Lacking a Sibley's, sighting a kingfisher, last day of August 09

I would have never thought to look up if it hadn't been for that strident screeching I heard coming from the neighbor's fir tree. I somehow remembered hearing that sound before, during some walk or another I took a few months back. It was late spring and I was close to home, a block or so off the water when I heard that very same sound. I looked up and there they were, two kingfishers racing their way up a side street, to some nest or observation place not too far off of the water. Seeing the kingfishers made me glad then and made me smile this morning. It was a good omen for the day. The only thing that I was lacking was the ability to write or call you, just to let you know that your favorite bird was sighted practically right outside my kitchen window.


I know that binoculars and guide books would have come in handy, but they are all packed away and so out of the way that searching for them would have been a complete waste of time. I knew that tufted little head well enough from earlier sightings, from our discussions and your passionate school calls on the subject. All that was enough for me to be able to recognize the outline, and then, with a bit of imagination and all the pictures and photographs and personal experiences I gathered over the years helped fill in the rest.


There was a time when emails would have flying back and forth, where rivalry would have prevailed and you would have, well, just might have, jumped in your car and raced over to see the show. Speaking of which, it's about time for the annual "bird show" in Portland. No guidebook needed to enjoy the Vaux Swifts return to that school's brick chimney. Seeing those kingfishers were a reminder that the fall birding season is upon us. Seems like the weather is right, that there is plenty of time afoot and that the weekends are open for a nice afternoon drive down south. Plenty of stuff to do other than birding. No one said we had to spend the entire time in town grooving on birds now, right?


Okay, just a quick post just to let you know that your favorite bird was hanging around today, and that I was around not only to witness it but that I also have enough time on my hands to pass along a "nah-nah! I had two kingfishers in my yard this morning! What about you?"


Your WHMB

Cedar Cove: the last laugh was on me, 8/29/09

For days now I have been working under my porch, taking out ant eaten timbers, replacing studs, dousing myself with bugspray, all that. It's taken it's toll but it's done. I was finishing up with braces and some overhead work when I noticed that the all the "no parking" signs finally came into play. They had been there for five days and I had wonder what they were all about. Well, this afternoon I finally found out. Kitsap Street was to be the staging area for the character parade that was the second to last highlight of the day, Cedar Cove style.

The street was teaming with life, I have to say. Beautiful old rides graced the drive, sort of like having my own mini-"Cruz", right there in front of the house. As the minutes ticked by the street became even more of an open theater, filled with signed character actors, certainly most if not all of them locals, acting out roles and characters from the novels. Key city bigwigs were present including the mayor and various council folk. Cheerleaders from South Kitsap High, local police and fire department personnel and numerous other folks involved with the Cedar Cove celebration were all milling about, waiting for the parade to begin, all laughing and grooving to the backbeat of Councilman Child's boombox blaring right in front of my house.

I have to admit it was truly a warm experience. It was one of those things, like my neighbor pointed out, that said that this town knows how to pull together when it wants to. The sprucing up of the downtown, the massive turnout both locally and across the nation, all to see this little burg, both in it's fictional and real self. All that makes me proud to be a citizen of Kitsap, of Port Orchard, in a way that I haven't felt in a long time. I have been so deep into my projects and outcast-ness that I forgot what the point was, and that is that I love this town and this house and all that this place represents.

A few months ago I wrote a post to that effect. How this house was my kid's house as well as mine, that it was the "western holdout", how it was an outpost to old dreams and a temple to old loves. But more it was what this town and this house and that view outside my door all meant to me, that this little house was home. That part was really hard to deny today with all those cars and characters and the author herself all grooving on the sunshine and great feelings that were eminating from the gathered crowd and neighborhood locals.

What's more, it reminded me of a quote that went something like this: "never apologize for your reading interests". I hooted and howled and emailed you for all I was worth when I read that Macomber book you tasked me to read four years ago. I looked around me today and see that that author and her books and this town mean a lot more to folks than my persnickity reading interests and high-hat-ness could ever possibly understand. Least ways, until this week.

For a few weeks I forgot what this hold out, this outpost, this line in the sand was all about. It wasn't a place to forget and get away from, it was a home to remember. It wasn't a house to grovel in while I awaited my fate, it was my comfort zone, my cocoon, my nest, my sanctuary. It is and will always be the place where I came home to "Papa's home". It will always be the place where you shed your shoes as you came in through my back door. It will always be the place that held me near and dear when the snows fell and the winds blew and the rains pelted the house in the dead of night. I have been warm here, loved here, validated here.

Let the world do it's worst. I am home. Home in the place where I wrote you some fairly derisive stuff about a book and a series that, by all accounts, is far more treasured than I am at the moment. Today I rediscovered my sense of humility as I stood on that porch and saw all the character players milling about with cheerleaders and civic leaders and motor heads, all loving life. Today I witnessed all the ties to my old self, to my heart and to you displayed before me in a pageant of love to a fictional place that is just as real and lived in as this place, this temple, this house of love that I've built for you here.

Ah, my love, what shall we read next?

Your WHMB

Toothbrushes in the cup

Some mornings I am quicker on the draw than others to set up my toothbrush, but generally speaking it's first thing thing I do. Something about having a fresh scrubbed mouth right off the bat sets the tone for the day. I know that my dentist would appreciate if I brushed more often, or longer, or paid even more attention to flossing than I already do. But I think of my times of really poor dental hygiene and know that what I do these days is far and away better than almost any other time of my life. They're the only teeth I have. No dentures for me, least ways, as long as I can avoid it.

To that end I am always happy to buy toothbrushes when I see them on sale, or if I'm at a big box retailer like Costco, or if I'm off food shopping at Grocery Outlet. Seems like that place always has a good deal on brushes, so I generally stock up when I'm there, since I'm there to stock up on other necessities like whole tomatoes, noodles, beans, coffee and wine. Almost sounds like frontier provisions picked up in the outpost general store. I suppose that toothbrushes should have been there, packed in alongside the salt pork and flour, for those hapless, brave people preparing to cross the Great American Desert, but I am sure that they had more important things on their minds to think about.

Looking in my bathroom cabinet I see three toothbrushes in use, something that I try to do whenever I can. It's not too unlike rotating your shoes. You want to get the best out of your brushes. It's important to air them out, or something like that. I suppose I could use the same one till the bristles were bent and ragged but what's the point when they're so inexpensive to begin with? Why not have three or four brushes going at once? When the kids were here this last summer we must have had a baker's dozen residing in that bathroom cupboard. I thought they had pretty much run through all my reserves but I think they were just brushes left over from last summer. I wonder, did I let them dry out in the cup, or did I soak them in mouthwash and store them away or did I boil them? What? I'm not for certain but mysterious and magically all of sudden there were 12 plus toothbrushes once again in the medicine cabinet the 4th of July. How wonderful is that?

Then there was that time, which I suppose is the whole point to this post, when your tooth brush was part of my cabinet culture. It wasn't on purpose, or even thought out. It wasn't planned or even made a point of. We had just come back from the Gala and you asked if I had a toothbrush you could use. Somehow this part of the story is clear in my head. Am I wrong about the date? All I know is that you asked and I rummaged around in the linen closet and came up with one for you. Brand new, in one of those tough plastic cases that take forever to unwrap.

Was it that time or the next that we stood side by side and brushed together? You said something about wanting both of us to taste fresh, for what you and I both know right here and now. No sense wasting words on that. But I remember standing there, watching you brush, knowing that that water was not running and that you found it strange and endearing and that you thought enough of it to comment on it. All the while brushing, with something like a big wink on your face. Bemusement? Awe? Giddiness? I can't say but we had no choice but to brush or bust out laughing.

I know that until the family returned your toothbrush was in my cup in the bathroom cabinet. I moved it over the little house when I took over that space and finally unloaded it around the time of the Second Coda. I know that when you came around that brush came in handy for those post coffee mornings, for those times when we had gone out for supper and you wanted to brush prior to playing our last minute parlor games and such. But more than anything those toothbrushes, standing side by side in my bathroom cabinet, were a reminder of our civility, of our respect and the pleasure we took knowing the pleasure that our clean mouths gave, not so much for ourselves but to each other.

My cabinet has three brushes going, none of them yours. But know that I have about a dozen or so brand new ones in the linen cabinet, waiting for company or family or a special friend to come by who needs to brush terribly. Maybe that new friend might think my lack of running water weird, or think it strange that I have three brush going at once. All I know is that you were a spoiler, and that you and I are eternal brush buddies, ones who can stand at the sink and scrub away, knowing that all that hard work has a purpose, and that is to prepare the way for a really good kiss.

Your WHMB

From bent twigs roses grow

I have yet to drop a summer flower on your lawn.

I have a rose that is growing in front of my kitchen window from a branch I bent while painting, and it is blooming in such a way that told me to perservere at all costs.

To that end I have a resignation letter printed out and ready to send, signed and dated for the 1st of September.

I have applications out to a regional hospital in Boise, the state of Idaho and the city of Nampa, but no call backs yet.

I had ants burrowing away in the basement and under the porch but all those problems have been dealt with and are about wrapped up. Solving problems during this time of strife is the only thing, outside of my children and writing you, that keeps me strong and makes the days fly by.

I have had a number of lookers come through the house but no buyers yet.

I have window sills left to paint and a number of window frames to touch up.

I still have plenty of boxes to fill, almost all of them needing newspaper to help complete the job.

I feel lucky to have friends who have been brave enough to snub their noses at the blockade in order to talk to me, both directly in person and through email, in order to get the full and real story about what's going on.

I have dahlias in the backyard that are blooming, I have plum and Asian pears that are ripening and a number of sunflowers that are ready to pop.

I get phone calls almost every day from Punkin, sometimes two a day if I'm real lucky.

I have found that when times get tight even the budget wines are fine, in this case the Au label from Australia and Crane Lake from California are just dandy.

I found that sometimes food needs to sit before it really hits it's stride..my lasagna needed three days to mellow and a nice bottle of Shiraz to make it really sing.

I have also found out that sipping wine and making conversation over the course of four hours is a lot more fun than knocking out a bottle without a soul in the house but me.

I love to have people around but expectations about the parameters of the relationships need to be explored and explained and agreed upon up front.

I have discovered that the phrase "a man is more than his job" most certainly applies to me this summer. I am ready to discover who this other man is other than the one that goes by "librarian".

I am excited about writing that novel, but I am also sorry that I don't have more material to work with other than the satchel of goods we generated over that long and wonderful year we shared together.

I am looking forward to a new home, a new community and a renewed relationship with my children, but I will miss being so far from you, regardless of the fact that I haven't seen hide nor hair of you in over a year.

I am a man of habit and still wake up every morning and say good morning to you, but I think you knew that already.

I know that when I leave Port Orchard I will be sad but at the same time, very, very excited about the new adventures that lay ahead.

I also know that once I am out of the region that I will be more inclined to send to you pears at Christmas and sign you up for a subscription to Sunset for your birthday and to write you letters sent certified mail, just because I want more than anything to let you know how I am doing. Besides, what better way is there to vex The Detective than to let you know that I am alive and kicking? And yes, I am sorry for him, too, as it will be very hard to give me that hairy eyeball stare of his at five hundred miles.

Know, too, that I am happy for the first time in weeks. The letter to end my career at the library is in the mail, my retirement will be pillaged once again but should be enough to carry me over to winter, and if all goes well I will be receiving a stipend from the government because I requested to be laid off. M, I may never be as wealthy as you or live in as nice of a house as you or have the religious edge that you do, but my dear, know this: that whenever you feel that your house and money and religious connections no longer speak to you or for you my door is open to you, no matter where that may be. It could take us the rest of our lives to find our way back to that place under the spreading Oregon Maple where we handed over our hearts to each other on the 27th of August in 2005, but I am willing to take that chance, that chance that filling a life with alli it's mysteries with you is better than facing a unknowable future without you.

What is time, my love, but a God given chance to live a life more fully? Why waste it? I have plenty of it. All I have is yours for the taking, even if what you get a life of watching bent roses recovering and heated coffee cups to greet the day.

Your WHMB

The enduring magic of the 27th of August

I woke up at midnight, not too much different an experience than a boy might have when the clock strikes twelve and suddenly it's Christmas morning. Sure, I had no presents to unwrap or turkey supper to tuck into or carols to sing, but it was a moment filled with anticipation, the pregnant pause before the magic starts. I took that moment of anticipation and overdue magic to shut down the house, let in the cat, turn off the tv. Somehow the movie I had been watching went past the menu and cycled over again, maybe onto it's third or fourth pass, hard to say. Somehow that bit of mundaneness was sweet in itself. Somehow starting our day with such trivialities was just was the doctor ordered.

I think of when all this started, this 27th of August stuff, and know, too, that that day was a purely mundane day as well. I wrote you the night before, and for the life of me can't remember what prompted me to send you that poem. No matter, it was bold move beyond measure, and to think that you read it, loved it, sent back a reply ("My own Cyrano") and, to top it all off, asked me to meet you at IKEA to look at dining room tables was anything beyond what I had anticipated for that very run of the mill Saturday. I had been working on the house for weeks and needed a break. Somehow I skirted my typical Friday night beer drinking the night before and was lucid, perky, unlined. I think of how I've been treating myself these last few weeks..hard working, disciplined only in knocking off at six and prepping supper and having my wine..and wonder, if that day was today, would I be able to pull it off?

I have to look back at that man, at that man who was clearly in love with a totally restricted and off limits woman. I worked with you, in some small way supervised you and to top it all off, you were not only Christian but married with children. I don't know what it was that drew us together but it was there from the start. It wasn't just me, as the letters that went back and forth clearly spelled out. Somehow that moment, finding that return email was the final brick in the cornerstone that we had been laying out for years. Somehow all those moments of side by sideness at the check-in desk, of talking about kids and Colorado and road trips all added up. Somehow all that business of integrety and plum trees and swap meets added up to a one man and one woman who needed to meet in the parking lot of IKEA that day. It was a strange sort of math, but all the columns added up.

I think of that day often, of your hands covering my eyes while I talked to you on the phone, of wandering the aisles of the furniture store and playing "house" with their staff, of my raggedy quilt and how it felt just right to sit on it, sip malts, tell tales, all under that Oregon Maple tree. Whenever I see Bartlett pears I think of that long drive to Tacoma Boys, and when I think of seals I think of that one we spied off in the distance there on the shore of Point Defiance Park. I think, more, of how we wrapped that day, how we walked arm in arm back to our cars, how we hugged before we parted and let that first kiss sort of land. I can touch my throat where that kiss of yours skidded off. I can still feel the scar that that brand left behind and cherish almost more than anything else I own.

Yes, I have to wonder if I would be up to the challenge if you gave me that challenge to meet you today. I am just as broke today was I was that day. If I had to find money for the bridge and to buy malts and to put gas in the tank I would have to pass. What if I hadn't seen that email you sent me till the afternoon? What if I had just jumped straight on into my projects and missed that opportunity to meet? What if your afternoon had been truncated, what if the family wanted to meet you in Sumner to look at furniture instead of hanging out at the fair, which was only blocks from where we were sitting? What's more, what if you and I never met? Would today be just another day? Would your life have been graced with the magic we found that day under that maple tree? Would you have ever found the time and place in this life to give your heart away like you did that day?

I think of the math and all the variables, how you fell upon the ad in the paper that you, in the end, applied to, how I was picked to run the Paging Department earlier that year, and so, in turn, how I was qualified to assist my colleague across the water in Port Orchard with substitute interviews. I think of planetary alignments and birth orders and chance trips, I think of all the roads that we traveled to end up in Kitsap, of all the squandered moments and breaths taken and chances dashed and bits of luck squandered that drove us to the branch that day to meet. But more, I think of all the moments and breaths and bit of luck that got us together under that maple tree, the ones that allowed us to ignore the children and the religious quirks and the fact that it was damn near impossible for us to do what we wanted to do, and that was love.

No one was going to allow it. The world was dead set against it. But we drove to Tukwila and met in the noisy parking lot of IKEA, not so much to snub our noses at the world, but to see if what we saw and felt and knew in our heart of hearts was real.

We found out, over time, that real is as real does.

I woke up last night at midnight and contemplated what I wanted to do to celebrate this day. I have work to finish up, sure, but I did put together a sign and posted it on the road. I made a pineapple shake and later on I'll shake out my quilt and take a drive, someplace close, someplace we graced. As I said, if this day today was that day then the chance are that I would have not been able to meet you, but then again, see, it was a magical day that day, a day not too much unlike Christmas. We had ALL the gods and angels and even lesser petty demons rooting for us, sprinkling our path to Sumner with love and mischief and magic. We were meant to meet, to be, to love, even if just for a little while.

But today, today is the 27th of August. Know that no matter where you go or where you are or who you are with that you are loved.

Always, your WHMB

The ennobling, humbling power of disappointment

Almost every week now for the last four weeks I've gotten a mysterious phone call. Usually the call comes in in the morning, a bit past coffee time. It's always when I'm out of the house or when the cell phone is in the car, whatever. Always a ring through but never a message. I hooked up an answering machine to the landline a couple weeks ago just so I can capture any stray messages that come through, and even that phone just gets the ring and the hang up.

Today I jotted down that number and attempted to do a reverse directory search on it. Found out it was a cell but there was little else. Registered out of Silverdale, some smaller phone concern, not Verizon or Sprint or whatever. Yeah, big mystery, or so I thought.

My main concern, at first, was that someone was trying to get ahold of me from work but had not left a message due to my restricted status. Then I thought it might have been you, not wishing to leave an electronic trail. So I called back and hung up, just like my caller has been doing to me and got nothing in return.

So instead of wondering too much more about it I did a check on calls that I've received in the last month and checked that number against calls that I had made. There it was. An old friend had been calling me and hanging up, and that was that. I knew from the July 3rd call out that it had been the Snake Lady all along. I suppose she was calling to let me know that she was around and yet, at the same time, not willing to take that leap into deep friendship again. I can understand that. And considering all that I have learned over the last few years I can understand exactly what is happening here, and know pretty much what I can and cannot do.

I know that I don't have the time or the inclination to engage myself or my heart again, not so close to leaving. I just can't make that leap, to give myself away in the big way that she wants or needs me to give. So there. I understand what's happening all too clearly because I have already lived this story, because we already walked down that path, but, in this case, I am playing your role. I have made up my mind not to start again, just like you did, but in this case I am not so much going back to something as much as I am moving forward and away from complications.

Boise is a lure right now, dangling in front of me with promises of time with my children. I know, too, that you can relate to that story, because your kids were everything to you when we broke off our relationship years ago. I know, too, that you took a vow of silence, that you can't find a way to communicate for if you do you have to report it back to The Detective. So, what was I thinking that it was you on the phone, leaving dangling, broken received calls? I should have known better, but still. A man can wish.

Wishing I do a lot of, M, but wishing doesn't make for good conversations.

Those phone calls, then, weren't from you. Major disappointment. But then again, by not returning the phone calls that I've been getting I have effectively passed along the very same dose of disappointment that I had been getting. Misery loves company, something like that. Somehow it's all one large and vicious circle of sadness and regret and missed chances. All so much more than a mere number left in my register of missed calls.

Your WHMB

A softly heated coffee cup, if there is such a thing

I wake up to the cat these days, either to his need to head out or to answer his supplications to come back in. Somedays I feel more owned than owner, but that's okay. It's a form of love, not quite as satisfying as waking up next to a lover or even hearing the rustling of my children in the next room, but still, it's something. So, after the cat comes the dawn, and then, when everything is in it's proper place, then eight o'clock comes around. I always know when it's eight, wether or not I'm sleeping or hungover or been hard at it for hours. I just know.


Eight o'clock these days brings morning rituals. The computer needs to come up, the cat needs to be fed, the coffee needs to be ground, the water needs to be heated. All these needs need to be met. I suppose in taking care of all these things, inanimate or otherwise, I am somehow validating my place on this planet, or, at the very least, anchoring down the morning in my house. My house. Goodness. Right now this house is a quiet thing. I hear the ticking of clocks, battery run or otherwise, and outside of that, not too much. Sure, there is the pink noise of computer fans and refrigerators and toilets filling. There's traffic outside and the occasional clock tower bong and clang. But otherwise this house is still. I suppose that's one of the reason's why I like my morning ritual. For a moment the house is alive with sound, with movement. The only thing missing is the radio or music. Maybe I need to be build that in. Yet another need to be fulfilled.


So the coffee water boils as I watch my wonky computer struggle to provide the basic minumum of service. I throw heated water on the grounds, and then, as a nod to you, I splash hot water in my cup to the rim.


I think of that gesture and wonder if not for you would I have ever learned or bothered or wondered about the power of that simple act. It's not as if when we go out into town anybody heats up a coffee cup. I don't go to Starbuck's or Tully's and get a heated cup. Maybe in the midst of a breakfast or post 2 AM rush I'll get a hot cup at Denny's or Norm's, but usually it's cold porcelain, heated briefly by a fairly lightweight cup of joe. Does it matter much? Is it really that much of a deal?


I think of all our talks about coffee, about how coffee came in the door with you four years ago in a paper cup. I think of all the times we shared coffee, out of a thermos on the road, on a park bench before work, in restaurants on the sly or during mornings when you had a moment and I still had time before my shift. I think of in particular of one evening. We had a few moments so I brewed up a pot of espresso. We heated the cups that night, which called for an extra burner. We took on that harsh pot and hit the road, took on Trader Joe's and headed home in the rain. You had a scare, saw a neighbor which I am sure took the edge off the fun. But I remember the thrill of slipping away that night, of driving off in the dark, of sitting in the parking lot waiting for that neighbor or business partner or whomever to go away. Palpatating hearts. Sweaty armpits. What a rush.


But it was the heated coffee cup we always came back to after that. I have two photos that go back and forth with, as far pictures I like to have up of you. One is of you slicing clafouti on your last day at work, the other is one where you came by in the morning. We had a staff meeting pending, and you rushed in to get a cup of coffee. I barely had time to press and shower and all that, but I brewed us up, and, in the midst of all that prepping, barechested I took a photo of us. The next one, for good or ill, didn't come out. Too bad. We always loved those smooching shots.


Those coffee cups are in our hands. They were warmed, slowly. The coffee was rushed, but, then again, so were we. We were all about time. Our time was fast paced, all the way down the line. So much a contrast to my mornings now. I wake, let in the cat, throw him some tuna, read the news online, sip my coffee from a heated cup. I look up at my denuded bookshelves and know that I'll be taking that ritual to some far off place fairly soon. Maybe my mornings will be graced with noise, then. Maybe I'll hear the footpads of my children waking, getting ready for school. Maybe I'll finally wise up and take on some new company, learn to live again.

But then, maybe, just maybe I'll need that quiet for a bit longer. Maybe I'll need that new space and that silence and that warm coffee cup to help get me through that upcoming novel. Maybe I'll need that quiet to channel into those coffee fueled moments we used to share, the ones, in the end, that were graced with slowly, softly warmed coffee mugs.


Your WHMB

Yahtzee 40th Anniversary box, Goodwill 08/09

It took a moment to realize what it was. The box was oversized, colorful in a way that said to me that it should have gotten an award with Graphis magazine. I picked it up thinking "Parcheesi", I don't why. Maybe it was the wild colors of the container. It wasn't what I expected. You know Yahtzee. That orange and white box is pretty standard, and it tends to blend into the game selection in places like Goodwill. As a matter of fact I found the everyday kind of box of Yahtzee right after that, but once I opened that colorful, strange box I was both pleased and surprised at what I found.

Instead of the standard plastic dime sized Yahtzee bonus chips and white dice I was shown backgammon quality accessories. The red dice were oversized and mottled, the cup was almost luxurious in it's faux leather padding and to top it off, it came with a circular, felt-lined, dice "pit". It was all too Las Vegas, all too high end for me at the moment. Then I closed it up and took it with me. There was a special going on toys that day. I had three bucks on me and I needed at least two of them. Toys were a dollar and well, I just had that and bit more to buy the season opener of Twin Peaks.

I know that I really don't need to add to the bulk for the upcoming move. Maybe I'll unload my old Yahtzee game, but, then again, maybe I won't. Maybe it will land in the wooden box along with everything else that was a touchstone that winter. No, really, it was more the idea of upping the ante, of taking that beloved game we played and loved and hassled over to a new level. Somehow I don't think I would be any better a Yahtzee player now than I was then with you. You always had something on me when it came to dice games. What was the final outcome, by the way, when it came to acey ducey? Who was the leader there at the end?

Tonight I have ox-tails on the stove. I ran into my neighbor and set a dinner date for next week. I took flowers over to Mi Novia's house only because it had been so long since I had done anything sweet like that and because we finally saw each other after months of stubborn separation. I took a cruise around to all the standard points on the Stations of the Cross compass and once againd didn't see you. I took a long nap, went to Walmart and secured a one-day crabbing license and then, after a trot across the parking lot, found out that my paid membership to that somewhat silly program at Hollywood video was still coming out of my bank account. So to that end I secured two films to go along with the one that I had just bought at Walmart moments before. Overall it was a grand day.

Funny how the little things, things like Yahtzee boxes and ox-tails and sunny days and naps make me think of you. The first thing I did when I came out of the ether of my nap this afternoon was say "Hello, M". I hope that someday, if that ever comes to that, that your face will be the one that I see if I ever have to come out of the ether "for reals". No matter, even with Mi Novia keeping me company yesterday all I did was think of was you. Nothing against her, but everyone, baby, everyone is a stand-in for you. Pity.

So, here's to good dice tosses and to good second hand finds. Here's to sunny days and to the drummer's who are out there to beat out the march to the place where they tie you to the pole, the pole that faces the firing squad that I get to face this week. Here's to a good crabbing sessions, to buyers who are real and truly interested in my home and to jobs that need to happen in Idaho in order for me to see my Punkin again on a regular basis.

But mostly here's to Yahtzee, to our old,stolen autumn nights and to you having to run home to beat the clock. It is no longer eight thirty, but darlin', when you see that game come out of the cupboard at home, do you still think of the time restrictions that you once had to meet?

Your WHMB

Between Mary Mac and Dundee

I don't know why this morning was any different, why I felt it was important to get out there, drive, see if I could see you. It was just another weekday, just another soft, late summer morning. The cat needed to come in and, well, after he padded around awhile he settled in next to me. No incentive to get up with that kind of action going on, but I did. Figured I needed to try out eight o'clock, too.


The crowd out and about in the Woods at eight is a different one than the ones I've been finding at ten or later in the morning. I never seem to hit your district until after coffee, but this morning the boulevard was teeming with walkers, folks on their way to work, delivery men, contractors. It made for a fairly inconspicuous drive. Pretty morning, made it easy to do the full tour. Parked awhile, thought I'd wait to see if you would cross my path but thought better of it. Coffee called.


I have to think of the last time I saw you, the dismissive wave, the hard walk you took, the long drive I made afterwards. I think of when I came up on you, there between Dundee and Mary Mac, and how, within minutes of seeing you, you were gone. It's feels like forever since that morning. It somehow makes me wonder if that's the way we'll go out, if that's when we'll say we saw each other last.


Or not. We talked on the phone once, sure. We crossed paths, sort of, when you tore my signs down, yes. And maybe, just maybe, you've stumbled upon my words to you here or at the Accumulate Man site. I don't know. But what I do know is that life is short and paths, the older you get, get more tangled up they get. I think of all the people that I have seen again that I never expected in my wildest dreams to see and so that tells me that you and I will see each other again.

As our friend Friar Tuck made it clear to me in a letter the other day, our story is not finished. She felt there were too many loose ends, something like that. Somehow I believe her, and that's why I got up before my coffee water boiled this morning to see if I could see you. Walking, driving, whatever. Just to say that this morning, on the eve of our most favorite day, that I saw your face. Even that little thing would have gladdened my heart in a way that it hasn't been in a long, long time.


Your WHMB

Cooking with Jane: cookbooks and the reasons to buy them, 08/09

I was sitting in the cookbook aisle of Goodwill the other day when another one of the regulars either walked up to me and started talking or was just talking to himself out loud to himself. He tends to do that, walk around and talk to whomever he pleases. He's tried to engage me in chatter many times but I haven't had anything to say to him as his comments and his "help" are really too all over the map for me. But the thing he said the other stuck with me and someday I might have to tell him so, and that was "it's not the price of the cookbooks but the high price of groceries that'll get you". Something like that. I am sure that must ring true for those who regularly shop at Central Market!

I have been lucky with cookbooks lately. I tend to find them when my friend the Bookstore Owner is not prowling about. I guess that this time off has had it's benefits. I get to hit up the books during hours that I would normally be helping patrons. I sometimes feel a bit guilty about that, but then again, as I've mentioned to friends in emails and to family on the phone, it's not as if I haven't been working. Today's Goodwill run was combined with a run to Ace hardware. The basement door project that I started on Monday is still in progress, but the framing is done, the door is hung, the supplies are laid in and so all I need to do now is fill in the "blanks".

But back to those cookbooks. You would think, after that days long event that I slogged through a couple weeks ago boxing and moving cookbooks that I would want to hold back awhile. That I would refuse to buy any more cookbooks until I landed someplace. But no! Today I went in, in some small way just to get out of the heat for a bit, and took in the cookbooks and wow, did I score! But it's been that way almost every day almost for two weeks now. Every time I go in it's some new selection on the shelf, some great run of titles, some classic or another to buy. Today I went in to chill out and came out with five cookbooks instead. And on top of that I also found a half dozen Nordic Ware pans. I came out with four, but still. I did a price check online and found out that they would have set me back thirty dollars a piece retail. My twenty bucks spent was all to the good.

I suppose that I could stop buying cookbooks and someday I suppose I will. I've said the same about record albums and, to my credit, rarely buy them anymore (but oooh, you should have seen the handful I scored last week..tons of old Celtic stuff! Wow!) I tend to buy cookbooks in the same fashion I buy music. For instance, there are recordings I buy just because I know an artist, or because I like the sound of the titles of the songs, or because I like the label or the kinds of instruments the band is playing. The same kind of categorical reasoning applies to cookbooks. I might like the type or style of cooking the books are covering. Or I might like the author, or just the way that an author puts together a sentence. Sometimes they're new and graphically pleasing, sometimes they're beat and just something I have to own.

I tend to take my findings over to the furniture area and find a couch that's comfy and then plow through them. Today I had a big stack to consider. One was an Emeril cookbook on New Orleans style cooking. Another, put out by Fine Cooking Magazine, was filled with great how to illustrations and great Thanksgiving recipes. Another one was strictly recipes for pizzas and savory pies from around the world. I also found a great Kathy Casey cocktail book and, to top it all off, a nice William Sonoma compilation of Italian recipes.

I know that I already have a ton of cookbooks, and I do really, truly owe it all to you. But today's haul was like almost any cookbook score I come across these days. Strange as it is, there is always some reference to something we've made or talked about doing. There is that connection to food that we shared long ago, of ideas tossed about and dreamed about that still call out whenever I pick up a new title. I go through each new find and wonder "what would M think about this recipe?" or "is this something that we could make for company or the kids?" I go through the motions knowing that Punkin and I will more than likely get around to knocking out all those interesting looking recipes long before I ever get around to making them with you, but all the same. A man can dream.

I tend to dream alot, but it's that visionary mindset that got me here, that landed me here in the Puget Sound oh so many years ago. It wasn't just happenstance that we met. It was practically planned from the beginning. It was all those Colorado trips I took when I was in the service. It was that seminal experience in discovering the joys of Seattle the summer before I started graduate school. It was landing that job in Everett after The Boy was born, it was finally realizing my dream job with SPL, but moreso, it was finally being fed up with that commute to Seattle that set me on the final approach to meeting you. Had we not landed in Seattle my Estranged One's sister would have never come to live here. If she hadn't worked in Seattle she would have never met her ex. Had she and her ex not bought a house in Belfair we would not have been inclined to buy a house so far from Seattle.

I think of all the reasons why I am here, and they are as numerous as the reasons why I buy all the cookbooks that I tend to do. I think of those finds, so random, so chancey, and then I think of you and think "wow, there is a god, a trickster god out there who really has a sense of humor". I met you pretty much the same way as I tend to find those cookbooks: for a reason. Those cookbooks are on the shelf to be looked at, used, put to work. My relationship with you was to teach me things, to help me grow, to make me move on with my life. My cookbooks, well, like anything else that teaches you things, are there to help me gather together new skills and go on to the next level of cooking. You, my love, took me to the next level, too. Without you I would have never grown, learned to soften, learn to love the way that I have. Certainly, after we broke apart I crashed and burned, but I have managed to rise up again, better, stronger and more self aware. I hope that the lessons that I learned from you teach me to be a better man, kinda like the way, because of knowing you, I learned to make a mighty fine cheesecake, clafouti, and creme brulee.

Today I found a handful of cookbooks and a pile of Nordic Ware and thought of you. So, Jane, my dear, my kitchen goddess, grab your apron and into the kitchen with you! We have alot of cooking to do, dontcha know!

Your WHMB

Cedar Cove, Debbie and the must read

One thing I can be thankful for during this long leave period and that is that I am not obliged to read anything by our town's favorite author. I have to admit, once was enough, but then again, I am not one to judge an author by one reading. What do I know? The gal is popular world wide, with books regularly appearing on the NY Times best sellers list. There has to be something to it all. I just wish I could see it.

We are getting ready to celebrate Cedar Cove Days here in Port Orchard. I don't know what to think of that, either. The city fathers and mothers are expecting a swarm of folks from out of town and around the world to descend on our little burg, ostensibly to wander around with Cedar Cove maps and try to match up the fictional places with the real thing. I am happy, in a large way, that my house has not figured into the drama. I suppose in some small way it did, years ago, but it wasn't quite enough to warrant an eternity in Debbie's tomes. Whew.

It was at that Gala back in 2005 that it all started. I suppose it ended there, too. My career of reading anything to do with Cedar Cove. Nonetheless all good things have a beginning, and I say good, as it was fodder for emails for a good long while. Not in the way that Dekker was. That was a bust and you know it. But Debbie's book, at this point I can't remember exactly which one it was that you purchased from her that night ("all proceeds go to the Foundation!") but you tasked me with reading it, too. How could I not go along with it, considering you were such a trooper when I asked you to read that one piece about Paraguay?

So I took on the task as one might take on a battery of unknown shots, just to see what kinds of reactions I would get. I got myself cozy and dove it. I have to admit it was good in a pedestrian kind of way, in the way that all good fictional cheese is. Cheese whiz. Instant beach food. A tasty read if you wanted to really shut down and not be serious. But that book was. Filled with characters that had lives and problems and love interests. It was a regular soap opera in print, filled with real howlers. I couldn't stay in bed and take that book on alone. I got up regularly and wrote you ("where are you? Did you read page so and so yet?") and then went back to reading. Laughing. Scratching my head.

Dumbfoundedness was the name of the game. I couldn't quite see the appeal, but read that book to the last page. A promise made was a promise kept. I mean, we were a reading group and all good reading groups must read what they are assigned. Thank goodness as we went on to reading many other wonderful authors and titles. But that takes me back to Debbie. I can say that I met her, made her laugh, which was return on her investment to me. I can say that I picked up one of her titles, which will further the name and lore of all things Port Orchard. I can say that I've eaten at her cafe, listened to her speak, and watched, not participated, in one of the biggest road shows to ever hit this burg.

But what makes my whole relationship with Cedar Cove and Debbie all so magical is that it started years before, well before any politico or Chamber type ever thought to have an event named after a fictional town. We took that reading seriously, as seriously as anything ever tasked to us. But we had a special edge. I wasn't commanded, and there was no payoff. Well, I suppose there was. And that was the eternal thanks for being a good sport and reading something that you picked and chose for us to read.

What's next, Professora?

Your WHMB

"Love you out loud" Rascal Flatts, Goodwill '09, Bataan Park '06 and life in-between

You know that a song is catchy when you wake up and it's playing in your head. What was it? 12:30? I was thirsty from too much curry and wine and the lights were still on all over the house. I had been watching a strange Hong Kong sci-fi film earlier and had fallen asleep. I woke up knowing that the cat had to come in, that my teeth needed to be brushed and that I was parched. It was then that that song hit me. The chorus came in loud and clear.



It was long overdue finding that album. I came across it last Saturday at Goodwill. I was doing my daily prowl for cookbooks and movies and decided to hit up the cd's, too. Don't generally because of the price break but it's not retail so there. Apparently it was part of that day's restock. Melt. I had never seen Rascall Flatts albums out there before. Wasn't interested in any of their albums but that one. I suppose to have seen me discover it would have been a treat. A boy on Christmas morning was definitely the look I had on my face.



It's was that song, though, that made it such a big deal. Love you out loud. You told me, oh, back in November of '06 that you put that album on hold for me. We were sitting in your car. It was rainy out that day. You told me that you wanted me to hear that one song. That that song was how you felt, that no matter what happened between us that you still felt that way. I suppose I couldn't wait, or got peevish or something but after a few months I took the record off my hold list. Regretted it, as I couldn't remember who or what it was that I was looking for. One day I came across it on a hold list, not the album but the song on C/W compliation. I stole away to the librarian's room, jacked that album into a portable deck and was transported back to that moment at Bataan Park when you told me about it.



I know that this blog is just what that song is about. I know that it must seem out of turn at times, as I give so much away here, but hon, with these words I am letting the world know of my devotion, that I am still in love with you, and that no matter what happens, no matter where I go or what I do that if I had my druthers, I would love you out loud, too. These words, stumbled on by few or many is my platform to stand on, to shout it out to the world "I love you, M!"



Finding that record was beyond magical. I sat in my car and jacked in that cd, forwarded it to that song and there you were. Thanks for thinking of me, for putting that record on hold. Sorry I couldn't wait for it then, but waiting, well, that's what I do best.


Your WHMB


Love You Out Loud by Rascall Flatts

"I, I've always been a little shy
I’ve always been the quiet type till now
And I, I, I, I never let my feelings show
I never let anybody know
Just how much I was so deep in love
But now that you’re in my arms

Chorus I’m gonna stand on a rooftop, climb up a mountaintop

Baby, scream and shout I wanna sing it on the radio, show it on a video
Baby, leave no doubt I want the whole world to know just what I’m all about
I love to love you out loud
You keep bringing out the free in me
What you do to my heart just makes me melt
And I, I, I, I don’t think I can resist
But I’ve never been one to kiss and tell
Our love is true can’t be subdued
So I’m gonna let out a yell

(Repeat Chorus)

Bridge

Baby, I want the whole world to see
Just how good your love looks on me

(Repeat Chorus)

Baby, I love to love you out loud
Yeah, I love to love you out loud "

Creased photographs, grey light and drives not taken, August '06,'09

As opposed to drives taken, but that comes later.


I have a photo by the side of my bed. I have not gotten to the point where I am marching solo through life, or where folks are not coming through my house as if they own the place, so, on occasion, it does come down and gets secreted away in my sock drawer. But when it does it rests next to the "Jane, Patron saint of Cookbooks" shot and the sliver of the photo of you eating curry at my kitchen table that is folded around the inside of a juice glass. The wavyness of that glass makes for a sort of 3-D effect, which is uncanny and joyful all at once.


No, the photo that is next to my bed is the one I showed you the last time we met. It was folded and tucked away in my wallet. I had given it to you once, framed. We had a spat and were breaking up, one of the half dozen or so times we split up before you first coda. I figured that that photo, one you said looked like a pretty content couple, would somehow help you see. You had things to figure out, the tide was turning against us and I knew that photo wasn't going to change the course of events, but I wanted you to have it, to have that artifact as a reminder of our times and what we were together and that was content.


But life is not about resting on laurels, about contentment. It is about struggle and striving and the eternal search for happiness. Sometimes ours, sometimes somebody elses. In this case, it was neither mine nor yours that we were seeking, it was your partner's. We had to give the relationship, the happiness, the contentness over to him in order for him not to be a broken man. He held the trump card even if, for the moment, you had the photo.


You passed that photo back to me amongst other things turning that tumultuous fall of '06. I cannot remember if it came back to me in the Fossil bag with that purple folder or not. One thing for certain, when I saw it I knew that the spell was broken, that the dame with large hat had fled the scene, that the double sunset had lost it's magic. I knew that that photo, once framed and lovingly handed over to you, would have to rest and refind it's magic elsewhere.


And so it has. I took a drive to Kopachuck and sat on the sand where those two lovers in the photo sat. I took that photo out of the frame, folded it and stuck it in my wallet. Over time it creased and took on the edges of a worn object, an unknown cargo without a slip case, a loaded weapon if there ever was one to be carried while my Estranged One was still about. But it traveled up and down the coast with me, occasionally swapped out for lesser things, until the day I took it out and shared it with you.


I look at that day, the day I showed you that photo, the day you saw your Pendleton box of letters, as the day you saw the Holy Grail. That, or the leavings of an obsessed man. Neither, I suppose, more the relics of an age, more the keepings of a devoted man. As Friar Tuck told me in a letter, if you weren't such a great lady my devotion to you would be dubious. But when I woke up this morning in that grey predawn light, it was all I could do to jump in the car and throw one of the first dahilas of the season on your lawn. I looked over to that photo, reframed, set by my bed and just said "good morning, M", instead.

Know that some nights later, in a fit of wine and pique, I took that drive to your street, parked the car, and dropped a small piece of copper studded rock in your garden. Somehow that devotion needed a reminder that I was still out there, carrying a torch that somebody needed to carry, if not so much a reminder of our days, as a study of what it means to love and carry that love. Others have done it before me. That photo and I are just part of long tradition.


Let the grey light come. I will wake up and study it and look over, see the creases in photo stock and know that it is only one more morning, one more dawn to get through. All days begin with something, and mine begin with a good morning to you.


Your WHMB

A tree in the distance and a line in the sand, Cedar Heights track, 2005-2009

"Gee, mom, why are your shoes so red?"

2005. It was pretty dry summer that year. Not so much hot but just lacking in rainfall. Typical Northwest August. I was hitting the track after work back then, getting in laps whenever I could. It didn't take long before the results started showing. One thing lead to another and before I knew it I was walking almost every day. Dropped two pants sizes and was working towards losing the third before life took a strange turn and I started back up the scale again. Happy to say that my weight is back down once again, and that I am comfortably sloppy in size 38's. Nothing tight about them now, but for awhile, I hate to say, "forties" were looking mighty tempting. Thank goodness for annual checkups and vanity.

The Cedar Heights J high track has played a big part in helping keep me honest about my walking time and my mileage. Four laps, one mile, fifteen or so minutes. On a nice summer afternoon it's not too hard to knock out twelve or sixteen laps. I would rather walk the boulevard but that "round and round" action also makes for a nice bit of meditative bliss. Plus every time I come around the track and start to head south again I see "my" tree up ahead. It's there, above the distant tree line, and over the years it's gained a bit of height. And for that I am happy. It's marking time by growing and so am I.

That track is pretty popular. Over the years I have shard that track with not only locals, coworkers and pals but my family, too. Sad to say it was never a really good time that way, as we were always anxious when the younger kids were out of eyesight so somebody always had to stop their exercise for the day to watch them. So in the end it was never really much of a walk as it was a family outing. Not bad in itself if that was the intention. Somewhere I lost connection to that, that the track was our time out. I kept falling back on how my needs were not being met and so I lost track of everybody else's. Somehow I saw that today while I watching other families walking and talking and goofing off with their kids. Somehow I lost my way, which is damn hard to do on a circular track, but there you have it.

But things change. We know that all too well.

I remember that August, the one where you would magically appear seemingly out of nowhere when I was out doing my laps. You would always somehow find a reason to go out grocery shopping and would hop in the car to seek me out. For me the joy was in making the turn at the bottom of the track and see you coming up out of the draw. There were days when you would fairly run to catch up to me, never mind that I was already heading up the track towards you. We would do a turn or three, just enough time to chat and let each other know..know what, at the time, I couldn't tell you what we were trying to say...but there you have it. We made time. We talked about whatever it was that we found to talk about, there always something to talk about at the time, total exploratory chats, but on occasion we would find that there were things we couldn't budge on, that we couldn't make exceptions for, and that's when we would slow down and scratch out a line in the sand.

I think of those lines, how we maintained our convictions, how we kept to our standards, to our values. We did have an immense amount of integrity, darling, no matter what others thought about us and our wild actions later on. We held the line when it came to the kids. We saw that family was important, more important than us, and for that I am glad.

I thought I saw that, anyway, at the time. I did those drives to Boise to see my kids, I stayed on the property when the family came back, I did what I could do for the family when they were here but somehow I couldn't see over the horizon, or even as far as that distant tree, and see those things that I really needed to see. Frankly I couldn't see what it was that you saw. I suppose I never had the chance to do that, not really. My family decamped that August of '05, my bed was vacated, but not yours. You had little or less to repair than I did, and so you did. Me, instead of repairing my relationship I did a Sherman's March on the remains of my marriage. I tore up track and burned down the estate. I let my hurt and my anger and my pride lead the way. I burned a path all the way to today and you, well, M, you still live where you live and live the life that you lived before all this started.

I saw that tree in the distance today as I made my way around the track and realized that somehow, somewhere I was given back my far reaching vision. I can see where all this, the house, you and me, my pride, my arrogance, my wistfulness, has gotten me. In truth I found that out at 2:30 this morning. I woke up to a very quiet and empty house. I took that march all the way to the sea and once I got there I had to stop and watch the sun come up. Alone. Nothing wrong in that, I suppose, if I was single and didn't have a family, but darlin', I should have listened to you a long time ago. "Be brave like me" you told me that one September morning back at Bataan Park. Had I done that, laid down my pride, erased that line in the sand I had made for the actions of my Estranged One, I would have never grown, never chased you down, never took the hit for old letters and this blog. Sometimes those lines in the sand are more valuable and more experiential than a doctoral degree.

Somehow those old faded lines in the sand never got crossed. Not until this summer. The ones that say that family is important are finally being honored. The house is being worked on every day. Folks are regularly coming through looking at it, and every day I do box runs and fill those boxes up. I have applications out there, I keep my eye on Idaho real estate and talk to my kids on the phone as regularly as their schedules allow. I may never get back together with the Estranged One, but that's not the point. I want to go somewhere that has a dirt track close by, someplace where I can walk till I sweat myself silly. Someplace where I can take my kids and then, when they need me or want me I can say to hell with my three or four miles a day and play with them the way that I should have years ago.

Years ago we scratched out a line in the sand at the Cedar Heights track. That one, for me, anyway, said that I would love you forever. Just know, M, that no matter where I go or what I do that that line is still there, etched in the red dirt track of my heart. You can try to rub it out, time can do it's best to erase it, but you know, I walk that track every day in my mind and know that it's still there, just like that tree in the distance. You keep coming up, every time I hit the curve, and like that tree, you are the distant vision, are one of the many grand things that I honor that make this walk through life worthwhile.

Your WHMB

Saars, green bananas and the unused list, 2005, 2009

It is well known that I am a champion of Saars. In a town filled with grocery stores I still manage to find my way there fairly regularly, even though well before I get there I cross paths with two other markets, one of which is a discount grocery, too. But see, I found out the hard way that you shouldn't spread you market affections around. One day I was shorted twenty bucks at the till and it was never corrected by the manager. I never went back and have once again resumed my love affair with Saars.

It's not the kind of store you want to go to if you want sexy lighting or voluptous vegetables. You certainly don't go there if you are looking for all sorts of top flight goods or products. But the prices are resonable, their health food section is hard to beat, their vegetable prices the best in town and their meat deals respectable. Since I tend to shop the perimeter of markets anyway I found that that place takes care of me. They always have exceptional wine deals, their checkers are pleasant and when I go there I generally find everything on my list.

That list thing is what brings me to this post today. I took you there once, or rather, we met there once after work on a Sunday. You had work, actually, but I needed to go shopping and we decided to meet there. You had a list of things to get and decided to take the plunge. I know now that to shop there was a bit of stretch, but you stretched alot of things back then, all in the name of research.

So you met me there in the parking lot. Everytime I pull up I see you there, late in the afternoon, September sun late in the sky. We walked in, you with list in hand, me with my heart in my throat, but we grabbed a couple baskets and away we went. We walked through, doing more talking than shopping, stopping to price break frozen shrimp, to check on the fitness of bananas, to see about ice cream and deli items. We strolled through, commenting on this, analyzing that, but in the end your list was filled and we left. Good time all the way around.

It was later that you told me that the list was largely missed, that you saw what you needed but got caught up in the words, instead. You were there in body and but your soul was soaring. Never had you had the experience or pleasure of having a man along on a shopping trip, one so caught up in the pleasure of grocery shopping. It was always you, you and the girls, but never once did your man go along for the ride. I suppose now, in his newly created being he doing it, or maybe that stopped a while back, too, knowing that once again he had managed to hammer down the deal. But at the time it was something fresh and new. What an experience it was for you, not so much seeking out the deals but having someone there to talk to, and not just about the perfection of bananas and the ify-ness of mangos.

Everytime I go there I see you, see you milling about the fruit, sniffing this, squeezing that. I go there to shop because I like it, but like so many other things in this little town of mine, I go there to visit days long past, to see the image of you amongst the produce aisles, to witness once again the thrill of a woman pleased, pleased with a life imagined.

Your WHMB

The Lovers, the lovers and Lautrec

Awhile back, on Accumulate Man, I posted an image of a Lautrac print I had never seen before. I wanted something to go along with a post, something that had two people sleeping in a bed, and came up with a nice print. Later on I came across a different study, same couple, but far more amorous than the the one that I used. I suppose that one came after the other. Sort of like zipping up your pants after putting on your trousers.

I carried that image around in my head and then, for some reason, came across this painting. I think of that couple that Lautrec studied, then see these two, studying the Lautrec, or maybe studying the lovers. I look at those two, wistful, entwined, obviously in love or some emotional variation of that, and know that somehow they are connecting, not only with the painter but with the subject matter. Do they see themselves in that painting? Or are they still fresh and new and the whole notion of being "lovers" is still in it's awkward infancy?

I see those two paintings and then think of us. I see us in those pieces the way that that couple above possibly sees themselves, or wish to see themselves. I think of that phrase you said you'd use if you were asked if we kissed ("And how!") and then think of where we didn't go. You once told me, as we stood over the trunk of your car when I was showing you that book I made for you, that, when you read that part about napping, you said "that's something we never got around to". It was like going to the movies. There was never enough time to relax, take on life like normal people. We were stealing moments and life when we could.

I look at the couple in the painting above and truly envy them. They are relaxed, taking in a museum, totally at peace with each other. I have no idea what life has in store for them, no more than the lovers in the painting. But if the three couples could agree on one thing, I am sure that that would say, like you did one time to me when you looked at that photo we shot at Kopachuck "now that's a relaxed looking couple". Maybe Lautrec had something else in mind other than relaxed, but you know what I'm getting at.

We were, you know, relaxed, comfortable, almost to the point of melting. Maybe that's one reason why that Rascal Flatts album title rang a bell with us. We melted, baby, two into one. Became one, like those lovers in the painting and in the painting beyond. We just never had someone paint our picture. Maybe we could have posed, if only we had the time.

Your WHMB

Pom Pom photograph, Goodwill, August '09

Went to sleep last night with a mission in mind. It's not hard for me to face the morning as I always wake up early, but I had to keep in mind that half priced tags started on Thursday and that a photograph I hung in an out of the way place was going to be on sale first thing in the morning. So I got myself out of bed and fired up my coffee water, turned on the 'net and sat down to read. Figgeted more like it. Jumped in the car at a quarter til nine and raced down to claim my prize. All that effort for a somewhat beat looking photo.

To say that might make me look a bit obsessive or mad or just desiring to accumulate more stuff before the move. But really, if you saw the photo you would understand. It's more symbolic than anything, I suppose, or maybe it's just a touch of our earliest letters, or that moment we shared in that row of flowers at Connell's. Maybe it was just one more thing that I wanted to have around, a reminder of the past, something else to hang on the wall or stuff in that wooden box. There's always something, sure, but this one piece was "for reals".

One of my fondest memories is about our mutual love of dahlias. As a matter of fact you mentioned them to me in one of our first letters, asking me if it was too late in the season to plant them. How would I know, when I couldn't even remember seeing them before let alone laying down tubers. But before fall hit I had not only seen and read about them in the Seattle Times, but found out about an open house in Tacoma and took off to see their show on Labor Day. Mentioned it to you and then, when we were stuck in traffic and looking for an alternative route to Sumner that one Saturday afternoon, passed by Connell's and decided to take in the "show". What was wonderful was the vast array of flowers blooming, and seeing you "ooh" and "aah" to the pom pom blossoms you love so much. And while I found my happiness in the bigger flowers, we still managed to find an awful lot that we both thought were grand. How could we not? It was an awesome day and a beautiful setting and another wonderful stolen moment for us.

So a month ago or so I saw a framed photograph taken by a local photographer at Goodwill. It's signed and numbered, but it must have been left in a garage or a basement because the matting got damp and mildewed. Didn't affect the photo from what I can tell, thank goodness. "What's the photo of?" you might ask. Well, in the background there are out of focus, oversized dahlias, flaming red, and in the foreground are these gorgeous purplish pom-poms. To anybody else it's just a photograph of flowers. To me it was all about the outset of our friendship, our day in that rows of flowers, a reminder of annual dahlia shows, flower catalogs and tubers to be planted. It is a reminder, too, that life is fleeting, that blossoms and friendships and love come and go, that the glory of the moment, if it is good and sincere and passionate, is meant to be lived, not shunted aside.

We lived gloriously, if only for a moment. Those blossoms in that photo live on, somewhat like the words and dreams and old wishes we had for each other live on in that satchel, in this place. We may not have a place in the sun anymore, but in the summertime I can wake up, pad my way across my yard, gaze at my dahlias and see our old emails come to life, or better, know that in the deepest part of winter I'll be able to look across the room, gaze at that print and see us standing there in that aisle of dahlias, you in the midst of a swoon. Who would think that all that could be found in a half priced photograph from Goodwill?

Your WHMB

Coffee syrup, dahlias and flyers in the mail, 09/05, 08/09

Right up front: one thing that I will miss about this place will be that "bow of the ship" feeling that I get when I stand on the deck and wind and the weather blow about my head just so. Tonight I stood there on the deck in the late afternoon light while a weather front blew in over the Sound and it was magical.

Tonight I have the blues playing ("I woke up this morning and had my baby on my mind"...oh yeah? tell me about it, blues man!), have chicken tacos settling my in my belly and have a bottle of Australian red coarsing it's way through my veins. I cleaned the gutters, scraped and painted window frames and gathered up some more liquor boxes. I sent out utility bills, visited with my pal The Hot Dog King, did a grocery store run and put up with new realtor's "Lookie Lou". All in the name of "getting the hell out of here".

But what really got to me was that that no matter where I went, no matter what I did there were references to you and to me and to the WE that we once shared. I am I bitter or blown out or tired by it all? No, it's more a matter of wondering when will I see you again so I can tell you all about it. I told the Good Doctor the other day that this blog was for my good friend Jane, that she peeks in now and then to read my words and catch up on my life. I think, really, that she does that now and then with Accumulate Man, but then, I could be wrong. Today I wish I knew for certain whether or not you were a solid reader of that other blog so that you had a good connection to this place. No matter, I think sooner or later you'll arrive.

All the same I take care of the mail on a daily basis and what should arrive today but an offer for a catalog from Connell's Dahlias. Not only that, M, but darn near on the anniversary of our greatest and most symbolic of all outings I get an IKEA flyer in the mail as well. That wasn't good enough, oh no. I went out into town, hit up Saars (oh, that first parking lot meeting...) and then saw that there was sale going on for that Italian coffee syrup that you prefer. Better deal than the Cash and Carry we hit up that one day in September? Come by and find out.

No matter. All that got pushed aside by my dahlias. We shared an awful lot of things over time but it's those darned flowers that still get to me. I saw them off to the side of the parking lot when we left Point Defiance Park on the 27th of August, saw them again on Labor Day a few days later when you were off on your Levenworth trip, and then, on the day that we were out and about searching for that cast iron Scottie Dog lamp, found them again when we took that highway turnoff due to traffic overload and hit up Connell's. Swooned in the midst of some of the finest dahlias you or I will ever see. That is, until today.

Today I went out in the aftermath of a rainshower, cut down two outrageously wild blooms, one blazingly yellow, one unearthly red, and set them in a vase on my kitchen counter. Those two flowers, so bountiful, so outsized, so unique, so different, are really all about you and me. Before Connells, before that day when we wandered up and down the rows of that dahlia farm I never knew what those flowers were all about. Today I crave them, not only for their wildness and their glory but for their connection to you and me and that day when we held each other in that row of dahilas at the end of the day. You want magic in your life? Conjuer up that day again and you'll get magic enough for a lifetime.

You know, I can be reminded of you in myriad of ways, but let me see a dahlia blossum and suddenly I am back there, back to that third weekend of September in 2005. I will always see us there, leaving the parking lot, heading towards Sumner, bouquets in hand, taking off to find a Scotty Dog lamp. We never found it, M, but we found much, much more than that that day. We found the seeds, no, make that the tubers, of our love. How grand. And for that I will always be thankful.

Your WHMB

Green mantle with a house attached, '05, '09

Presspots are funny things. They yield what I consider the best of the best as far as brewed coffee is concerned, but like anything worth a darn you have to watch it all the time, or, if not all the time, at least pay attention to the time. Plunge it too soon and the mixture is weak, wait too long the coffee is too strong and bitter. But if you pay attention, let it sit, wait, stir it up a bit and then press the screen down, you'll have a mighty fine cup of joe.

One thing about my current situation is that I play strictly by the book. My "alarm" goes off at eight. That's the latest I can stay in bed. If I want to watch or finish a movie it has to be done by then. When the clock tower bongs and the navy martial music plays it's time to get up, make the bed and hit the shower. Grind beans and heat up the water. Fire up the 'net. Let in the cat and give him his morning shot of tuna. Hit the things to do list and see what's on the burner for the day.


I have to wonder if I was equally disciplined seven years ago when I quit SPL. I've looked at that time as one of the finest summers of my life. I had my family around me, a nice chunk of change in my pocket, a ton of projects to knock out. We had good weather, my Estranged One pretty much gave me carte blanche as far as supplies were concerned and we kept the word that I was off work from the parents which kept us from being thought of as complete idiots. Grant it, we still had company to entertain, a conference to attend in California and an almost daily process of searching the internet for work to contend with but overall I was content and happy. That is until fall hit and the rains began. Then we hunkered down, dealt with banged out interior walls, saw that that holidays were coming and knew that the grand plan, of getting the house ready for sale, of grabbing that swell job in California, was not happening the way we expected. That golden summer of renovation and barbeques and sunshine was suddenly gone, and in it's place was the promise of a cold winter with funds about gone and the wolves baying at the door.


Then came the job offer. Once again my winning personality saved the day. No commute, a big crew to supervise and plenty of new challenges. Life began anew. Then, seven months later, I met you.


I was sitting on the couch this morning, before the press pot, before my shower, before the 'net came up. I had a hard time shaking dreams, wanted to stay in bed past the bonging of the clock tower, past the blaring of the martial trumpets, and so I did until the phone rang and I popped tall out of bed. But still, I just couldn't shake that sloth, that desire to stay in bed and sleep the day away. So I came downstairs and squandered fifteen more minutes, took a long look out the window at the inlet, let the grey skies take me away, and in that time thought of this house, what it meant to me for so long, and what in the end I gained by hanging onto it for so long.

Three days ago I sent a letter to the Estranged One. I told her how I felt about this house, about all the hard work, about the sweat equity, all that, how I became infatuated then fell in love with this place, how I placed it before her. I asked for forgiveness for doing that, then, a moment later there came a knock on the door and I had an tentative offer on the house. You see, I am a believer in such cosmic things, that you let stuff go and then things come back to you. That if you are sincere in your desires, in this case, to loose the house and get close to my kids again, and then your wishes will be granted.

I suppose that's why I was fixated on that mantle this morning while I sat in the quiet of the house. I looked at the green paint I had laid upon the walls, looked at the amateur construction job of the mantle and knew, at that time, when I did that work, that my love for this house took a different turn. I used it to impress you, used it instead of muscles, instead of cash flow, instead of prestiege. I let this house become an extention of me, of my culture mores, of my collecting jones. I put this house on like a suit and paraded around in it, did my best to impress you and other folks as they came through the door. I have to wonder if they saw what I finally saw today, that this house, while beautiful, was like that presspot of coffee. Without the kids and the family it was weak, without my life being firmly grounded it was too strong. I took this house as far as it could go and now wish to start over. I want to reheat the water, grind some new beans, heat up my cup and make a fresh pot.

I know that when you came her, when you kicked off your shoes and played parlor games and ate at my table you were seeing the whole me. You were tasting the brew plunged just right. I have been trying to find that perfect grind again ever since. I have tested the waters and found them lacking. I know it's because I lost the whole point of being here, lost my sense of timing, lost my desire to pay attention to the time. I plunged too soon and now this house is empty, work it being knocked out and it's up for sale. Full circle? Not quite, but close enough.

Can't be here with my kids, and couldn't find a way to be here with you, so what's the point? For a job across town or down the street? For an easy commute? No, the house, like the job that saved me so many years ago, are now both in question. And the big question is, how many more quiet mornings can I possible face in this house alone?

I loved putting that mantle together because every time you came by it was a bit closer to completion. I loved laying down the paint, too, as we sat on that old brown couch and picked and chose amongst the color swatches. I loved sharing with you the whole living room thing there for awhile, fire blazing, candles twinkling, music playing, games on the table, the whole shebang. But what I miss equally well is the noise and mess and hoorah of my children tearing the place up. If I can't have one it's time to recapture the other.

It's time press the pot. Tell me, my love, how did the brew turn out this time?

Your WHMB

Perseid shower 2005, 2009

I was outside painting trim and looked up into the sky, wondering if the clouds that were up there were planning on blowing by. I decided to go inside and take a look at the weather report and instead came across the article posted below. You would think I would have this down by now, that early August means it's time for the annual Perseids meteor shower. I know that when it comes around I always promise myself "next year". I tell myself that next year I'll go up into the mountains to watch the event, next year I'll get away from the lights and the cloud cover, next year I'll be with the kids and we'll do it someplace where it's dark and wild and the sky is filled with the wild slashes of light crossing our skyspace. Next year.

Not too much different than that chapter in Corelli's Mandolin where they tell each other "after the war".

This year I once again stumbled upon the article reminding me that the best sightings will be after midnight and before dawn. The lights from the shipyard glare all night long, power outages or not, and tonight will be no exception. I can remember when the Estranged One and I took blankets out onto the back lawn and turned out the lights. We even asked Mary, our old neighbor at the time, to cut her alley light and she did, giving us an extra bit of darkness. It was a gas all the same, watching and looking for those quick bursts of light, but still, we knew if we had hightailed it to the mountains or the ocean with the brood we would have done better. "Next year...."

Then there was that night four years ago when you and I were both tuned into the showers. You had out-of-state company, The Detective's family was in town. You got along well with your brother-in-law, and both of you walked over to the playing field by your house. You told me of that comical moment when the county sheriff caught both of you in the dark, and you told him about the meteor shower and he let you go. That was funny and tense I am sure, but you managed to catch far more meteors than I did that night. I took myself out onto the lawn behind my house and craned my neck and saw a few, even woke up early and took myself out onto the porch before dawn to see what I could see. I still remember the blazing emails that took place that night, the "did you see that?" kind of response to the occasion. It was a grand meeting of the minds, well before we had like minds to meet.

Or maybe I am wrong about that. Maybe our wavelengths were already tuned in. Maybe we were already chatting on some higher frequency and our rigid social lives and borderlines and firewalls prevented us from hearing that conversation.

Know that in the end we capitalized on that etherial wavelength, but never were able to see the Perseids together.

But in some ways, maybe we did. We crossed the ether that night with those blazing emails. You were in a field some eight or so miles away with family and I was on my porch and we saw what we could see, in a sense together but apart. We shared our feelings about those sightings afterwards as if we were some internationally known astronomers. We were, in some ways, that night about as international as we could be. Maybe more in the realm of bandits, or smugglers, or thiefs in the night. The meteors were just an excuse to talk, even if the talk just took place here, here on the internet. Face it, we were thieves. We had already stolen each other's hearts. We were just waiting for the 27th of August to return them.

We just didn't know it yet. Not that night. Not the night of the Perseids.

Your WHMB
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/08/perseids/

Friar Lawrence, Mr Poe and the never ending circle of friendship

I was outside laying down moss treatment on my gutters and thought of you. I was moving aside cinder blocks and eradicating spiders and you came to mind again. I was in the basement fetching paint brushes and then stopped in the kitchen for some fruit tart and thought of that lovely couple I somehow managed to help put together who brought the tart and then thought of you once more. It's funny how it always comes back to you, no matter what the case may be. I could be in the kitchen stripping a chicken carcus, or emptying the trash or taking the laundry down to the basement, it doesn't matter. It's the endless circle of life, of activities, of sweet, exquisite mundaneness that has me always finding you again.


I sat with my friends the other night. They called and sort of invited themselves over, which was good as I was tired of working and more than tired of my own company. They brought sandwiches, that fruit tart I just mentioned as well as good tidings and for that I was pleased. We shared stories, of life and of their upcoming adventure..can you believe it, going to the ocean and they passed up an opportunity to take along some of my kites?...and then I told them, in somewhat truncated pieces, the saga of my life as it stands, of the house going up for sale, of the kids and their "working" visit, of the endless working party just to get this place ready to sell. I told them, too, of my travails, but then it came around as it always does back to you. Somehow in the telling of my stories, to certain people, to simpathetic ears, our story manages to surface, and for some it's always fine. Even brings tears to the eyes.


As for our story these days there's not too much to tell. It's an old tale by now to those in the know, and it is starting to sound somewhat like the stories that were played out by traveling theater troupes in the squares of old medieval villages. Our story is starting to sound like a cautionary tale, a story told to young lovers to help them see the error in their ways before they start down some primrose path. Our path was not lined with primroses, that is for sure. Dahlias, maybe, but this tale's caution is more about the afterword, about the effects of words and how important it is to safeguard them, to share them only with people that can be trusted. That evening I had an old friend who was once our mutual friend, one who ran with and safeguarded our words, and as she said about my writings, she was there for the backstory and knew all about it. She was more than happy to be a player in the tale, even one so long in the tooth.


I told her about my satchel posts, about the novel, about how the story will go. Believe it, M, it did bring tears to her eyes. I have to wonder when I will get that thing off the ground, but maybe I don't have to think too hard, as it already is. I also shared a bit of the story about that grey cast iron casserole and even wrote Friar Tuck about it afterwards, too. It's all part of the longer story, but of keen interest to those that have been active agents in the telling. That part was exciting, to have co-cospirators in the midst of my beleaguered house, old friends who knew us well, old pals who knew your story as much as I did. I did my heart good not only to break bread but to connect with the future and tie in the past.


Old friends. I know the value of those old pals as well as anyone. I guess that's where I went wrong this last year. I tried too hard to make new friends when I should know by now how hard it is just to maintain those friendships that are truly important. The Hot Dog King, that literary couple, Uncle Max..those friends, along with My Estranged One, are enough for the moment. But then again, there's you, my old friend, long estranged, too. Someday maybe you'll just be part of an old story, a figure who played large in my past, a real legend in my old days. But then the gods are funny. You might climb down from the pages of that novel yet and cross the floor for an autograph and a kiss. You can then say to people in line that you knew me when. And maybe, just maybe, when the pages of that book turn real, you'll want to know me again. Only one way to find out and that's to lay that pen to paper.


Your WHMB

Liquor boxes and out of state job listings, August '09

I sat and reviewed some of my recent postings to you, looked hard at where I was going with all this and realized that I somehow, somewhere in May and bit of June I lost my head again. Most certainly I strayed off the reservation into territory that was clearly marked "no trespassing". It wasn't marked with skull and cross-bones nor was it posted with signs pock marked with bullet holes. It wasn't surrounded with chain link, razor wire and policed by guard dogs, it was just a simple, clear and suscinct warning letter in my personnel jacket. It told me to watch myself, pay attention and don't confuse excitement about work assignments with anything else. But damn, M, when you have folks over for supper it sure feels like friendship. Strange to think that this fifty one year old man still doesn't understand that, still doesn't have it down. That the kind of friendship we shared was mutual, heavenly, one of kind and is just not capable of duplication, not in the way that we had it.

So, instead I look at where I was going with those posts and realize that I was misunderstanding key signals. I thought that the light was green when in fact my enthusiasm tripped up my ability to see colors clearly. I lapsed into a temporary case of color blindness and thought I saw "green". How was I to know that mutually satisfying activities and invitations and all that were some sort of trap for my ego? I was led to my demise by my own doing, sure, but that's only because I thought that everything was okay. Nothing quite like hoisting yourself up on your own petard. Somehow in my mind I had been allowed under the fence to join the party. Led to believe that the juice was off. That the dogs were finally penned. Man did I blunder.

As my friend the Snake Lady told me, they can only do this to you once. I suppose. But, then, the real question is: when will I learn?

I think of us back in the day and know that if the powers that be really had it out for you and me they would have brought the hammer down years ago. I read my missives to you from the back of this list all the way to the present and realize that this document, in the wrong hands, is a real sinker. That my dismissals of you and this relationship are far outweighed by my fervent prayers of us being reunited, of finding each other again, of me being able to look you straight in the eye before the lights go out and say "good night, Jane". It's that bad and that good and all that. A real crowd pleaser. A real line in the sand. A real piece of work that somehow, possibly, if the story isn't told just right, might get me fired.

But as I told you, or maybe just told the gods, my marriage was scuttled when my letters to you were found in that open mailbox back in November, and my job could quite possibly be already lost because due to some inadvertantly sent blog post. Somehow I know that my wording was misunderstood. That someone thought these letters to you were for someone else. And sure, I can be accused of misreading signals, but then again, that seems to be my speciality. I know, too, that your prayers are out there for me to move along in life, but after this latest Waterloo I am about done with those kinds of moves. Three times I've taken on the quest since we've been apart, and that is apart from trying to work things out with my Estranged One. What can I say? I don't like to be alone. Nevertheless I found out the hard way that there is no replacing you. Should I have known that from the beginning? Or can I just chalk up all that effort to being lonely?

But when it comes to work and co-workers I think I got carried away. Maybe it was the excitement of all those darned programs, of that invite to the canal on the 2nd of July. Maybe it was just that I was feeling vital for the first time in years. Maybe somehow, too, I thought that that long period of "we" as it pretained to us was finally behind me, that I was finally around the bend. Not so. Too bad. All those good wishes for a interesting second half of the year all crashed into the Sound. A flaming wreck on the highway of trust. But it's all behind me now. I think for the time being, or for maybe for who knows how many years, I will just allow myself just this one little thing, this one thing I have been good at the last four years and that's loving you.

Sure, it smacks of obsessiveness, but it doesn't harm anybody. And sure, it keeps me from getting out there into the shark..er...dating pool, helps keep me from having a regular sex life, and on occasion forces me to occupy the high ground of loneliness. No matter. I'm good to go with it. You might already know this but my library is full of liquor boxes. And there is a woman who lives across the street from me who runs a B and B who is looking hard at this house. Plus I have applications going out to agencies and businesses all over Idaho. And baby, I have pretty much written off this place, my beloved Port Orchard. And what's truly crazy about that is that it's okay. Today I took the grand tour of PO, did all the stops along the Stations of the Cross and once again missed you. I came home and took a look at my dahlias and knew that it was time to take that wooden box, the satchel and get on the down the road. Plant tubers in some other yard, in a place far away that I wouldn't be tempted to cut one down and run over to the Woods and toss it on your lawn.

I placed an application with the State of Idaho for a job in Pocatello. Even the Estranged One, who has lived in Idaho for four years now had to ask where that was. It was far enough away from her daily grind but close enough to make the kids easily accessible on weekends. It was small enough and inexpensive enough for me to possibly buy a home there. It was close enough to the Rockies to make for decent seasonal weather. And it was close enough to the highways that lead to Colorado for me to finally see all those sacred spots I've been dying to see. I can finally make it to Delta, head over and up to Loveland, drop down to Durango. See all those places that you saw with your eyes, see those places where you lived. Fill in the gaps.

Another brick in the obsessive road? No, more filler for the novel. All that driving I can write off, I think. I see my first chapter coming soon. Nonetheless I see many boxes being filled. I see my kids occupying my life in a way they haven't been able to do in a long time. And I finally see something that I should have seen the day we said goodbye a year and some odd months ago: that it's time to get on with life but also stay on the path. Somehow, and while you may deny it, this I can see oh so very clearly, and that is that you and I will meet again.

That wooden box, that cotton satchel and the first pages of my forthcoming book all tell me so.

Your WHMB