on the second hop and came down on the runner and tagged him alright, but the son-of a bitch was coming in spikes high and caught him in his pitching arm.  He was out for the season.  Had some surgery, but never made it up to the bigs again.”

 “You know Dan, I think I’ve heard that story before,” I commented.

 Dan gave me a hard stare.  “Oh yeah, where?” he wanted to know.

 “Nowhere.” I answered.  “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Living Large

 The manner in which the City of Austin elected their aldermen when Uncle Ken was there is called "at large".  Some municipalities do it, but I have never heard of a state doing it.  I didn't find anything in the US Constitution that either requires it or prohibits it, so it must be up to each state to decide for themselves.  The Constitution does say that the number of representatives from each state must be in proportion to population, but that's about it.  Michigan lost one seat this year because its population hasn't increased as much as some other states since the last census.  This means that our previous 14 congressional districts have to be consolidated into 13.  Our state legislative districts will be redrawn as well, I suppose to keep the population of each district approximately equal.  I wish the MICRC all the luck in the world, but I wouldn't be surprised if they piss off more people than they please.  They are soliciting "input" from the public which, in government and corporate language, means they will listen politely and then proceed to do what they want.  

I remember living in Chicago and anticipating the easterly winds of spring because they brought in the smelt.  Do they still fish for smelt along the lakefront?  When I first moved here, our annual smelt runs would put Chicago to shame, but they have since become extinct in our area.  Most people blame the salmon but, last I heard, the U.P. was still having some decent runs.  I don't know why because they must have salmon there too.  

Viva MICRC

 Well hats off to the MICRC.  I think I may have caught a whiff of this when I was googling for a Michigan gerrymandering article, but it didn't look quite like what I was looking for so I passed it by.  I should have looked deeper into it, this is just the kind of thing I have been hoping for.  

All the states should do it, but neither the dems or the reps want to do it unilaterally thereby giving the other party the edge.  There should be some mechanism for enforcing it on everybody, like the supreme court.  But the supreme court has had a case and refused to get involved in it.

The language is vague, and I have to agree with Beagles that the two paragraphs are contradictory.  That thing about you had to have a district for like Blacks and Hispanics was something we liberals were in favor of, but it turned out to work badly.

Say you had five districts, mostly white but with some minorities, and then you redistrict it to give the minorities one of the districts.  
Since the minorities were all districted into that one district, there are not many left in the other four, and the representatives who had once had to consider the minorities in their district now didn't have to consider their interests at all, and since there are now four white districts to one minority they were consistently outvoted and in effect the minorities now have no representation at all.

When I was in Austin they had an election, I think for something like aldermen, but instead of each ward voting for its alderman, everybody in the city could vote for any alderman.  You could tell by their speeches who was for like the downtown or the southwest side, and you could vote for the guy who appealed to where you lived.  But also they could run more generally as just a conservative or a liberal and if that seemed more important to you you could vote for that guy.  It seemed to work well enough but more importantly it removed the possibility of gerrymandering.

Like I said before the language is vague and likely there will be much wrangling, but the fact that there are four reps, four dems, and four independents indicates that they could work it out.  I will put this commission on my radar and I will be following it.

Though westerly winds are prevalent in the United States there are local conditions to consider.  Living by the lake for thirty years I know this from experience, but you don't have to take my word for it, you can see what the world's greatest newspaper has to say:

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2007-04-01-0704010265-story.html

My Yahoo weather map is zoomed in on my zip code and my temps forecasts are often like ten degrees cooler than the forecasts in the world's greatest newspaper.  Every now and then I aim it at Sheboygan where the temps are often similar.

I  was hoping for a photo of gusty little Groot, but I will take Old Dog's word for it that he is fighting on and I certainly send my best.

The experiment with cut flowers and other bits of flora sounds very interesting and worthy of a gentleman scientist.  I am wondering what has happened to the pasta project.

No Catfish today, but I will have one for Friday

Gerrymandering

 I seem to remember that, the last time we discussed the subject, I conceded that Michigan's legislative districts were probably gerrymandered in favor of the Republicans.  This practice was not illegal at the time, and I'm pretty sure the Democrats would have done the same thing if they had been in control of the state legislature.  In 2018, the Michigan Constitution was amended by ballot proposal to remove redistricting authority from the state legislature and invest it in the Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission, randomly selected from a list of volunteers and appointed by our Secretary of State.  This commission is made up of four Democrats, four Republicans, and four independents, all self declared, who are not supposed to have any political connections. 

The following is quoted from a letter to the editor by Debbie Pond of Cheboygan that was published in our local paper today:

"The districts will comply with voting rights act and other federal laws, be reasonably compact, reflect consideration of county, city, and township boundaries, and shall not provide a disproportionate advantage or disadvantage to any political party, elected official, or candidate."  - Sounds good so far, but then it says:

"Districts shall also reflect the state's diverse population and communities of interest. Communities of interest may include, but shall not be limited to, populations that share cultural or historical characteristics or economic interests."

In my opinion, the two statements are mutually exclusive.  If you gerrymander for communities of interest, you automatically gerrymander for political parties, since poor people and people of color commonly vote Democrat, while people who have something to lose commonly vote Republican.  

 

Weather or not

It feels strange to go outside and not wear a mask, just keep one handy in case some store or facility requires it.  It's now warm enough and fogged eyeglasses are just a memory.  About time, too; seems to me that a lot of people were getting short fuses and easing some restrictions will calm their savage breasts.

-----

There has been some consistently pleasant weather in the Windy City lately; a little rain with warming temperatures.  Things are getting green all over, with most of the larger trees in full leaf.  I don't know what to make of Uncle Ken's sense of the weather, though.

Although Sheboygan is about two hundred miles north of Chicago, the weather is not so different.  Those winds have the whole stretch of long Lake Michigan to gather the chill and slam it right at us.

Prevailing winds in the U.S. are from the west and winter winds along the lake are usually warmer than those further inland.  Madison, WI is much further south than Cheboygan but it has about the same winter temperatures.  There's a lot of water around Cheboygan to temper Old Man Winter's bite.

Can't figure out that distance statement, either.  Without getting lost in a rabbit hole, Chicago is 129 miles south of Sheboygan and 259.8 miles south of Cheboygan.  These distances were calculated relative to the equator, as if all cities were on the same longitude.  Did you know that one degree of latitude is equal to 69 miles?  It's true!  I read it on the internet!

-----

It's hard to say at this point but there may be some life left in little Groot yet.  I never thought that little twig would get me so deeply into plant propagation, but here we are.  If any of the information I've learned from YouTube is valid it seems that you can get almost any plant cutting to grow into a clone of the original.  The trick is to get a good root system growing but it can take from 4 to 6 weeks.  This project is becoming more interesting than I expected; I'd like to see if I can get viable plants from some cheap cut flowers that are sold in the supermarket.  Seeds?  We don't need no stinking seeds!

 

 

catfish 27

 Well at least Queen (Gutsy) Gretchen won democratically, that is more people voted for her than against her.  The same cannot be said for her opposition, the hysterical, Trumpist, legislature.

Last year, Michigan Democrats won more overall votes for state House than Republicans. It was by a whisper, about half of one percentage point.

But Democrats got walloped in the race that counts, as the GOP swept 63 of 110 seats.

https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/gerrymandering-michigan-among-nations-worst-new-test-claims

But now that the covid is on the wane and a sane guy is in the white house maybe it is time for us all to join in a kumbaya moment.  Except that it will continue among the unvaxed and thereby may mutate into something that the current vaxes can't handle and we will be right back in the shit again.

Glad to see that Walmart is doing the right thing by its employees so that they no longer have to wait in line in those food pantries or apply for food stamps.

Am glad to hear Beagles's comments on the saga, but I cannot reply lest I ruin the suspense.

So there we were the Great Wall team, out at the ballyard, kind of standing around waiting for the teams before us to finish their game, and you know they looked pretty good, both of them, better than us that’s for damn sure.  Not that I cared much whether we won or lost, but if the team we were going to play was as good as either of those first two we were going to be clobbered. 

 And that team, they were over on the other side of the field, and they were tossing around the ball and doing wind sprints and those weird stretching exercises, while we were, as I said standing around, passing around a couple twelve packs until one of the umpires noticed that and called time out and went over to us and said no beer in the public part.  No beer?  Damn.

 And just as were hauling what was left of the twelve packs into the trunks of the cars there was a bunch of honking and George’s Cadillac was pulling into the parking lot.  “Hey sombitches, hey assholes,” he was saying because that’s the way he talked.  He had a couple of the cooks with him still wearing their dirty white uniforms and looking puzzled as they took seats in the middle of the stands.

 “Hey Dimant, Dimant,” he was yelling out, and this meant Dan, Diamond Dan, and got his attention and he came walking past me towards the stands, and I wasn’t envying him any because George was like the owner and I was pretty sure we would be clobbered.  But just as he passed me Dan grabbed me the elbow and dragged me along with him.

 “We’re in this together,” he said out of the side of his mouth like he talked sometimes, and I didn’t see how that was and tried to pull away but his grip was tight and I followed him.

 “How you guys gonna do?” George wanted to know.

 “We’ll do fine,” Dan answered.

 “You sure?” George asked because even being Chinese and no kind of baseball fan he must’ve seen the difference between the two teams, one warming up and the other grumbling about how their beer had been taken away.

 “We’ll do fine,” Dan repeated, and then we were stepping back out of the stands and there was Gina.  She had said she was coming but I hadn’t really expected her to show up.  She was a little scrunched up in the bottom row looking through a newspaper but she noticed me stepping past her.  She gave me a big smile and broke into the song of the Valkyries.

 Well shit we were certainly going to need to be carried off by those horn-headed girls after this game was over.  “Dan,” I said, “this does not look good.”

 “We’ll do fine,” he told me, and then handed me a card he had been scribbling on.  “Take this to the umps,” he said handing it to me.

 It was the lineup card.  Me, Ron, and Ted in the outfield, couch guys in the infield except for Itch at first and Dan pitching.

 That last item particularly troubled me.  “Dan?”

 “What?”

 “You’re pitching?”

 “Yeah.”

 “You can’t pitch. You’re terrible.” It just kind of came out.  Generally I try to get along, but it just seemed so obvious.

 It kind of stopped him.  He looked me in the eye and I looked him right back because it was still so obvious.

 “Okay,” he said, “Okay, I know what you’re talking about, in practice I’ve been a little wild.”

 “Well yeah,” I answered though I thought a little wild was putting it mildly.

 “Probably something you don’t realize, never having been in the bigs, is that practice is just practice.  There’s no pressure.  Pressure is what does it.  Knowing that the game is on the line, that’s what a real pitcher needs.  It focuses you, you know, outlines that strike zone, etches it into your mind, guides your hand right into the right arc, the right release point, you know what I mean?”

 I didn’t, but I nodded, he was so sure of himself, what did I know?

 He walked the first six batters.  Nothing was close.  He was kind of calm after the first three, but when he walked in the first run he threw his glove onto the ground, when he walked in the next one he kicked it, after the third he just stood there staring at the next batter slamming the ball into his glove then walked around the mound, slammed the ball again, and then walked around the mound again.  We just stood at our positions and stared.  What do you do when the manager blows up?

 Itch trotted in from first base, and took the ball, from way out in right field it looked like he patted him a little on the back and Dan, head downwards, went to third base and the third baseman took over at first

 Itch threw strikes, but the problem was they were pretty fat strikes and the other team teed off on them, line drives, hard grounders that went right through the infield, the only chance we had were on balls to the outfield, one was hit right at Ron and he caught it, Ted made a fine running catch and the last out was to short right field.  I had a good eye on it, but it was dropping fast.  I leapt right under it, and I’m not sure if it didn’t bounce right in front of me but it ended up in my glove and the umpire maybe he didn’t see that little bounce or maybe he was just glad to see the inning over but he called it an out.

 Ten to nothing, bottom of the first.

 Ron smacked the first pitch way over the centerfielder’s head.  Trotted into home pumping his arm.  Itch smacked a good one down the first base line and ended up at second, a groundout put him at third and then it was my turn at bat.  I put on a good show, striding up to the plate all cocky and when I got there pounding the bat into the ground until the umpire called time and told me, “That’s enough,” and I said, “Yes sir.”

 But I wasn’t confident at all, all I’m thinking is keep my eyes open and it’s messing me, and Itch standing there on third base and cupping his hands around his mouth and shouting, “Get me in Catfish,” wasn’t really helping and the first pitch came in as big and fat as a basketball and I whiffed missing it by a mile.  I assume a mile though I can’t be sure because my eyes were slammed shut.  Damn.  I turned towards our dugout and there was Dan just staring daggers at me.  How could he have seen that?  But I knew he did.  The same thing the second pitch.

 “Eyes open!” Dan yelled, and Itch picked that up.  “Keep them open Natty.”

 And I did, I kept them open and the third pitch was coming in kind of low and outside, probably a ball, but maybe not and I sure didn’t want to take a called third strike not with Gina and George in the stands so I swung, not so hard, just trying to meet the ball and I kept my eyes open.  I hit it off the end of the bat, a slow roller bouncing down the third base line.  Itch took off.  The third baseman came charging in, had a thought of getting Itch at home but it would have been a tough throw past the runner and by the time he thought to throw to first I was just a step away and the ball went over the first baseman’s head and then I was standing on second.

 So pretty cool.  I looked into the stands but Gina had her face in the newspaper and George was arguing with his cooks.  A strikeout and an easy grounder to the shortstop and that was the end of the inning. 

 Ten to two, top of the second.  Sixteen to two bottom of the second, still that in the top of the third.  Twenty one to two in the bottom of the third.  With two outs the outfield was deep for Ron but he hit it between them for a double.  Itch had a line drive to right but the right fielder had it on one hop and went home with it as Ron was rounding past third.  It was a good throw, the catcher had plenty of time to steel himself, but Ron went into him like a ton of bricks.  The ball was laying there in the dirt as Ron was pumping his arms again and the catcher was rolling in the dirt clutching his midsection.  Itch took second and while nobody was noticing third, “White Sox baseball,” Dan was cheering.  Another strikeout.  Twenty one to three, top of the fourth.  Twenty seven to three bottom of the fourth. 

 I got to lead off.  You know really my last at bat had been an out, but it had turned out to be a double, well maybe not officially, but I had ended up at second base and had batted in a run.  At the end of the inning both Dan and Itch had pounded me on the back.  That had felt pretty good,  OK then I would just keep my eyes open and I did, and the first two pitches I took as balls and I felt pretty good about that, and I remembered Dan telling me that he would have to come in with the next one, and he did fat and sassy, I could almost read ‘Hit Me’ spelled out in the lacings, and I gave it a pretty good smack, but not all that hard like I did with my eyes closed and it was pretty sharp but right at the second baseman and I was an easy out.  Next two guys were pretty easy outs too and if you’re down by more than 10 runs at the end of the fourth that was the end of the game. 

 Kind of a relief really.  Time to pack up and go to the bar.  Not too much to crow about losing twenty seven to three, but I had that double, and I had that diving catch in the first inning and a couple good ones after that.  My shirt was dirty, I had given it my all.  George was pretty cool about it.  “You bums, I told you you guys were no good,” but he was laughing.  Gina was cool too.  “Well you’ll get them next time,” she said.

 “What makes you think that?” I asked.

 “I don’t know,” she answered pleasantly.  “I just have faith in you guys.”

 “You do?”

Maskless in Michigan

 The only times I ever wore a mask were when I was in a store or a medical facility.  The only reason I wore it in the stores was I didn't want to cause any trouble for the owners or employees.  Queen Gretchen had threatened to close any establishment that failed to enforce her decrees, but the only one that I've head of her trying to close was this restaurant in the U.P and, last I heard, it was still operating.  They could probably beat her in court, or with civil disobedience if they all stuck together, but such tactics are not for the faint of heart, and it's not my place to tell them what to do. 

I saw on TV the other day that Walmart is raising their wage scale and offering permanent positions to their temporary employees.  When I was there Saturday they seemed to have lots of staff on duty, more than I've seen in years.  They had three checkout lanes operating,  and I used one of them because the line was actually shorter than on any of the self checkouts.  There were still empty spaces on the shelves, but I found everything on my list, so I was a happy shopper.

Gina is starting to look like a manipulative bitch, which makes me wonder if she and Ron are in it together.  Funny that they both want Catfish to get his own apartment.  Coincidence?  I think not!  

catfish 26

 I think the exact ruling by the CDC is that you can walk around maskless indoors if you have been vaccinated because chances of you getting it and passing it are very slim.  But if you are not vaccinated you should not do this because you could be getting it or passing it, but nobody is checking and who expects that idiots who don't vax, are going to admit it?  Seems a bit rash to me.

The condo rules have not changed, but it is not a hassle, because how much time do I spend going down the elevator to go outside or to the little store? And it is not much of a hassle to pull the mask up for like fifteen minutes and it just seems neighborly, likewise when shopping at the Jewel, Walgreens and Target.  

Very savvy Beagles, you have put your finger on the two developments that will drive this story right to the end, which we are a little more than halfway from.  And here we see Gina trying to uplift Catfish's living style.

  And Sunday night there was my lovely Gina sitting at our end of the bar, our little cove I liked to think of it, and I slid in next to her comfortable as sliding my foot into an old shoe all full of telling her how nice she looked and how swell it was to see her and all that stuff which I did and which she usually liked like a cat being stroked around the ears, but she wasn’t purring, something was on her mind.

 It was against my better instincts, usually I wouldn’t ask a question like that because you never know where it is going to go and lots of times it leads to trouble, but I was feeling pretty good about things in general.

 “So what are you thinking about?” I asked.

 She crinkled her face up a little which was always so cute on her and said, “It’s Itch.”

 Fuck.  “What about him?”

 “Well, he doesn’t seem to like me anymore.”

 I have to say that sounded pretty good to me, a good time to commiserate over this sad fact, “Well you know how he is,” I answered, shaking my head a little.

 “How is he?” she asked with more interest than I would have liked.

 “I don’t know,” I answered, exasperated that we should be talking about him at all.  “He’s just kind of his own person, thinks a lot of himself, doesn’t think that much about other people, can be kind of cold sometimes.”

 “Cold?” she asked.

 “Well sometimes he’s just a little,” and I was groping with where to go with this when she interrupted.

 “Because that’s just what he said.”

 “Huh?”

 “He was mixing me up some drinks to take to a big party of mine and when I came to pick them up they looked a little skimpy and you know the customer always wants to have a full glass and I asked him if maybe he could put a few more ice cubes in them, just to fill them up, and he said, ‘What they don’t look cold enough to you?  A cold guy like me, I thought that anything I made would be plenty cold.’ And I thought it was some kind of joke, like we always make, but I didn’t get it, but he put in the extra cubes and shoved the drinks at me.  ‘There you go my dear, freezing cold, just like me,’ and I still thought it was some kind of joke, and I was waiting for the punchline, but then he was off to the next waitress, and not a word to me.”

 Damn, she was getting weepy, “Well I told you he’s just cold.”

 “See,” she said, “There’s that word again.  I’m just wondering if you said something to him, maybe about something I might’ve said.”

 And she left it hanging there, and that was nothing but trouble, and I reached for something that would change the subject and the first thing that popped into my head was, “I’ve been thinking about getting my own apartment.”

 “Really?” she asked, and that whole subject of the conversation just went away like the morning dew.  Her hand went immediately on top of mine. Her weepy eyes seemed to suck up the moisture and were wide and bright.  “Where are you thinking of?”

 “Where?” I answered.

 “Where are you thinking about finding an apartment?”

 “Well uh, I guess somewhere around here, someplace on campus, someplace near the Great Wall.”

 She made that face like when I mentioned the Ramada last week.

 “You don’t think so?” I asked.

 “It’s your apartment.  It doesn’t matter what I think,” she said, but clearly did.

 “Where do you think?”

 “I’ve heard that there are some lovely lofts going in downtown.”

 “Downtown, don’t you think that’s far away.”

 “Not that far,” she said.  “All the busses go right there, and if the weather isn’t bad, I could walk right out there.”

 Walk right out there.  I could see myself opening the door and there she’d be, maybe a cloudy day, looking like rain, and in the fridge those eggs all lined up in their carton, just waiting for her pink hands to crack their shells and send them spattering into the frying pan in the morning.  Oh yes.  I turned to her and she was gone.

 But before I could puzzle on that she was back with a newspaper.  In no time she was into the classifieds and her pink egg-cracking fingers were tracing over the Apartments for Rent section.  “Here’s one,” she circled with her waitress pen, “And another,” another circle, “Oh and look at this one.”

 This One was kind of wordy, steps from a vibrant neighborhood, excellent views, hardwood floors.

 Aren’t all floors made out of wood, and you would think it had to be hard, who wants a soft floor?  Well maybe if you dropped an egg it would be nice if the floor was soft, but really.

 But as I was putting my finger down by hers to point at that ad her fingers enlaced mine and her right breast came down firmly to rest on the back of my hand.  “That looks like a good one,” I said.

 She circled maybe three more, kind of dragging my hand down the newspaper while all the time that breast never left the back of my hand.  And then the newspaper was folded up and stashed securely into her purse and we walked hand in hand to her apartment, and I think I’m sliding right into home plate.  The catcher is staring forlornly into the outfield and the crowd is going wild, and then at the crucial moment she is whispering, “Wait.”

 “Huh?”

 Her hand is on my chest, she is extricating herself from underneath me.

 “Huh?”

 “I think we should wait.”

 “Wait?”

 “For your new apartment.”

 “Huh?”

 “Wouldn’t that be fantastic?”

 “What?”

 “To make love, for our first time, in your new apartment.  It would be so special, so romantic.  Don’t you think Darling?”

 That ‘Darling’ kind of got to me, nice to hear, didn’t think I’d heard it before.  All those women before, and they had all been great, every one of them, and I’d loved them all, but I don’t think that word had ever come up, it was just so dramatic, a little old fashioned maybe, but still.

 But still there we were in those tangled sheets, I mean what the hell?  “Well sure Honey, that would be fantastic, that would be great, but as long as we’re well, here and all, you know, we might as well,” and I kind of trailed off because I could see that I was being a heel.

 “You know you’re right.  You’re absolutely right.  That would be fantastic.  That’s what we should do.”

 And then she asked, “Are you sure?”

 And fuck no, I wasn’t, slowly putting my clothes back on, my underwear, my pants and shirt, my shoes, every piece of clothes taking me further away from that sweet bed, her thighs, her breasts, her dark hair splayed across the pillow.  How had this all happened?  But there it was.  “I’m sure,” I answered.

 And there were a lot of hugs and kisses on the way out to the door, and then there was an “I’m so glad you understand Darling,” and then I was out into the dark.

 Darling, you know who used to call me that I remembered stepping out onto the sidewalk and not feeling like walking back to the bunkhouse right then and maybe I would just take a little walk, Claudette.  That very first night when she took me back to her apartment she had said it kind of to be funny, “Would you like another beer Darling?” that kind of way she had of acting like she didn’t take anything seriously, but even then, inexperienced young guy that I was, I could tell that she was serious.  “Darling, Darling,” she called out at that night’s fucking in her fussy bedroom.  It had been nice to hear.  Darling. I had been somebody’s darling.

 But it had gotten old, so I had hardly noticed it after awhile.  “Darling, do you really need to go out to the bar again tonight?”  Oh shit, I know I didn’t treat her right.  You know things happen.  Just the way the world is.  Turned around and walked back to the bunkhouse.  I could use a few beers.