Pendleton box, notes and scarfs

It was cold enough on this trip to wear a scarf. I know that The Boy could not find enough to wear to help keep him warm, even with his new to him leather coat on. I fired up the heater all the way to Boise, and still, it was not enough. It wasn't till I unloaded the car that I found my winter road bag with mittens and scarfs and such. Next time he can be as warm as he wants to be.

I love a good scarf but find that it's never really cold enough here in Port Orchard for me to wear them. When it snows, sure, but most of the time I tend to run too hot to appreciate them. Nevertheless love them. A number of them have managed to come into life over the years. While in the service I had this sort of girlfriend, a roommate of old girlfriend, who gave me a warm and fuzzy brown scarf (check that winter bag, I think that's where it resides!) to take with me to Colorado on my birthday. New Year's Eve in Ordway was cold and snowy that year. What a perfect gift. Then I had this other gal come through my life back in Oregon. She was a weaver. She made a beautiful scarf and passed it along to me. It has to be one of my most cherished possessions. I even have a selection of them that I pulled aside for myself as I cobbled together scarves for our Chimes and Lights display last year. Hard to resist colorful wool scarves at a buck a throw.

Last June I had to show off the tattered scarf box to M. She was surprised to see it, but even more, the contents of the box. The box came to me on the eve of a roadtrip back in December of '05. We weren't planning on exchanging gifts. We thought we had seen each other all we could before our respective holiday trips. She was heading off to the Grand Canyon and family adventures in Arizona. Me, I was heading to a nice hotel and the Snake River and even wilder family misadventures in Boise. As always she had to leave my gifts to her on my kitchen table, but I took that scarf along with me on the road. It warmed me two ways, certainly.

But it was how it was presented to me that made it special, that made that box such a magic thing. I was told that she had it in her closet for years, and that she gave it to me because she had been waiting to give it to someone special.

I can see that scarf right now, in my minds eye, hanging there along with all my ties in my bedroom, pretty to look at, dark blue Tartan weave, but rarely used. It's the box that's been pressed into hard service these last few years. I couldn't toss it, so I used it for letters. Most of our notes to each other were primarily in the form of email correspondance and, at one time, we had bigger plans for those, too. But in the heat of the fires of passion there were deleted, and only a handful of her little notes to me remained. Just enough for a plate's worth of love to quench the hunger pangs of the heart.

So she saw them, my disbeliever, thinking they had been shredded and fed to the little clay fireplace in my backyard years ago. And while that was a possibility at one time, it never happened. Maybe because of that magic box.

My daughter helped me repair that box a couple years ago, and it might need a bit of tape once again. It's coming up hard on winter and I think I could use that scarf again, especially on one of those upcoming road trips to Boise. But for now that box and that scarf are all about memories and sweet thoughts and holiday wishes. And the blessings that went along with a gift that had been waiting for just the right person to come along.

How nice to know that that special someone was me.

Your WHMB

Turkey lasagna

My youngest's birthday was yesterday. Let's go back in time four years. You called me up and told me that my pan of lasagna was ready to pick up. Be sure not to park down by the garage, you said, but next to your lawn, up by the front door. He gets mad if you park anywhere else. The Boy and Punkin and I found our way to your house okay, down at the end of a culdesac, deep in the dark edge of the woods. You greeted me at the door with a hard and warm hug, which was strange considering our working relationship, but wonderful at the same time. Good hostess that you were, you made the kids comfortable, strived to find a movie or something for Punkinto do. Very nice touch, very nice house. Small talk kicked in in the kitchen and it rambled for a while, both of us wondering when the rest of your family would get home.

That small talk pretty much ended when The Detective came home. You insisted that I stick around, as you wanted me to meet your man. We met. What a hard guy. Very abrupt, very harsh, pointedly blunt to the point of being darn near unfriendly. We all sat talked about playing in the snow in the Olympics, which he and the girls had just come back from. It didn't take long for me to want to go. The fun had left the house when he walked in. Just a bit too jealous and a bit too hostile for my taste.

But the the pan of turkey lasagna was just right. It's quite the "gal" thing for you to do, to make a dish for me to take back home to help out my gal, mother of my newborn. As if men can't cook. I know that some can't. Your's certainly couldn't! Maybe that's why he was so hard on me. We were swapping recipes when he came in. Being a librarian, combined with liking to cook. Wow. Must have been wondering about the kind of man he had sitting in his kitchen!

Happy Birthday, my wee one. Every time you have a birthday come around I'll always think of that dark night in The Woods, The Detective and that very tasty turkey lasagna that was gifted to us. And I'll be thinking of you. Poor thing.

Your WHMB

Bread crumbs on the road

The road beckons. I see a good trip ahead of me. Dry, overcast. Lot's of new music. The Boy as a sidekick. Old friends riding shotgun in the hip pocket of my memory bank. A bit of jingle to blow. That part I love to see. A road trip without sadness, without longing, just filled with promise and a dry road to return on.

This time I won't be leaving poetry for you, or be stuffing my cell in my shirt pocket, waiting for the phone to ring. I won't be stopping at overlooks and dashing off notes to you, or spend any time at all wondering how your holiday event is going. I believe we're both way past that now and that there is too much to do, too many people to see, all of that.

Then again, sometimes I find that I'm really not much of a liar.

Today, on the eve of the road trip I got a request at the desk. Amos Fortune, Free Man. My patron could tell right away that she hit on something other than a book request. I made a quick reference to it, how a friend of mine had read that book to me as we drove back from a conference, how good it was, how it made the time pass by so quickly. Forget the poker playing career, I had you written all over my face. Tell me, M, how will I ever be able to forget that book? Washington Pass? Copper green rivers? Not in this lifetime, that's for sure.

Oh, what is it with these memories, the ones that say to me, "stop and listen awhile, take a moment and breathe me in. Exhale, let the notes of that song go and move along. All will be well, I assure you". Move along, indeed. It's taken me years to figure out that "move along" part. I finally grasped and held onto that thought last week when I passed you by on the road. I saw everything that needed to be seen in that fraction of a second in your eyes. It was brilliant. Whatr was I thinking? Where had I been?

But I have to say that I am not sad, or angry, or remorseful, or any of that. I am not stuck or wistful or hopeful by penning these endless stories. Better than that, by writing here I am preparing myself for the next step, the next adventure, the next moment. For the first time in a long time I am seeing the value of living in the now, in finding the right spot on my mantle for your memory. I'm finally understanding the words you wrote to me in your codas. But more than that I am happy, and thankful, that when I turned my car around to look for you that you were gone. That you didn't wave at me to stop. That you looked up, recognized me and then, by looking away, dismissed me. You went back to your call and I disappeared.

Yes, it sounds strange but I am thankful for that. For that curt and impersonal dismissal.

Because of that I can get on the road tomorrow and leave breadcrumbs back to my home and to the life I'm living today. I can come back to my work, my friends, my house and know that all is well. And that I can accept, for whatever it's worth, the life you've chosen to live. Yes, for what it is worth I am thankful for that as well.

Tomorrow I will greet the sunrise somewhere in the Cascades. Stop in Yakima for provisions, spend a few moments in Richland for breakfast, find some pan dulce in Pasco. I will find time to breathe, take in the vistas I've learned to love on that route and share them with my boy. I will look for notes and phone calls from new friends, and all the while, wish for luck and good timing and fair weather on the road.

I don't know where you are or what you are doing on Thanksgiving day, M. I have no idea if you are cooking or entertaining or what, and that is only because you can't, won't and have no desire to tell me. I can live with that now.

For the moment.

Until I come back here with more stories.

I am thankful for the times that we shared that have given me these stories to tell, M. And I will forever be thankful for having had you in my life, for all the hard lessons our relationship has thrown our way. But more than anything I hope that your day is warm, filled with light and all the love you need to make your Thanksgiving a special one for you and yours.

Peace.

Your WHMB

The clock repairman's daughter

I have two plastic figures resting on my fireplace mantle. They aren't there by chance. I have a boxes and boxes of toy soldiers in the basement, all left over from the business and that burst of second boyhood that took over the house and my life ten years ago.

No, those figures were pretty special. Duplicates, twins of two others that took off into the night not too long after the last toy soldier show left town three years ago. I don't know why they were out, how I managed to find those two pieces out of the countless thousands that I own. Frankly, I was giving always giving you things at that time. Little things. Silly stuff. Sort of like Boo Radley did with the kids in To Kill a Mockingbird, but I had the grace of not leaving them in the knot hole of a tree by your home. I was lucky enough to be able to put them in your hand. I placed those soldiers in your hand that night and you were pretty happy to get them.

What's funny is where they eventually landed. And now that I have the clocks that were in the tale that I told you that night, I think I might have my two figurines land in a clock as well. See, I know where they live in your house. Inside a mantle clock. One that your father repaired. Of all the places to put them, in a spot that is regularly seen by everyone, in a place where no one else would ever think to find them, above your firebox, in the midst of all the action.

Not too much unlike where my clocks live. In the hustle and bustle and slipstream of my life. We both had plenty of clocks in our lives. Yours was due to your father's profession, mine due to my mother's jones. I can only imagine the thrills if those two had met, the conversations they could have had. I know what sort of competition ran in my family over clocks and all things collectible. Family member's eyes would light up at the mention of new acquistions. I'm sure in your family it was a different thing altogether. Items would come into your life due to, what? Lack of payment? Someone selling something off? Just due to the fact that it looked pretty and sounded nice?

I know that my clocks came into my life due to the fact that they were part of the larger family mythology. Yours came into your life due to love and caring and a remembrance of what your father did for a living. What was it again? Jeweler? Watch repair? Clock restoration? Small business owner? I believe all of it, for as you once put it in a letter, that you thought it was the best thing in the world to have a jewelery store owner for a father.

So, my clocks now sit on top of two hutches and on a wall up in the front rooms of the house. Those two figures, one a red Marxman Zouave, standing firm, rifle slung in a fashion that says "stand fast and hold back", and the other a silver Dulcop Maid Marian figure, tall, regal, sniffing a rose, are destined to reside as yours do, in one of my mother's clocks. Those clocks came along with a tale of family sorrow and stupidity. I wanted them around not so much because they are collectible or remind me of my mother, but to impart lessons, to show me every day that family matters more than things.

I essentially lost my grandparents for the last part of my childhood due to greed and selfishness, not clocks. Not so much on the part of my mom, either. She and her mom had a not too pleasant relationship to begin with, but they got along for the sake of family and appearances. But the clocks were a trigger point. They had just come into the house that day, a swapmeet find that was, truly, the deal of the week, maybe the year. It was a hot, sunny Saturday. My mom had just gotten home and my grandparents arrived right on her heels. Lots of joy on my mom's part, sharing her finds, but that mechanism in my grandmother, the one that demanded obedience, the one that said "give me or else" suddenly kicked in. She asked for the clocks and was rebuffed. She demanded the clocks and was turned down. She and my grandfather left before the hour was up. They never stepped foot in that house again.

After my mom passed away I knew I wanted very little of hers. My house is full and doesn't lean too much towards Victorian kitsch anyways. But those clocks. I wanted to see what it was like to have them around. To feel the impact of owning them. How I would react if anyone ever asked to buy one, to have me give them one. A friend of mine did the other night in a playful kind of way. We goofed over that for a couple hours. Funny, I was taught that in all jest there is some truth. What if she really did want one of them? What if I had just said "yes, please, take one". Would that have somehow bought that wandering soul that is my grandmother a bit of rest?

So, clock repairman's daughter, do your soldiers still peek out at you? Do you see them in the back of your mind's eye every now and then or is the thought of them hidden away as well? I know that for me to forget all about toy soldiers would be to empty out half my basement, a good portion of my boy's room and to forego our upcoming trip to Chicago next September to the annual Old Toy Soldier Show. Can't even begin to see that as being a possibility. Besides, I already unloaded over a thousand vinyl records for you, but that's a line in the sand that we'll never have to cross again. No matter, I suppose, I was paid handsomely for them. Good for me all the way around.

As for those soldiers, I'll tuck them away in a clock tonight. I want to see them, as I wish to see those memories of ours, as something I stumble across someday. I want to be pleasantly surprised, have a story to tell about a gal I once knew who's father loved clocks, loved them enough to gift her girl with a box full of them. How she had one on her mantle and how the man in her life, filled with love and tenderness and devotion for her, found two figures to give to her, to watch over her.

My heart, like that Zouave, still stands firm and at the ready, always watching over that silver maiden. Foolish? No. Selfish? Not like the selfishness I learned to loath as a boy. No, those figures, like my adoration for you, are timeless, still and in hiding. Someday, maybe, they'll find their way out into the light again. If not, time will move forward and so will we, only to be rediscovered later on, just like those soldiers are meant to be.

Your WHMB

The lingering scent of dryer sheets, Pinto Pony image, fall '05

The Pinto Pony. It was one of the quirkiest shops in what I now consider "Old Seattle". The Seattle of the King Dome, The Doghouse, Lincoln's Toe Truck and the ferry terminal when the clock was indoors. That old downtown still had the cyclops down below 1st, still had a Belltown that catered to artists and loft dwellers, Ballard was still a old Scandavavian neighborhood and Fremont sweet and funky and not a dotcom darling. Old Seattle. Not to say that I am a native or that I'm pining away for some mythical olden days, but you have to admit that a lot has changed since 1990.

Ruby Montana now own's and operates a very kitchy and cool motel down in Palm Springs. The Pinto Pony was a kitchy and cool home accessory store back in the day, even though she might not approve of those terms. Urban Outfitting? Retro Wackiness? Cowboy Cool? It was filled with Western bric a brac, funky furniture, wild accessories that every apartment in the city needed in order to be part of the northern bastion of hip. I remember seeing a line of t-shirts when I peeked in and prowled years ago, dragging my newborn along in a sling. Very fun, way out of my OC league. But a new league I longed to be in.

Instead of having the mavens of cool tell me what to buy, I did the time honored thing and went at it slow and easy and according to my own terms. I found arty folks to befriend and bought their wares, I hunted down strangeness in second hands, and so, in the end, bought and hung and mounted at my leisure. But thanks, anyway, Ruby. Your store and taste were an inspiration.
So, fast forward to 2005. I was combing the t-shirt racks at the local Goodwill. .99 cents a tee, not a bad price for a man who had not yet discovered the fine art of using an apron in the kitchen and who felt each and every tee in the collection was okay to paint in. I was moving at a frenetic pace, as I was on my lunch hour, when what should I fall upon by a vintage Ruby Montana Pinto Pony t-shirt! Wowzers! Good find. Interesting art, nice airbruch effect. Great shape, no rips or tears or stains.

But when I saw it, I knew right away it wasn't for me. See, I was hung up on this Colorado gal and it looked fitting. Western themed. Ruby riding a Jackalope, a Mrs Potato Head vacuuming. And, above all, in a size that just might fit.

So, I put it away for a few weeks, thinking, okay, birthdays or whatever come along. The Gala came along, and after that, well, as they say, it was history.

That shirt, washed and cleaned, made for a nice transition from the black cocktail dress she wore that night. Well, that tee and a pair of Levi's. We weren't anywhere near a place that would have allowed just one article of clothing. Besides, we had acey ducey to play, bananas to flambee, and a couch to test out. She had to get home, Cinderella style, before midnight but when she left that night that shirt left with her.

I woke up this morning thinking about that gal, that shirt and the why's and who's of it all. Why did we start trading that shirt back and forth? Who came up with that idea? I suppose, in the end she did, because she sent that shirt back to me washed and dipped in an eau de dryer sheet cologne. I strapped on that shirt one night and went into work the next day looking as if I had spent the night wrestling with bears and wild cats both. I was haggard and worn, with deep, dark circles under my eyes. It was that shirt. I know it sounds crazy, but once I put in on it issued forth an outrageous scent all night long that was mighty powerful, and if I dare say, slightly erotic. I wasn't her that I was smelling, it was the dryer sheets. Wow. And I'll leave it at that, for the sake of all the family viewers out there.

That shirt went back and forth for months. Washed here, body scent there. She finally stopped using dryer sheets, not only for the sake of that shirt but for her family, too. Changed everything and I'm sure put that shirt and her reasoning under the microscope of deep scrutiny.

That shirt left my house a couple years ago. Was it a victim of The Big Purge? I never found out. I know that it could have ended up, along with other unknown items, in the Big Box Bound for the Great Second Hand in the sky. Or the one here in town. I haven't found it yet. And if I do, dollars to donuts, I bet it'll smell like dryer sheets all over again.

Your WHMB

Tin of mints, Leather Jacket

January. I had just come back from a second run to California three days before. My mother was dying and these trips were mandatory and inevitable. A third trip was in the future, looming, but the date was still unknown to me. I was in my car, waiting under the pine by the bus station. Kitsap Transit has a transfer station off of the corner of Wheaton and Sylvan Way. Convenient for shopping, close to the library.

That was the kicker. Close to the library.

Our relationship was long gone by then. We weathered the most incredible storms that fall and early winter. We battled the estrangement, the counselors, the passive aggressive spouses. We dealt with your god, your choices, my wearying displays of emotion and incredibly stupid responses to standard human melodramas. That morning I felt like I had washed up on the shore of a strange island, with the flotsum and jetsam of our dealings still washing around in my heart like wreckage from a storm. I had no idea if I would see you. And frankly, I didn't care. Being there was enough.

I knew that you would, at some point, cross my path. The girls were up the street at a Christian school, easy to get to when you subbed. You finally bailed out of homeschooling and at that same time were embarking in a life without me, which made that new schooling arrangement a life saver. We were both a mess, making mistakes, making promises and you, for what it is worth, was the better of the two of us. In all outward appearances you had it together. The Detective watched your every move and in order to get off his radar all forms of communication were left wide open and were monitored 24/7. You gave up every form and semblance of privacy in order to keep the peace. All your thoughts, feelings and actions were open to scrutiny. I was amazed outrageous breach of privacy but then again I knew you all too well. You were the tougher of the two of us, and had much higher stakes to lose. Or so you imagined. When it came to all that we were dealing with I just held my mud, but you, my dear, you built adobe houses out of it.

So, I waited. The minutes rolled on. I had no reason to be there. My kids were shuttled off to school long ago. Work would not start until noon. My estranged one had no power over me or leash on my movements but I was monitored all the same. I had been home for only a couple weeks when I found a long letter from you in my email box. I left you a note earlier letting you know that I had arrived home safely, and for that you were glad. But the letter was more of your life, what had gone down that holiday season, how you weathered the wind and snow storms we suffered that fall, all of that. But it was that final line that had me out there. You summed up your letter with words to this affect "If I had known it would be this hard, I wonder, would I done it?"

What could I to do but ask and find out.

There have been many days that I've come and gone away from that corner empty handed. It was close to nine and I needed to go. With two minutes to spare your silver Focus raced up the hill, you saw me and pulled into the parking lot. Cold, wet morning, and unlike other times you parked and stepped out of your car. You came up to me and gave me a hug, hung there for a moment and took a good whiff of the leather jacket I was wearing. I had only found it a week or two before, but it was well traveled in and was now mine all over.

For what it is worth, there was only one thing that I remember for certain from that stop. Sure, I gave you rocks and some memorabilia that I had found for you. We chatted about the road and your girls and my kids. We sized up our situation and knew it was baked, regardless of how we felt about each other. There was just no going back, and that was that.

But it was your words to me as you piled out of the car that I will always remember. I never had time to ask you anything. I never had a chance to ask you about your letter, your final statement, nothing. You just looked at me and said:

"I would do it all over again". Not just once, but twice.

What more needed to be said than that?

Fast forward to today. I was in the reception area of a dentist's office, waiting for The Boy to finish up with his checkup. I sat there, watched life go by and listened to maudlin music and knew that I had get up and step outside. I thought about sitting in my car and fiddled around with my pockets feeling for my keys when I came across a tin of mints. It may seem strange but I know that they were there in my coat pocket that morning. I know because we shared one before you left. Maybe it is a new tin. Maybe it's just a false memory. Maybe I was thinking of other times, but I know that it was the same jacket.

Finding that tin made me think of you, that morning we shared in the rain. It made me flash really hard back to a time that was harder than about any other time I have ever lived through. I tasted the soft brightness of that mint in my mouth and thought of you, of sharing those mints on a Gig Harbor pier on a cold February night, but more than that I thought about how you clutched me in that jacket, took a deep whiff, took a hard ride down some olafactory memories of your own. M, what I would give to have it happen all over again.

But, you know, it was enough, my dear, to stand there and suck on that mint and know that you would do it all over again. Yes, M, I would, too.

Your WHMB

El Huarache Taqueria, Silverdale

What kind of person turns down a chance to go out and eat Mexican food? Nobody I know. I know for certain we never did.

The Boy and I just came back from having lunch at Pedro's. The newest taqueria here in Port Orchard. The owner before him had a nice hand when it came to cutting carne asada. He's a butcher, as is his brother, who runs a nice little tienda and carniceria in Bremerton. No matter, the other place folded and Pedro, a true sweetheart of a guy, now runs the place. Great food, nice lunch specials. 3.95 a plate. Great chips, fresh salsa. The Boy was satisfied and with a plate of tacos under my belt I know I am, too.

We were pretty friendly with Mexican food, weren't we, M? Seemed that was our favorite food to eat whenever we had a chance to grab supper. El Gitano in Sedro-Wooley. Azteca in Bremerton. Puerto Vallarta in Port Orchard. Vuelve ala Vida, Tacoma. El Huarache's in Silverdale. How did it work out that way? Wasn't like we had plenty of opportunities to eat supper out. That joint in Silverdale was a lark. A cold, wet night lark. What was it? An exchange at the mall? A payment? I can't remember which, but we played that "old married couple" game while we were there. I didn't so much carry your bag but was there to be The Goof while you did your transactions. It was play acting at it's finest. I now associate the scents and fragrances of large department stores with you. Thanks a lot.

But we came out that joint, what was is? Come on, help me, here. Yes, Macy's. We came out laughing, practically arm in arm, but we knew better than to do that. Vultures, vultures, everywhere. And we were two of them, hungry ones. What to do but to go out and eat. Up the block to a reliable noodle joint but the place was packed. No time to jump in the car again so a quick run across the street yielded two places to choose from. Teriyake didn't cut it, and the taqueria won out. Mexican food again. Good for us.

I don't know why it but it seems that that kind of food was a leveler. No pretensions, no cloth napkins, no wine lists. I didn't have to feel like I was somehow The Detective's subordinate in a place like that, but rather, it felt, in those small ethnic joints, that he was mine. I couldn't take you to symphonies, I couldn't take you to five star restaurants, but damn it, I could go with you to taquerias and all was well.

It was hot in there and the windows were streaming. The place was packed, and as these things go, on a busy Friday night, we got put back by the kitchen door. I didn't mind and neither did you. We made comparison studies on the fish tacos, which we had just made in my kitchen only recently. Of course, the house tacos won out hands down. But the rest of the plate was satisfactory as was the rest of our meal. Face it, they could have served us carrion on paper plates and we wouldn't have cared. It was stolen time on a rainly Friday night and the only thing we had left to look forward to was dodging traffic on the way back to our cars. That and a long drive back to our respective homes.

I love to eat out but tend to cook at home most of the time these days. M, I suppose I can blame the economy but I would rather sing praises to you. It seems that as much as I like to eat out that cooking at home now has a new charm, thanks to those numerous cookbooks and that recipe bug you infected me with. But more, whenever I do find time and extra cash to eat out with I tend to look for things to eat that I can't make at home as nicely or with the same amount of charm. There is something about tacos served up in a small concern like that that make them taste oh so much better than they do at home. And while I won't go so far as to say that my Mexican food at home is not as good as a nice sit down restaurant or a decent taqueria, let's just say that there's a place for that kind of eating and when I eat that way I appreciate it one hundred percent.

I know we made wonderous chow in my kitchen together. But now I can walk into any Mexican restaurant in the world these days and know that whenever I do I walk in there with you. Lord knows I've had a lot of Mexican out. But the memories of those Mexican meals I shared with you are packed solidly in my pocket right along side those hard pineapple candies we tended to grab as we headed out the door.

Your WHMB

"You two are too sparky" PT Branch, July '06

On this very wet and rainy Thursday afternoon I can safely say that I am pretty much happy, well balanced, and feel that I am looking forward to a somewhat safe and sane afterlife someday. Some may differ. Estimations of my character may very.

Just reading this series of posts must have you squirming at times. "Oooh, Ma, he's such a bad, bad man!" Yup, something like that. Malo hombre, that's me. Fathers, you better lock up your daughters, hide away the wine casks and stow away your livestock, the Minute Man is coming to town!

Gosh.

That's the way I was meant to feel that day, I suppose. Big, bad influence. Leading that lil' gal down the highway of regret and ill repute. That's me, big old Ill Reputer. Man, what were they thinking that day? Peeking around corners to watch us talk. Setting us both up to fall hard by assigning assignments in the same area of the stacks. What sorts of nefarious types of behaviour were we indulging in, you might ask? Shelving, talking, being somewhat excited about sharing a sunny day together. Laughing. On the boss' watch apparently that was forbidden.

No wonder most of us felt fearful about being called into the office.

So there we were. Like two school kids. Hard, rigid seats. Glaring boss. Sniggering staffers outside the door. I can still hear them singing.."Jane and Roger sitting in the stacks...s-h-e-l v-i-n-g!" Something like that. What kind of moral boundries did we cross that day? Well, folks, just know that we were "sparking". We were being sparky and well, that just pissed alot of people off. Made spectacles of ourselves. We were happy that day and didn't we know that happiness on the job is forbidden? Get that straight! What would people think about two married folks who weren't married to each other talking to each other, with their clothes on, in the middle of the day, as friends? Man, talk about two people ready for the iron maiden or the rack.

Instead we were chastised. Told not to do it again. The Morals Police issued us a citation and that was that. "You are being watched".

So, after work we headed to the drive in, instead. We missed each other that evening, which is too bad. Our kids would have seen us sparking, I am sure. The rest of the drive in crowd as well. I'm sure they would have sent ushers down. "Can you tell those two to stop sparking? We can't see the picture show!"

Somehow maybe I should be thankful for those folks shutting us down that day. Could have cost me a job. Those books are mighty flammable, you know!

Your WHMB

The non-negotibles

M..do you remember the night we rode home on the ferry after that full day in the city? I know that you remember that day... it was such a great day out..Nutcrackers all around town, that eye opening behind the scenes library tour, a multitude of bookstores (remember that spiral staircase?), that grand lunch for two at the Cheesecake Factory, those two completely different cooking supply stores..the whole ball of wax. Going home was a different story..it was never our strong suit. We were sitting outside on the weather deck, all alone on the bench seat except for passing seagulls and starlight. It was too cold for most folks. We were hot with ideas, filled to the brim with that good time, and felt, with only minutes left to the day, that taking in the salty air would be best for our situation.

What was wonderful was that particular moment, my head in your lap, looking up at your face, when we made that sort-of pact. We were talking about our children, talking about meshing those two bundles of joy, and then came down to the nugget of our issues and future woes: those kids were non-negotiables. We knew right then and there that the kids were the true deal breakers. We could go forward or not, depending on whether or not those kids would be affected by any and all decision we would make.

I had no problem sharing my children with you. I knew right away that you would be a great mom to them as well. I knew your girls, could see no problem meshing them into my bunch. A bunch. A real Brady Bunch. Money would be tight, and housing much different than what we were living, but those big, fat moments of having our own personal baseball team around made it all seem worthwhile. Wouldn't be all the time. Easy to negotiate. Summers..okay. Holidays..who's house this year? All of that was tossed around and notations made and wishes stored away.

But, all the same, the kids...there was to be no negotiation there. They really were the focus. What was best for them mattered most. Your happiness took second place.

In the end, that's exactly what came down, didn't it, M? The kids? It wasn't God, it wasn't money, it wasn't your role and obligation to The Detective. It was your girls. All I can say is that I love you all the more for that. That one act made you more real than anything else you could have possibly done. Many a woman would have walked away for a whole lot less. You took the high ground, M. I may miss you but with one selfless move earned my eternal respect. As for you, well, you grabbed the highest rung of integrity you could ever possibly hope to grab.

What an incredible woman you are, M. Indeed, one of the finest women I'll ever I know.

Your WHMB

Photo shard: Apple Cup Sunday

What was it about me when it came to you back then? That whole pleasing you thing? We didn't have a hope in hell of finding a place in our lives for sharing a dog, let alone a cat, but there I was out looking for one for us. Came mighty close, too, to finding the dog of our dreams. A phone call, and the lack of a fenced yard, intervened. Thank goodness. I think we would have done better with a cat, anyway.

So there I was, trolling the cages at the Humane Society in Silverdale. Getting serious with my mission. It was the phone call from the ferry that changed everything. It was a call that told me that our pretend life was not real life, that told me that you had a reason to be happy that I didn't cross over to Edmonds with you that bright and beautiful Saturday afternoon like we had planned. It was just going to be a lark for me. A quick ride over, a few laughs, a peck on the cheek and then a slow ride back home to Kingston. You were in your car, waiting in line for the ferry to dock when a sheriff walked by. Of all the people in the whole wide world to pass by, he was someone that you knew. He was a member of your church. It would have been a major bust. We had had that kind of scare before, and we had a few more of those incidents coming up. You were not as invisible as you thought you were. I can only imagine, in all our travels, in all our adventures, how many folks saw us in action and never breathed a word. But it was the "siting" that put everything in perspective. Things like dogs, for instance.

I was at the animal shelter when that call came in. I had been looking for a dog to take home. Looked hard at a beagle that day, and by the time I left pulled it's slip to have it held for twenty four hours. I read the Humane Society literature about what was expected of me as a dog owner, looked hard at my yard and wondered if I could pull it off. A beagle is a runner, and the shelter tended to get alot of them because of that problem. My yard was a sieve, and even if I went home and slammed together a temporary shelter and fencing arrangement I would still have to worry about winter. Where to put a dog that has that kind of energy? I was walking regularly then and it wouldn't have been a problem, exercise-wise, but I was gone all day and that dog would have been alone. I could imagine the destruction and the eventual disappointment of coming home and finding that dog long gone.

So, I went back and walked the dog the next day, thought hard about it some more and gave up the idea of owning the beagle. Should've picked up a cat, instead.

You were with a pal that day at the Apple Cup in Seattle. You had no team in particular to root for. Spent the night in Edmonds, ate miserably, took in some outlet stores up past Marysville, and then, without much improvement in the food department, took on the game. I heard that your pal came down every year, that this, like the annual hotel room/shopping extraganza in Seattle at Christmastime, was just part of your life. I thought hard about that and filed it away thinking "if only".

If only I had really looked hard at that bit of your life for what it was worth, applied it to the life we thought we wanted to live. At that moment I couldn't see the writing on the wall, and frankly, even if I did, I'm sure I wouldn't have cared. Sometime I look at those times and think, as I look at the photo you snapped of you and your buddy, Minute Man style, arm extended, camera in hand, lens pointed in, that you developed and later passed on to me, that for a moment in time you were truly mine. All those gimmicks and trips and toys that you had at your fingertips were just there for you to play with. You were bored to tears and none of it mattered: you had the ear of a man who payed attention to you for a change. Your words were golden, you were loved, we were invincible and for awhile that was enough for both of us.

It was if we had our own monumental game going on at that time. The coin was tossed long before, and maybe the game was thrown well before we hit the field, but we took on the opposing team with heart and soul, my dear, with brass and sweat and all those things that said "screw you, this is our field, go home". Only to later on get trounced into the dirt by your God and a man who knew how to talk you into submission once again.

The Apple Cup comes and goes every year. I know in my heart of hearts that you and your pal must be going. I can't see that perk going away any more than I can see your annual trips and hotel rooms, musicals and shopping sprees disappearing. Face it, I fell in love with a princess, a wandering princess just like that character Jasmine in Alladin. And you? My love, you fell in love with a street rat, one disguised as hard working librarian, and for a moment, one brief and shining moment, you lived, loved and were loved in return.

So, to that end, I have to wonder: if I had taken that ferry, would life be different today? And if so, who would have named the cat?

Your WHMB

Sky blue dress, Main branch stacks, late summer 05

I fought hard to get some behind the reference desk time and after a year it finally happened. There was no sense in not putting that MLS of mine to work, even if it was only for an hour or so a week. So they did. Easy work, good to keep my hands in it.

Summer, maybe late July, early August. Could have been later than that. Maybe September, beginning of the school year. That was another story. That September day when you came up to me and asked you to help you with your curriculum at home. You were home schooling at the time and asked me to find for books on early and ancient civilizations. Rome. Unique architecture. The Haga Sophia. I came away with a stack of titles for you. Impressed you with my diligence, but moreso, my kindness in carrying that stack out to your car.

But back to that summer moment. It had to have been summer. We had already been writing. You had just gotten back from your roadtrip a few weeks earlier. You were always good to go in the summer time for subbing. That day I was working the desk, hadn't seen you come in yet. Knew you were coming, though, for I had one of the staff call you earlier in the day and you accepted that afternoon time slot.

Were we flirting then? Had we already taken it to that comfortable yet slightly more interesting level of communication shared back then? I know we were talking in code, writing in ways that defied logic but all the same communicated friendship and longing and loneliness that could be filled with books and coffee and lunches under beech trees.

I was helping a patron with a question when I looked up from my computer screen. That's when I saw you, wearing that pretty summer frock, standing next to the video racks on the far side of the library. Lots of property between the reference desk and the video collection, but there you were. I looked up and at that very same moment you did, too. Was there some sort of drop in the power grid that afternoon in Bremerton? Was there some sort of harmonic convergence that I wasn't aware of happening right there in that room? Was the heat on? The roof off? The sun lit up that space between you and me right then and there.

We looked at each other and then nothing after that mattered.

The world shifted back to it's regularly scheduled programming and we went back to work. But I was visably shaken, like that character in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, when he comes home and looks at himself in the mirror and notices that extreme suntan on his face.

I felt that burn, but deep inside. A power plant was lit and life, as I knew it, was never the same again.

Love is funny. You know when someone does something just for you. That sky blue dress, that moment, was a gift from you to me. You knew it, I knew it, and as far as I can tell, the rest of the world knew it, too.

Huzzah!

Your WHMB

Ghosting, short note

Let's just say that when I passed you on the road, before you knew it was me, I saw that look on your face, and M, just know that I've seen you look happier.

Your WHMB

Sweet Potato Casserole

I know that Thanksgiving has nothing to do with sardines, buddy. Sardines. They were the number one thing on my list that I would never be able to serve you. No amount of convincing or cajoling would do it. You said to me one day that it would be okay if I ate them whenever you were far, far away, say, visiting your family in Colorado. Then I could eat them to my heart's content. Goodness. How bad could a sardine be to a gal who would smear mayonaise on perfectly fine grilled salmon?

From what I can remember we never seemed to have a food disagreement other than that. Nothing that elicited "ewws" or anything like that. But I know you were challenged right away with the idea of sweet potato casserole. It was something that you couldn't quite wrap you head around. It seemed too wild, too strange. Not too much unlike my life at the time. I didn't mind your reaction, though. I knew once you tried it would be okay.

You weren't going to be sampling that dish at my Thanksgiving table, though. My table was going to be shared, rather, I would be sharing my table with friends on the other side of the county. I think you had family, friends, church folks coming over to your house that year. Was it your house? It all seems so far and away these days. All I know is that I got lost on the way to dinner. I headed west instead of east and ended up at the Sound and ended up missing supper. Thank goodness for leftovers and kind hostesses. It was a fine evening all the same.

One thing about Thanksgiving is that I tend to make the full dinner one way or the other. Have me over your house on the big day and know that I'll be making turkey the next day at mine. I had company over this last weekend and I made turkey, but that was as close as I would get to the traditional dinner in my house this year. Curried pumpkin soup, oven baked asparagus, turkey roasted with a rub to die for. Peanut butter pie, a wonderful white cheese macaroni dish. Apple slices, cold brut, a pesto galette. Non traditional all the way around. Who says that turkey has to be eaten with mash and cranberries all the time?

But I did turn that bird into a shepherd's pie. And made a very aromatic soup with the bones. And pulled off a very interesting gravy with the drippings. But I still haven't yet made my signature sweet potato dish. I suppose it would help if I ran out and bought some sweet potatoes first.

Potatoes. I know that we shopped at Safeway the night before Thanksgiving. Buy one, get one free on turkeys that night. It was fun but a strange scene all the same. We were too close to home to play house. We were already pulling and tugging, ebbing and flowing, like tides and the phases of the moon. It wasn't as apparent as it is now, with you so noticiably absent from my life. But back in those days I could always tell when you felt the ping and crush of guilt from the outside. Big crowds, major events, long trips..any and all of those things would pull you out of one fold and into the other. We played house alot then, dreamed and whispered and pretended that we, too, could find a way to do holidays together. I know because of those restrictions that regular holiday celebrations were never going to happen for us. So we became felons, my dear, we stole seasons.

So, what did I do to bring you into my own celebratory orbit? I made supper for you knowing that you would be working the Saturday shit after Thanksgiving at the branch down the street from the house. All day. A one hour guaranteed lunch. Lunch at my house. Oh joy.

I hit the kitchen at dawn and never stopped: roasted turkey, gravy, mash. Stuffing with apples and waterchestnuts. Fresh berry pie with berries picked at the end of summer. Fresh bread. Steamed broccoli or some such thing. And a heaping bowl of sweet potatoes.

What was the big deal about them, I had to wonder. Two types of sweet potatoes, boiled until soft. Mashed with plenty of butter and a healthy dash of salt. Brown and white sugar to taste. Sweetened condensed milk for body. Cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, allspice. Pineapple mixed throughout. Baked for an hour, the last fifteen minutes topped with marshmallows, baked until golden. Seemed, in the end, like dessert to me. Nice counterpoint to all the heavy starches on the plate. Golden, aromatic, heady.

I think that, in the end, you thought so, too. Just maybe.

But the thing was that you tried it. We took that to be our hallmark. "Let's try it out". Why say no when "okay" was so much better?

That's where we were the strongest. We may pretended well about all our future dealings, but in that department we were just the best. "Okay" "Let's give it a try". You can't get any better than that.

You were never again as brave as you were that day, M, the day you tried my Sweet Potato Casserole. This year I'll be taking them along with me to a big family gathering. Know with that first bite I'll be thinking of you.

Your WHMB

Cloud shadows and ghost sitings, McCormick Woods

Just know that as these things go, it was a small matter, indeed, considering all the time and gas and the emotional outlay that was involved in accomplishing just one ghost siting. But when you wake up and your brain is on fire to handle a particular kind of mission, well, you give yourself over to it and then run with it, see what you can see.

First off, though, know, too, that I am in complete control of the parameters of the game. The rules. And those rules are simple: no engagement. It has to be random, like cloud shadows passing over a meadow. You can't set up cloud shadows, and your shadow, let alone mine, must pass by without a sound, without guile or planning or sandtrap laying. It has to be out of the blue.
Very much like birding. You can go to any number of spots around the county and find great places to watch birds. Some are better than others. You pack a lunch, a good pair of binoculars, a birding guide and a comfortable set of clothes. This time of year particularly warm and water repellant ones. Not too much different than today.

Mind you, I wasn't out tramping about in the wetlands outside Gorst looking for eagles or kingfishers. Rather, I sat next to a defunct business up close to the fireplace shop right off of the highway where the traffic tightens up. I figured, better than anything else for a quick moment to catch your face. It felt alot like that scene in Wizard of Oz when our heroes were out tramping through those spooky woods with all their witch catching devices. You take along a handful just to see which one will work. Just like today. Would that spot along the highway in Gorst be any better to see you than the one down the block at the wildlife sanctuary?

Two years ago I sat alongside the 16 one morning and caught you out of the corner of my eye, and turned that passing moment into an epic poem. A few weeks ago I saw you, and later found out that I was seen, too, not by you but by folks I work with. It wasn't so hard to explain, that I was waiting for someone. But today I saw my friends pass by, and thought, in the end, after you didn't, that it was time to do a quick stations of the cross and call it a day. It was mighty early and I hadn't had my coffee.

Again, the rules of the game are to pass like clouds. I did my drive as I always do, took the old circular drive around your neighborhood were we used to walk, knowing that someday I would catch you out walking. I've done it a million times, it seems, over the years, nary a bite. But today, well, I have to say that I knew that coat. I remembered how you would wear your hood, the way that your hair would peek out from underneath it. I know your walk, your shape, your stride. Funny how I spent so much time by the side of the road just to see you pass by in your little silver car and now it was all turned around. I saw your face, turned around in my seat, caught your eye as I passed. You were on the phone but took a moment to wave before you went back to your conversation. I drove up the way, parked for a moment, then turned around. You disappeared down into that rabbit warren of a neighborhood and I lost you for the day.

Ghosts. They come in many shades, colors and temperments. Today I thought I was doing the haunting, and before I knew it, I was getting a big "boo!" thrown back at me.

We passed each other like cloud shadows today, M. Soft, treading lightly the surface of this earth and our times. I think that if I had gone back and pulled over just to hear your voice I would have broken the rules today. I must admit that I made an attempt, and as for breaking rules, well, I don't mind. Somebody has to do it. Even ghosts have a heart, my dear, even old ghosts like me.

Your WHMB

Second hand quilt, St Vinnie's parking lot sale

Some things are too good to pass up. But others, in the form of buck a bag parking lot sale items, sometimes come to you without a bit of scrutiny. They come in bulk to be analyzed later on. And come into your life to handle a role that nothing else could ever quite handle so well or efficiently. Tattered or not that second hand picnic quilt has earned it's place in our satchel. But because of it's size it's got to be one mighty big bag.

When the family left in the summer of '05, they left behind a half a car load of stuff in the living room that hadn't really been sorted out, gone through, put up or eyeball measured since that sale. Those goods were strewn all about the house, the couch and floors getting the lion's share of the loot. Most of it was strange...coats needing dry cleaning, a sleeping bag requiring a wash, an old wool flag needing an update of a star or three. But one thing I loved right off the bat, wears and tears regardless, was that tattered old quilt. The batting was seeping out in places, the edges were worn and rough, the patches were faded and a few squares needed to be restitched, but it had soul. Character. Charm, the way that a three legged, one-eyed dog has charm. And since it was able to fit in a grocery bag it only cost me a buck. To wash it was to court disaster. I threw it into the back of the station wagon and away we went.

That quilt has seen beaches and swap meets, drive-in movie theaters and road trips to California. It has been used for garage sale displays, picnics, furniture wraps and back of the wagon padding on long distance hauls. I even used it to keep warm one winter night on a return trip from California. I was pushing hard to make Eugene that day, but fell way short of my goal and landed in a rest stop outside of Grants Pass at one in the morning. It was exceptionally cold that December night, but that quilt was exceptionally warm and because of it I managed to sleep comfortably through the night.

I'm happy to say that that quilt found itself a key player in our drama early on. It was supposed to be a quick run to Ikea that Saturday, but the day turned out to be a legendary one, instead. By one o'clock we had seen all there was to see at Ikea that day. We cruised the store and got lost in the rugs, but you were looking for dining room tables that day and remembered hearing about a furniture place out in Sumner that might have what you were looking for. Was I interested in going along with you?

Was I what? What a question, especially coming from the woman who only moments before, snuck up behind me in the parking lot and draped her hands over my eyes while I talked to her on my cell phone. Was I interested? Man. I would have walked through hell with gasoline shorts on to have had the rest of the day to play with you. And so we did. Took those first steps on that sweet walk through hell.

We cruised to Sumner in separate cars, calling each other on our cell phones and chatting all the while. We took in malts at the Main Street Dairy Freeze, cruised the aisles and pretended to be an old married couple interested in dining room furniture at the old Cannery Furniture warehouse. We took forever to drive back to Tacoma, took in the view at the water's edge at Pt Definace Park and shopped for pears at Tacoma Boys. We packed that day with a ton of activity, but it was that one moment we spent at Loyalty Park that afternoon that solidified that day, and turned an afternoon of stolen delight into a red letter day that we celebrated each and every month.

The 27th of August. Oregon Maple trees. Strawberry malteds. It felt like our whole lives were spent waiting for us to find that park, to find that tree, to secure those malts, make good that promise of time.

It was only because of The Boy that I knew about that park. It had a lot to do with house hunting, with playgrounds and places to run. It had a lot to do with my ceaseless weekend drives, with my overarching hunger for good burgers, my knowledge of backroads between Tacoma, the Valley and Seattle. I had no idea what the park was called at the time, but I knew it was close in to that burger stand. When you travel with kids those two things matter: food and a place to burn it off.

We left your car behind at the burger shack and cruised a bit, looking for a place to sip those malts. The neighborhood behind the Dairy Freeze is one of my favorites. Lot's of old Craftsman styled homes, plenty of tree lined streets. The neighborhood was quiet, clean, charming, but then, it was old Sumner. A far cry from the fresh and new housing tracks I had been looking at six or seven years earlier that sprouted up all around it in the Valley. We pretty much stumbled upon the park in our wandering. It was hard to miss, though, as it's pretty much center placed in the middle of the neighborhood. But it was the trees that really drew us in. The park is well appointed with benches and playground furniture and such, wide and expansive, but the highlight is that's dotted with the most beautiful maples I have ever seen. Gorgeous up the sky trees, with leaves two hands or more wide, green in a shade of green that defied the imagination. We piled out out of my car, popped the lid to the back and grabbed the quilt. It was finally being pressed into service. How wonderful that it was there, in Sumner of all places, and best of all, with you.

What did we talk about? Family and my situation and work. We talked about our kids, about dining room tables and marriage and our daily letters. About a poem I had left for you in your email box. We talked about nothing and we talked about everything. Looking back I see us skirting the issue of what brought us together that afternoon, what allowed you to steal enough time to be out playing with me, what allowed me to have that day, and for that matter what I considered the rest of my life available for you to do with as you pleased.

Was I already washed out to sea at that point? I suppose you can say that I was. We had known each other for a couple years by then, worked together on and off in the stacks and the bookdrops of the library, but it was that starting point at the PT branch two years prior that gave it all away oh so long ago. The moment we opened up that quilt and layed it on the grass under that Oregon Maple was a culmination of a very long and friendly dance. A lovely waltz of sorts, one that had us arrive gingerly, at that point in the song that allowed for us to sit and mingle and check out our dance cards a bit. Mine was empty for the duration and all I wanted to do at the end of that day was fill it up with your name. Each and every line.

I know that the feeling was mutual. We only had to find the words.

And like that maple tree, and like that quilt, we found that good things take time. We found the time that day to spread that quilt and we found the impetus to move things along a path that had no real ending that we could see.

We know now where that day was going. And you know, like it or not, that I have no idea what the end of our story is.

Kind of like that maker of that quilt. In their wildest dreams did they ever think that it would be spread under an Oregon Maple in Sumner in the summer of 2006? I wonder where that quilt will go next, or if it will find a way back to that park, to a place under a tree that will support two lovers in search of a good malted and a bit of time to talk and whisper and hand each other their hearts.

Only time will tell.

Your WHMB

That quilt rides in the back of the car still to this day.

Side story: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

I love what Focus has done for movies. Edgy, strange, quirky films. Lost in Translation. Dead Flowers. Virgin Suicides. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Great movie, Spotless, but this time it was a bit too close to real life. I have to admit I was looking forward to watching Jim Carrey do his best not to mug at the camera this morning. I was still feeling sleep deprived from the dinner party Saturday night/Sunday morning, still felt the after effects of that big dinner of leftovers and the bottle of wine from last night. What I really wanted to do was get up and sit by the side of the road and watch you drive by but thought to myself that on a cold morning, albiet a crisp, beautiful fall morning, it would look as pathetic as it sounded at 7:15 in the morning. So I let it pass, stayed in bed and watched a movie, instead.

But that takes me to the premise of the movie. Would you employ an agency, a doctor, who could promise to take away the bad or not so bad memories of your life? I know that there are plenty of bad ones out there, but so far I feel somewhat blessed in that mine seem to be the fairly standard kind for a fifty year old man. Strange relatives, bad marriages, heartache and heartbreak, shitty jobs, untrue friends, faulty products, bad dates, all of that. Basic stuff. No tsunamis, no witness of heavy death, no invasion of my body cavities, none of that horrible stuff that I would want to see erased and gone forever.

No, this morning I was willing to race down to Gorst and sit in the wildlife viewing parking lot just to see you race by at fifty five miles an hour. And what would have been the reason for that? Memories.

After that film was over I was thanking god that there wasn't anything like doctor's process available in real life, well, outside of an extra bottle or two of wine on the weekends. I learned long ago that that doesn't help either, never has, in fact it enhances those memories by making the unattainable even moreso. Amazing how the lines in your face and your age and our differences and all the issues and problems we had all go away with that third or fourth glass of Merlot. Funny how the problems of time and lies and falsehoods and deception and treachery all drop way when I uncork that second bottle.

I finished up that movie and thought, "well done", but was thankful that it was only a fantasy. When I work through the memories of our intertwined lives I am amazed at how many references I come across that lead me back to you. It's sort of like that Kevin Bacon game. I can do damn near anything and somehow I can link it back to you. I suppose that's not too hard to do when I'm working the branch or cooking in my kitchen or second handing or birding, but driving to Tacoma? Yep. Walking the aisles of Freddies? Sure. Looking through the latest selections in our Books to Go collection? Why not? Memories of you jump out at me like surprise party guests all the time. Most are sweet, some are not. Sometimes I get so caught up in negative memories of you that I want to spit, but mostly, when I think of you, I think of pleasant things and opportunity lost.

So, why would I want to lose that? Can't think of a reason. But dwell on it? I try not to, and most times I'm successful. Can't think of you and follow a recipe. Can't think of you and answer a reference question. Can't think of you while I'm working through conversations at parties or in supermarkets and with friends on the phone. Nope, most of the time I leave you alone, alone with your busy life. I like to know, though, that when I find something as innocuous as a cookbook and I open it and there on the inside endpages I see a photo of a couple of pears side by side that I can feel something good. Something that takes me back to a moment or two we shared. Then I can finger that book and find something to make and move on with my day.

It's like that moment when I decided to just think of you this morning and instead of racing out I put on a movie instead. It wasn't as if our memories were no longer worth honoring by racing out and posting signs on Old Clifton Road or waving at you by the side of the highway. No, I think that those memories of ours were better served by watching something fresh and new in bed and thinking of responses to that long and drawn out conversation I had on Sunday morning. Memories of you guided me that morning, and the best ones told me to "take it slow".

I know that we did. And that is my favorite memory of them all.

Your WHMB

La Boheme ticket stub, Tacoma Opera

La Boheme. It started out fine, ended fine, but the middle part was pretty strange and somewhat tense.

It was all about having lunch, a daughter who had a date of some kind in Tacoma, what kind escapes me now, and a few hours to kill on a sunny Saturday afternoon. It was wonderful to have you, have time with you, tangling together amidst the rugs at Cost Plus, sitting side by side in a booth at The Harvester at prime time, and then cruising the antique stores at will in the flea quarter of old downtown Tacoma. We were having what I would consider a pretty magical day. We laughed alot, were happy in our freedom, and behaved like a couple of people in love. Well, we were, M. We were.

Then.

We were on our way to the box office of the theater where I would be watching La Boheme later on in the month. I wanted to see what kind of tickets were still available. As always I heard from you "how would I explain that?" and worked our calendar's hard to find a way to fit you in. It seemed impossible and in the end, was impossible, but on the way we passed in front of the local coffee shop. It was that plate glass window looking out onto the street that crashed everything. It would have been better if I had tripped and went face first through that glass, as far as the pain was concerned. Nothing worse than being "found out" outside your element by someone who was too close in to your "real" life to explain away. In this case someone from your church. Right there, sipping coffee on a stool by the window. Watching us as we went by.

The world knows nothing of tectonic shifting, of plates crashing, of tsunami's washing away a moment the moment your eyes crossed hers.

I was talking to my friend S last night and we talked of many things, but one of things we talked about was the "moment" , the moment when you know that your relationship is on it's way out.

That was "the" moment for us. If not that one, well, it was one of them, one that I failed to recognize at the time. The rest of the day, what little was left, was spent dodging and shape shifting, doing our best to dispell spirits, evil sprites and supernatural watchdogs that always crop up when you spend a moment, or a lifetime, feeling guilty for your pleasures.

That day I secured a ticket, and you secured a boatload of guilt. Somehow we were never able to reconcile that moment. It dogged us to the end of our days.

I remember the day I went to the concert. By then you had run of my house, had keys and everything. Two old householders without a place in the sun to lie down in, but damn, we pretended well. It was a Sunday matinee, the third and last show of the run. I was happy to have a balcony seat, and left on that sunny afternoon knowing you would lock up the house after me on the way to work. I took off, weeped and celebrated the joy of that grand opera, and came home to find notes from you posted around my house.

The one that I cherish most was the one left on my pillow. I had just changed the sheets the day before and you told me that it didn't smell enough like me to please you. What a bummer that was for both of us.

So today I came across not just one but three different La Boheme tapes at Goodwill. I suppose that's what inspired me to write this. I bought one to stick away in our satchel, and I will slip the ticket stub into that tape for reference later on.

Funny about that opera, though. Two weeks or so after the show we were on the couch in the living room, you were finishing up our Calcopo selection for the month, Five Quarters of an Orange, and I was side by side next you, listening to a recording of La Boheme. It was a rainy evening, and it was about one of the last times we would have before your new schedule took you out of our orbit altogether. I don't think that that the opera, which brought me to tears that one afternoon in Tacoma, felt as meaningful or as powerful as it did that evening as I lay next you in my living room.

Somehow we missed the whole proper opera scene, but managed to take in the heart and soul and bohemian majesty of that wonderous opera right there on my couch. No opera glasses needed. No ticket stubs to show the ushers. No programs outside of the one that said "love me now"....

And we did.

Your WHMB

A multitude of bowls, Little House

Bowls. Let's just chalk it up to madness. A sweet, detached sort of madness, a shopping therapy sort of madness. But whatever the cause or the influence of it just know that I ended up an absolute crazy mess of bowls.

And not just bowls. Tons of heavy duty kitchenware, crockery, plates and mugs and utensils. More pans and pots and strainers than I'll ever use in this lifetime. An incredible amount of crystal and wine glasses and beer mugs than I'll ever hope to drink out of.

Last night they came into their own when I needed to find nice matching bowls and plates for a small dinner party. When I needed to have some interesting flutes and such for sparkling and wine for guests. When I had a pressing need for serving platters and such to help make my entrees shine. But really, what was the point of having so much when my needs for the longest time were so few? How many family members did I think I was feeding at that time, anyway? Why did I feel I needed so much?

I know that when I look at that amassed collection of cookware and stemware and such that I'll be looking around in the not too distant future for second hand footlockers so I can start to parcel it out. I don't want my kids going off into the world without a nicely appointed kitchen. Instead of mucking about in second hands guessing about what they need or gathering up cheap Chinese utensils in dollar stores I will sent them up with commercial gear and pretty plates and somewhat hearty restaurant ware coffee cups instead. I feel real good about that.

But it didn't start out that way. I gathered to protect myself. I think it was more a override device at first. I left the big house for the little house and took a few things along with me. I thought at the time that there would be an immediate splitting of the sheets and that all those pretty things I had pulled together were going to be divided. I figured the more I had the less chance I would lose out on my share of pretty things. More was certainly better at the time.

But more than that I was buying to set up house with you, M. I know it sounds crazy, because it was, but I was in serious denial. Our craft was already splinters on the rocks of the shore. The wild wind driven waves of reality wrecked us well before the family came back and I was shipwrecked on that island of doubt and fantasy and whimsy without a shred of hope, but decided, at that point in my life, to spell out SOS on the shore with cooking apparatus. It was a big fucking SOS. I was my own form of salvaging hapless hope out of a bad situation and it felt okay to do at the time.

I'm sure it was a spillover from those days of eating in the kitchen of the big house. We shared meals and food talk and cookbooks and recipes as if we were old householders. We talked as if we could pull off some day those big meals and lavish parties and grand get togethers we talked about. Me, with my overactive imagination, started on setting up those dream dinners and casual after work suppers and nicely appointed cocktail parties. I still remember the thrill of coming across a pretty, but not expensive, place setting for eight at St Vinnies. Nothing fancy, but for all intents and purposes it was "ours". It just went from there.

I had visions and fantasies in abundance, and treated those dreams to copious amounts of stuff to go with them. I am always amazed when I look at that collection how much time and money and thought and love I poured into that gathering of goods. I pulled together enough stemware to fuel many a New Years, found enough bowls to give all our kids and relations soup and noodles and ice cream, too, without ever having to wash up once. I managed to find some pretty incredible kitchen devices, and with those tools planned kitchen campaigns with you that would taken us into old age.

Whatever.

I still have them. The dreams, well, let's just say that they were shelved along with those bowls. I dust them off once in a while but I'm not stupid. They're pretty and all, those dreams, but as fragile as any piece of crockery I own. Hell, let's just say that I know I'm holding onto shards and that trying to figure out what to do with them other than just tossing them into the trash.

But last night was a throw back to better times. I found some beautiful soup bowls that were still taped together with masking tape, and a taped stack of dessert plates that were still hand priced. I was able to find, deep in the mess, a lovely glass serving platter that I found on one my California trips in '06. I would love to go back down to Woodland someday and do that Goodwill again. I always had good "luck" there. I know that when store employess saw me coming in that door that they knew their coffers would soon be jingling. My coffers are certainly not jingling these days, but due to that mad spending I am not afraid to entertain or get in that kitchen. I have the goods to pull off meals in a very nice way, and it's all thanks to you and those last minute dreams of ours.

Some day, when my children are older and they've set up their first apartments or homes and we're sitting at their kitchen tables sipping wine or coffee out of stuff I've passed along to them, I'll be sure to tell them who's coffee cup and wine glass they are drinking from. I had such high hopes for us, buddy, but know I'll share those dreams with my children someday and they'll be thankful to be sharing in the bounty of what we hoped for for ourselves.

I know that my guests were last night without having a clue about our tale.

Love.

Your WHMB

Lipstick stained coffee cup

I'm cleaning house today for company. It's just the thing to do. I normally press The Boy into service on the weekends, whenever he doesn't have too much homework to do. Housework is a skill that they don't teach you in high school but they should. It stays with you a lot longer than the capital of Arkansas and the twenty-seventh president's wife's name and who won what war in 1815 ever does.

I love to have company, and I love a clean house. One goes well with the other, and I suppose that one can stand alone without the other, but together it's a mighty fine time. I'll be making supper, too, but it's also a bit of a potluck in that my guests are bringing a side and a dessert. Some wine, too. Not that they need to do that. After my mom died every time I did a California run I would bring back a case or two. That and weekly specials at Saars and Grocery Outlet and those cases barely move.

So, the kitchen is hot and the house is coming together. I try to keep it up and generally speaking today will be more of a pick up. Wasn't always this way. I've been graced with wives that never learned the art of housecleaning. Pity. They should have had my mom as a mother growing up. Would have straightened them out. My estranged one was probably the worst of the lot. Took three weeks to clean and get this place in order after she left to Idaho. From what I gather it takes her that long to get the house ready whenever I go to visit.

But I digress.

It was that three week stint in cleaning that brings me to this story. It was a Saturday, the third weekend after they left. Things were not in piles like they had been. The couches had been moved back, the kitchen straightened, the doors and walls scrubbed, the cobwebs gone. The housework was moving in a good direction, not necessarily ready for company ready but close. Then the phone rings. You were down the block with two cups of coffee in hand. Could you come up and see the progress?

Could you come up? What a question.

And you did. But only for a bit. It was the first time you ever saw the place. The living room was far from what it looks like today. The floor in the hallway was still tore up. The fireplace mantle a dream. The trim around the kitchen and hallway doorway still unfinished. Hell, the house was a mess. But you made me feel as if you were gracing me in a well appointed mansion. It felt that way, anyway. I suppose it was finally seeing that house of mine through someone else's eyes that made me appreciate what I had, and fired up inside of me an intense desire to make it better.

You came through that day as a friend, nothing more. We were work buddies, pals. We wrote to each other but we had our lives on full boil on all burners. It was only an August weekend day, a Saturday and we both had things to do. You came up to my house, shared a bit of life with me, and took off on your errands. You left behind a coffee cup on my kitchen counter, stained with your lipstick. I looked at it sitting there as if it were some sort of magical gift left behind by a sorceress. The coffee was long gone by the time you left, but that lipstick stained shard from your coffee cup graced my fridge door for quite a long time after that.

I have to wonder whatever happened to that piece of cup. I can't remember if you saw it when you came to dinner later on in September, but I know it was still posted on the refrigerator. It certainly wasn't the last lipstained cup you left behind in my kitchen, but it was certainly the best. But the bigger bummer was knowing that when I saw you last June, no matter what I could come up with, that that lipstick stain of yours on my Thermos cup would have to go away. To know that we shared a common cup then was all too precious considering all the events that have taken place since that very sweet and fairly innocent Saturday in August oh so long ago.

My house is coming together, and people are coming together here, too, later on to share food, friendship and a few laughs. Laughter is a good thing, and when I think of all the things we shared that laughter between us was the finest gift of all. That and the seeds of love you planted here that day in my humble home with that gift of Starbucks and your lipstick stained coffee cup.
My love to you, darlin', on this sunny, very beautiful fall afternoon.

Your WHMB

Side story: I think this is working

Sometimes you have to write and write and write to get something out of your system. It's like lancing a wound. I keep coming back here only because it feels a lot more cathartic than Accumulate Man ever did. Whenever I've played there and talked about you I've felt like the eyes of the world were upon me. I had to keep a lower profile there with my writing. I am still jacked into my work 2.0 site and it feels like words or references or names or any of that could follow me home.

But more than that it felt as if Accumulate Man was just that. The accumulate sum and total of my life. I left tracks there that led everywhere and nowhere. It was a place to lay down, sip a bit of wine and chat awhile. Share the news. Talk about films and books and recipes and such. But I kept wandering down that path with "Jane", telling side stories about us, building temples, crashing plaster images, all that. It felt a bit too wide open and borderline reckless and all that to tell our stories there comfortably.

Not that it mattered much, I suppose. For most people it was a "Read this if you want, speculate what it means on your own time" kind of place. But here, here in this space I feel what I share with you matters alot. It's for the record. Sure, it's a mighty public record. But a good love always is. Public. "In your face" like we used to be. Yup, can't deny that. We weren't as wild as some, but we were a pair of shooting stars, you and me. Yeah, we were great, right along side Bogart and Bacall. Wallis Simpson and the future King of England. Mickey and Minnie. You and me, Minute Man and the Professora.

Here I don't mind telling our story. I feel that for years I've wanted to tell someone about us, M. Just to tell it. Just to make up for the crashed Calcopo files. With our names somewhat shrouded, of course, and no real details, either, well, not the salacious kind. Not that we really had any of those to share with the world anyway. Like the quote in Corelli's Mandolin, "we were lovers in the old fashioned sense".

No, it's just that damn bag by the side of my bed that begs me to tell you what's in it. But more than that it's the roadsigns I leave for you. And the photos and quotes and receipts and such I find as I go through old papers. All the stuff left that you behind that I still use. And then there's the stuff that I don't use or own and then there are thing that could never possibly belong to me. Seriously, how would I claim to the corner of Wheaton and Sylvan Way? How could I ever possibly declare ownership to that stretch of highway around Washington Pass? Would anybody else know about "The Lady with the Big Hat" at Kopachuck State Park? Or what about the restaurants in PO were considered "ours" and that you avoided going to for years?

None of that stuff matters much to anyone but me, and possibly you, M. I know that you dwell on those things to but keep them to yourself. Yeah, I know that those times of ours still run deep. I always know when I see you. It's your eyes. Words sometimes mean nothing when they spill from your lips, buddy, it's the eyes that give you away. That's where the pearls of those days lay. It's there that I gather truths.

So this place. It allows for leeching, for wounds to be opened up and cleaned out. I feel the healing already taking place, only days into this wild form of therapy. Frankly, I had to have this place to tell our story. My friends have grown tired of me asking about you, asking if they've seen you, heard from you. Frankly, it was a bit of a joke, a somewhat pathetic one, but love is funny that way. But it's my life, my heart, my craziness. Nobody else's but mine. Not that I care if anyone else understands. What would it matter if they did?

So know that the writing has helped me in an immeasurable way. It's here that I've grown stronger from leaving things behind. It's a bit like medication or meditation or working so hard that you sweat blood or leave tears like silver drops around your feet. I have gathered those tears I've shed and tossed them into the Sound and there they'll lay. Let the kingfishers gather them up and take them to you.

Yeah, M, read what's here and let those silver baubles of words splash about your feet. You, too can gather them up alongside your precious kingfishers in the Sound as well.

It's all about believing in things. Me, I don't waste my time on prayers to a God that doesn't listen to me. I only devote my time to writing words to a woman who won't ever read them, believing that somehow in the writing my words will find a mark, and hopefully, provide me with comfort and possibly an answer to all that has transpired between us. And, in the end, I believe that in the telling things will right themselves. Be cleared up. Made solid. Yes, in the telling the tale gets told and the story of those two beautiful intertwined lives moves along.

Yeah, someday, maybe, I can move along, too. All on my own.

Your WHMB

CDRW Disk, Norah Jones "Come Away with Me"

It wasn't easy finding this disk again. It was buried, purposefully so, in a book deep in the stacks of the back house book collection. Up high on the shelf, obscure title. Disk without a sleeve. Just a silver thing, pretty much without a marking, except for your handwriting.

"Nora Jones" was all it said.

I only thought of it today because Nic Harcourt mentioned it in his book Music Lust. His estimaton of her is pretty high, and for a man that pretty much chronicles music tastes and trends, for him to embrace this artist and sell her the way he does says that she's pretty darn special. The first time I really heard her voice I thought so, too.

I don't think I listened to this when you gave it to me. It was just another one of those things that I somehow glossed over in the midst of my madness over you. You would gift me with things and somehow I wouldn't "see" them. Took me forever to really see and appreciate let alone use those tart pans. Or those ramikens. It was the same thing with that Seal recording, which I ended up buying because the homemade copy of yours "accidentally" broke in half the night of the purge.

The Norah Jones recording has had a better run of luck. Sure, it was lost, but it was found during one of those sweeps of the back house that I would do once in a while. Every time I come across more artifacts..brochures and receipts and photos and such...but it was a stumble of sorts that led me to that book. It looked to puffy, and sure enough, there were some letters I wrote you as well as that disk.

It's nice to have it around, but I can only listen to it on occasion. Not that I have escaped the music. 14 million copies of that album sold upon release, she was a mighty big deal and her music is everywhere. I hear on broadcasts when I shop second hand, I hear it on canned music selections when I go shopping for groceries. Occasionally I catch it on the radio. It hasn't landed in a movie soundtrack yet, from what I've gathered. If it had I would have known right away that that movie was going to be either a seldom or oft watched movie, just because of the music alone.

I found for you one of her albums. It landed in your Nemo trunk. I found, too, a copy of that disk one day at Goodwill but the cd was missing from the case. Pity. My heart skipped a beat when I stumbled across it. It goes for almost twenty at Freddies. For now your copy will do. Again, I can only play it so often.

You sang that hit song to me once. You had such a wonderful voice, and would sing me bits and pieces of songs that were meaningful to us. Rascal Flatts. Lyle Lovett, Dave Matthews. And Norah Jones.

So, know that you have great musical taste. Nic Harcourt and my heart both say so.

Your WHMB

Ginko socks, Seattle

I live in an old house. To go without socks in the winter time is to court cold feet. I stress that fact with The Boy on a regular basis, but he likes to think that our gas bill is paid by the same mythical fat cat who brings gifts at Christmas time. I know what I'm buying him for the holidays: sweaters, fingerless gloves and nice wooley socks. Can't get enough of those wooley socks.

I know that whenever I have guests over that I leave it up to them whether or not they want to take off their shoes. When I returned from Japan it was a different story, as I was militant about doffing those zapatos. All shoes off at the door. Had plenty of slippers that I brought back with me to help make the experience fun and comfortable, but folks just looked at me as if I was full out weird, as if I came back from my overseas experience with the pox or a terrible accent, not just a desire to keep my rugs clean. So now I don't worry about it too much. Shoes on or off at the door, it's up to you. I sweep daily and vacuum once a week so it can only get so grubby.

But I can understand the hesitancy. Once those shoes come off you get down to a fairly private part of your wardrobe. It's somewhat like showing off your underware, which seems to be a very big thing in our contemporary culture these days. But socks are a bit different, are closer to the bone in other ways. You take off your shoes and it means you are staying awhile. That you plan on or want to get comfortable. Relax. Take the visit to another level. Whenever folks take off their shoes in my house I feel inclined to put on the hot water kettle, or fire up the fireplace, or get in the kitchen to fix something to eat. Open a bottle of wine. Turn on the tunes.

At the very least I want to be able to have my shoes off, too, and let my spine relax in my easy chair or along side my guest on that very comfortable and easy going leather couch I have. M, you must remember that couch. It was the scene of many a conversation, many a parlor game. It was the place where we sat each and every time you trounced me in Yahtzee. It was the sittee where we listened to music before the road. It was our grand avenue to holiday celebration, where Valentine's gifts were opened, where Calcopo books were read, where plans were discussed, made, executed and in the end, shelved.

But all the time we sat and played and discussed your socks were on display. You had quite a grand collection to go with those nifty slip off shoes you always wore. So I took it upon myself to look for a pair of socks to go along with the ones that you already had. Figured it was a good host thing to do.

But where and when and all that. Had to be special. Christmas was coming, why not try to build that purchase into that holiday. And we did. We took in a day trip to Seattle in early December, had a grand day in the city. We hit up the Westlake Mall and lo and behold what kind of store should they have there but one dedicated just to socks! Only in America! So we cruised the aisles and you picked and chose and came away with a very nifty pair of ginko patterned socks.

Why ginko? We somehow became enchanted with those leaves, leaves off of a tree that somehow elluded us. But somehow I stumbled upon it, or finally recognized it, one Sunday while out and about on foot in town. I picked and culled together for you a small bouquet and took it in to you at work that day. I know how much you hated that, the fluster, the recognition, the "jig's up" flush that would rise up around your neck and fly straight into your eyes. I always thought it was sweet and part of the magic we shared. As magical as that day we found those ginko socks.

So it's coming up to winter again and I know that socks are the order of the day. I think it's time to look for my darning needle and patch up some of my heavy duty woolies, make sure they are ready for guests. No sense keeping folks from feeling comfortable when they come to visit. But no matter what others may do, I will always remember the ease with which your shoes came off, and the grand display of socks you awarded me with. It was a level of comfort, you see. You had found a place and you made it yours. Your home away from home.

It was nice to be able to help that along. My home, your special place and Ginko socks.

Your WHMB

Bataan Park, Bremerton

One of my favorite movies as a kid was the Robert Taylor war film Bataan. It had a bevy of up and coming Hollywood actors (Desi Arnez), a small raft of quality character actors (Lloyd Nolan) and a fairly tight and action packed script. The story took place in the opening days of America's Pacific war, the focus on a ragtag outfit of sailors, pilots and soldiers all doing their best to stay alive and one step ahead of the Japanese onslaught on the Bataan Pennisula in the Philippines. The dialogue did it's jinogoistic best to let the audience know that the US was good and Japanese were bad, but you had to hand it to those bad guys: they sure knew how to fight. And the record shows that in those dark early days, we were up against the ropes. This movie holds no punches and leaves you, in the final moments, in death cloud of machine gun smoke. I'm sure that the audience that was watching this film during the early days of the war felt the terror and the desperation that Taylor's character felt in that eerie, steamy jungle. Good stuff, highly recommended.

I had a chance to see Corrigedor and some of the historical sites of the Batann Death March back in the early days of my military career, but I was too busy checking out the brothels and the bars of Manila, instead. I have to admit that I was taken by that city, and found no others in my travels that thrilled me so much outside of Hong Kong. I felt less hustled there, more in tune with the people, more bold and safe in that crazy, hopped up kind of way than that I ever did in that sin city Olongopo. Manila was "cool" in a way that only big historical cities can be. I wandered the old ruins of the early fortress city, ate in out of the way cafes, hung out in bars where there were no Americans, only locals and students and such, and felt very much at home. A third world LA, without all the hype.

I remember a student I met there, Loni was her name. She insisted that would she show me the city in ways that I never would if I only hung out in the bars and movie houses. She was a nursing student at one of the local colleges. I know that I was honored and puzzled by her gesture, and that we saw things that I would have never thought to see on my own..museums and public gardens and open markets and such. It was all so grand, and sweet and all so very open. It took a while for me, a wild and crazy and sometime callow young man, to see the goodness of that much maligned town through the eyes of that very nice, very sweet young woman, but once I did it was total and complete magic. We wrote for several years after that, but she ended up meeting another man, a fellow student I think, and went on to live what I can only hope was a happy life.

So that all came to mind today when I went up the hill from the Sylvan Way library and looked out over the Olympic range from a bench at Bataan Park. Melissa and I would sit and eat lunch there, take a quick break there between shifts and her disappearing acts to handle all the duties and dates and obligations that she had to do whenever she wasn't working for us at the library. I remember her sharing a nice pork roast with me one afternoon, all wrapped in a warm tortilla, showing me that yes, she could cook. We had that in common, cooking. I suppose of all the things we kicked around that was the easiest thing for us to connect with. We certainly did a lot of that at that park. Connecting.

I don't think there was a season that we didn't sit and appreciate there. We saw the rose garden go from bud to full bloom , dealt with the rain by sitting off to the side of the road in her car, listening to Rascal Flatts and wondering if we would ever be allowed to love each other out loud. I know that we talked about life and family and Rubix Cubes and all machinations and plots that only two people in love could possible come up with. We talked hard of work, of shifting collections, of book clubs and our notoriously low book club membership. We gave a hard look at post cards and poetry and state park brochures, we spent long moments analyzing escape plans and plans that failed and those that were doomed to failure from the start. It was a place that we took the odds that life gave us into our hands and used those odds to fight off the relentless hordes of reality that fought us, and, in the end, undertook our own desperate march to the end of the line.

One of our last moments together was sitting in her car, facing that park, wondering why of all days we would get a rainy day to talk. I was still giving it my saleman's pitch, still trying to work the combination on that lock that was our friendship. The game was long over but I didn't care. Like Robert Taylor's sargeant, I was already resting in the grave of that relationship, and knew it, too, but loaded up my rhetoric and went out with both guns blazing.

Nobody can say that we didn't try.

It was all good. The roses, the poetry, the tall, tall trees, the view of the Olympics, the burritos, the long embraces, all of it. It took a long time but I was finally able to see that. No bitterness, just hard fought loyalty. All the way to the end of the line. Yes, it was good. Every last bit of it.

Your WHMB