Me, Boo and The Goob

It began some five years ago as a project to fill up time while I was looking for a gig.  Five chapters in, I hit a block.  I didn't know how the story ended.  I was stuck.  I stayed stuck for 4 years until in the midst of a political discussion with a lunatic friend somehow the topic of writing came up.  I mentioned that I had written a novel, but couldn't finish it.  My friend asked me to send it to him, so I did.  Three days later he messaged me "So, how's it end?".  In that moment I knew how it ended.  It took another 4 months to write it, but it was done.

Editing is a special hell.  Re-writes are expected.  They are the real work in writing and best done by the score.  Editing, on the other hand, is like slowly drawing an intestine out of your abdomen.  Sentence by sentence, comma by comma, verb by verb you examine your writing balancing the voice of the narrator with the rules of common grammar as would be understood by a twelve year old kid.

So, it's done.  First edition is out on Amazon.  More editing is being done by a professional, and a second edition will follow, as will hardcopy publishing.

Take a look.  If you read it, I would ask that you review on Amazon.  They say that helps.  The link below will take you to it's page on Amazon.


Me, Boo and The Goob: A Southern Adventure

The Hazards of Ice Diving

In Jersey, January always brings talk of ice diving, but no discussion of ice diving can be complete without an adequate, no, without a detailed discussion of the hazards and dangers associated with it.  Most diving is conducted in summer months, when it is warm and the sun is out.  Not ice diving!  Ice diving is done when it's cold, and let me tell you there is nothing worse that being cold and wet....and bleeding.

Last January, ice diving very nearly cost me my life.  I wasn't trapped under the ice, nor did my regulator free flow.  My dry suit didn't leak, and I didn't get lost.  I simply went outside one cold, cold, rainy morning.

The back door to our house has two concrete steps to the driveway.  They are nine inch risers.  That means that floor level of the house is 18 inches, one and a half feet.

It was a cold and rainy day.  As per my custom, I rose before dawn and came down to the kitchen for coffee.  My eldest, Jenn, joined me and we enjoyed conversation and coffee while the sun came up.  The temperature was dropping through the thirties, approaching freezing.  Jordan, the misunderstood middle child, joined us.  More coffee flowed as we chatted.

I casually glanced through the window on the back door to notice that the smoke stack of my Big Green Egg was open.   This could not be!  Water was getting into my  Egg!

I opened the back door and stepped quickly out to go close the damper on the Big Green Egg.  That's it.  Just stepped out.

Water is an interesting thing.  When it is colder than 32 degrees, and the temperature is rising it will transition from ice to water at 32 degrees.  When it is warmer than 32 degrees and the temperature is falling, it will become ice at 32.  This interesting phenomena was occuring that very morning just as I was stepping out of the back door.

My first step was with my right foot.  I stepped onto the cold, wet, concrete step and my foot accelerated forward and upward at an ungodly rate of speed, causing the rest of me to exit the back door and begin a backward rotation.  This rotation, coupled with my  rate descent ( at 9.8 Meters per second squared), combined to produce a pretty damn impressive half gainer that was spoiled only because I landed on my shoulders and neck as a result of my rotation speed being severely diminished when I struck the tip of the little finger of my right hand on the corner of a frozen 4x4.

Let that soak in.  The corner of a frozen 4x4.  Yes, that place where three planes come together and form a point, a very sharp and pointy point.  The impact of my little finger on that point not only slowed my rotation to the point that it spoiled my Half Gainer, but it also cut the last joint of that pinky finger to the bone, which, was also broken.

As I lay bleeding and cussing on the cold wet ice, my misunderstood middle child, Jordan, came flying out the door.  Before I could warn her, she hit the ice and executed a perfect back flip with a half twist, landing on all fours beside me.  Obviously jazzed by the success of her impressive and challenging dive, she shouted at me, "DAD!  ARE YOU HAVING A HEART ATTACK?"  Clearly she feared I had been struck deaf too.

Eight hours and twelve stitches later, Jenn, Jordan and I attended Catfish's 18th birthday party.  Over the next month, Frankenfinger, the name I gave to my mangled diget, got infected and made life pretty miserable.  Finally, after big antibiotics and much time, it healed.

So, when it's cold out, and it's raining, and you are tempted to go out to do something.  Remember this:  Unlike bourbon, 220 lbs of well marbled, middle aged man does not mix well with ice.

A Brown Dog Democrat

My dog, Dixie…excuse me..Svatchime is rapidly becoming a nuisance. This morning, even before I had coffee, she pounced on me with a political discussion.

“Donald Trump must leave the race”, she solemnly intoned as she executed a very aggressive crotch sniff.

“What?”, I asked.

 “Donald Trump simply must get out of the primary race. He insulted a war hero, and frankly, I am offended” She said as she raised her head a little, and sniffed the air a bit. “I smell bacon”, she added.

“You’re going to jump off the Trump bandwagon because he talked disrespected Senator McCain?” I asked incredulously.

“I have never supported Donald Trump, and what in the hell does Senior McCain have to do with it? Is it the Mexican thing again?” she hissed. Again she sniffed the air, “Someone is cooking bacon.”

I didn’t even know dogs could hiss. “What do you mean you never supported him? If you didn’t like him in the first place, why are you saying that he must drop out? Why do you care?” I asked, somewhat stunned.

“Trump is a money grubbing capitalist real estate mogul. He represents everything that is wrong with this country. He glorifies and personifies greed. He offends me on so many levels. He is a duopolistic liar. He has made millions on dirty little backroom deals with foreign despots all across the world. He is an privileged autocratic monster with absolutely no empathy for the common man. He seems to be politically tone deaf, and has zero in the way of political accomplishments” , Svatchime explained just before she began attending to a urgent personal hygienic matter.

No one can sound quite as smug and condescending as a chocolate Labrador who has recently acquired the gift of speech.

“So, just so I understand….You say Donald Trump is a man you have never supported, and whom you say personifies everything you are against. You say he must withdraw from the primary race because he said something that offended you? Have I got that right?, I asked.

“Yes. Do I smell bacon?”, came the reply.

“So, your position is that any politician with whom you have disagreements should not be running for office”

“Finally, you get it! We simply cannot have a cold, soulless, ego-maniacal power freak running the country.” Svatchime said.

“So”, I asked, “Who are you supporting?”

“Hillary”

Attacked By My Own Dog

I am distraught.

My chocolate lab, Dixie whom we have raised from a pup, came to me this morning and informed me that due to the racist connotations of her name, she will no longer answer to that name, preferring to be addressed as “Svatchime”.

“What?  Why are you offended?  Did someone mistreat you?”  I asked as I scratched her behind her ear.

“Someone told me that I was named after a horrible racist song that glorifies slavery and oppression and that I have always been horribly oppressed my entire life by the man, you bigot”, she growled.

“Who told you that?  Was it Isadore?”, I asked as I offered her a piece of bacon.  Isadore is a mean little terrior/poodle mix who lives behind us.  She doesn’t like me and barks a lot.

Dixie nodded as she devoured the bacon, and paused just for a second to ask "What's a song?"

Of course, I was shocked, and not just because my dog speaking with me, or because she was offended by her own name, but also because of her new name.  “Svatchime” is what conservative radio host Bud Grant used to call Mario Cumuo when he was governor of New York…it’s Greek for “The Impotent one”.

“Do you know what “Svatchime” means?” I asked

“No, but I like it and Isador says that it can mean whatever I want it to mean”, came the reply.

While trying to wrap my brain around all this, I heard a loud ruckus erupt outside the house.  I looked out the window, and small but loud band of feral cats were in the front yard singing ‘Dixie’, and waving dead mice and Confederate flags.

“Who are they?”,  I asked.

“They are your allies, you hateful bigot.  Can I have some more bacon?”, came the reply.

“No more bacon for you.  Why are they here?”

“Isadore invited them”, Dixie replied. “She said that you racists should hang out together.  I really want some more bacon, fascist pig.”

“They are feral cats, you stupid dog, and I’m not a racist!  No bacon for you.” I reminded her.

“You’re a mean spirited, white supremacist racist zionist because you won't give me more bacon, Look at your friends and look what you named me, you race baiting skunk!” said Dixie angerly.

Using my Airsoft rifle, I persuaded each cat to leave.

I knew Dixie was angry, but I was too.  I pointed my Airsoft gun at Dixie and said softly “They are not my friends, Dixie is your name, and …”

“SQUIRREL!”, Dixie screamed as she leaped at the sliding glass door and began to bark madly.

Insanity isn't about a talking to a mad dog.  It's about trying to reason with one.

Yet Another Life Lesson

Sometimes Landi still has to travel for work.  Traveling has never been her favorite work activity, and when she has to travel, my whole world changes.  Not so much in dealing with the kids, the fish (actual fish, not the boy) or the dogs.  That’s pretty much unchanged.  You just feed them and make sure they have water, and you’re good.  I just miss her.  I miss her a lot.

Sometimes when I’m supposed to be working or doing something useful, I just pause and think about her.  I’ll close my eyes and I can almost hear her cussing at her computer because it can’t find data she just put there…RIGHT THERE….WHERE THE HELL IS THE DAMN DATA?????  ….and we’re off.  When she is home, she eventually either finds the data, or we go to lunch at KCs, but when she’s gone I open my eyes to an empty and quiet room.  It's amazing how empty my world is when she's gone.

Other times, I think about how we always end summer days at the pool, with a glass of red wine and our feet cooling in the water, talking and laughing.  Sometimes Dixie, our meth lab,  feels the need to get in the pool which means that we both will get splashed soon.  I think about cooking sausages on the gas grill, or chicken on the Big Green Egg.  If I close my eyes right now and I can almost smell wet dogs and barbeque.

Several years ago, when ‘Chat’ was new, I started to message her on her computer when she was away.    I thought it was so cool how chat would just pop the message up right on the screen over whatever a person was doing.  I started off being careful when I ‘chatted’ to her because I didn’t want to screw up whatever it was she was doing.  Eventually we both got comfortable with ‘chat’ and we’d chat off and on all day while we worked.  It made for a nice workday.  It wasn’t as good as sitting by the pool drinking wine and soaking our feet, but it was nice.  You can be witty and sometimes a little naughty via chat.  It was all good fun.

One time when she was at Honda out in California, I saw that she was on line, and I was feeling witty so rather than starting off with a “Hey Baby!”, or “Knock Knock” like I usually did, I thought I’d be funny and say something semi-naughty.  She had been gone about 3 or 4 days, and I knew she was as tired of being there as I was of having her gone, and I though it would be nice to make her smile before her long flight home.  Suddenly, I had a stroke of inspiration, sweet inspiration!

I quickly typed my greeting while snickering to myself and hit enter to send my greeting. A fraction of a second after I sent my greeting, she disappeared offline without a response.  Silence.  Nothing.  “Hmmmm….wonder what’s up with that?  Guess the her network went down.”, I though and I went back to work on whatever it was I had been doing.  Little did I know that in a conference room at the Honda Motor Company in California, my message had been received.

There are moments of inspiration, and then there are life lessons.  Don't confuse the two.

If your wife is working at a client site, and occasionally does technical presentations on a big screen using her computer in front of 25-30 senior management and technical personnel, never begin a chat session with her using the phrase “I’m naked.  Are you?”

We don’t chat anymore,and I still miss my wife.

Just Another Dad.....for a day

It was ten years ago, and it was hot.  Even for Fall Fair, it was a hot day.  I was cooking ribs on my smoker, and I saw him.  Something made me look up, and I saw him park his Range Rover and get out.  He was in jeans and a t-shirt and he wore a ball cap.  He wasn’t in disguise. I knew who he was the instant I saw him.  He got a worn folding chair from the back of the dusty Range Rover, and walked slowly, nonchalantly across the parking lot to the soccer field.  He didn’t look about.  He didn’t greet anyone.  He didn’t have an entourage.  It was just him, and he didn’t stop for a coke, or a hotdog.  He just went to the soccer field.  Others saw him, too, and they looked briefly so as not to be rude, and then looked away and went back to what they were doing.

It was a good soccer match.  I don’t remember who won.  I took a break from cooking ribs so I could watch the game.  In all, there were probably 75 parents watching.  We cheered and groaned as dictated by the game.  The boys played hard, and then the game was over.

He folded his chair, and waited unnoticed in a small crowd of parents waiting for his son to come over for a post-game greeting.  Other parents milled about some waiting for the same purpose.   The coaches did their post-game commentary, and the players of both teams trotted over to their parents.  By this time, word had spread that he was here, but still he stood alone in a crowd.  His son and a couple of friends came to him.  They spoke, and laughed, and smiled, and then the boys trotted back over to the bench, and he walked slowly across the field to the parking lot.  He put his folding chair in the back of his Range Rover and got in.  He drove away.

Sometimes we forget that even rock stars have kids, and sometimes they need to be just another  ‘dad’.  On this day, Wardlaw’s whole community of baby boomers and aging hippies stood back and let a rock star be just another dad for a day.  The man got to watch his kid play soccer and no one bothered him.  No one asked him for a photo.  No one asked him for an autograph.  No one spoke to him at all.  That was the day Bruce Springsteen came to The Wardlaw Hartridge School, and if only for that day, got to be just another dad watching his kid play soccer.

Life is Better at the Sea

After being on Perdido Key for a week, enough time has passed for me to become acclimated to the sun, and the sand, the sounds of the sea, and plaintive calls of the sea birds.  The water is warm here, and the people are nice.  The sky is blue, and the breeze off the gulf carries your troubles away.  Perdido Key is indeed a paradise.  As I look across the water of the gulf, the light from the sun hurts my eyes.  I think back to other visits to the gulf, and to the wonderful times we’ve had here.

In early March, the water is warmer here than it has ever been on the Jersey Shore.  That particular thought drags me away.  The Jersey shore is the Jersey Shore.  Some friends of ours found a corner of sanity down at the shore a few years ago.  A place that was as lazy and laid back as the gulf coast.  Landi and Darlene went bar hopping on bicycles once.  Our friends bought a condo on the mainland side of the bay, and it was feet off the water.  You could sit on the front porch and watch the water much like we do here on Perdido Key.

We were visiting once, a couple of years ago down at their condo.  It was a perfect day.  The sky was as blue as it could possibly be.  The sun was bright and warm.  The beach, conviently located maybe 50 feet from their condo, wasn’t crowded or loud.   Joanie and Darlene at some time in the recent past, had made a very wise investment in a Jimmy Buffet Margarita Maker.   We didn’t make margaritas, but we made a hell of a lot of Daiquiris. 

At some point, someone’s cousins’ niece showed up with a friend.  The niece was in her early 20s, as way her friend.  They both worked for a delivery company so they got a lot of exercise every day, and thanks to their string bikinis, it showed.  I was ever so thankful for my sunglasses. 

The nieces enjoyed the daiquiris and the beach.   In all, there were about 7 of us enjoying the beach, and the sun, and the water.  The niece and friend applied suntan lotion to each other, which caused Catfish to stop breathing.

After some time in the sun, one of the nieces decided it was hot, and the two of them dashed down the pier and leaped off the end into the ‘refreshing’ water.  We could hear them squeal, as could everyone else for a mile or two around.  “The water must be really cold out there.”, I thought. 

The nieces both swam quickly back to the beach.  I watched them.  They seemed to be racing.  This is going to be interesting, I thought to myself.    They neared the beach, and began to run through the water.  I was frozen in time.  It was almost like the scene from ‘10’.  I felt dizzy, but thanks to my sunglasses, my gaze never broke from the two shapely young women in string bikinis racing toward me through the serf.  I love the shore.

When at last they reached us,  we learned that when they jumped off the end of the pier, they had actually jumped into a mass of jelly fish, and they had been very badly, and very painfully stung all over their bodies.  You could see the marks where they had been hit.  Read whelps were raising everywhere.  The girls sprinted to the condo and began spraying each other with cold water from the garden hose, and rubbing the affected areas very vigoursly.  Catfish was transfixed. 

As part of your training when you become a Scuba Diving Instructor, you are taught how to deal with injuries common to an aquatic environment, among these, jelly fish stings.  Jelly fish stings are very painful.  When you are stung, tiny pod of ‘toxin’ are stuck to your skin.  First Aid consists of dousing the area with a mild acid, or ammonia, and rinsing with warm salt water, never fresh water.  Fresh water will cause the ‘pod’s to ‘fire’ again, depositing more painful toxin into the victim.

I went to my car, and got the large bottle of vinegar from my first aid kit.

I approached the screaming girls.  I told them I could help relieve the pain, but they would need to do exactly as I instructed them.  Both eagerly agreed.

I explained that to ease the pain, we needed to slowly pour the vinegar on each of them, and that they should smear it around to ensure that all areas were heavily coated with vinegar.    I took the top off of the vinegar, and began slowly pouring it on the chests and shoulders of the nieces.  All sense of modesty was lost as they assisted  each other in smearing the vinegar everywhere.  EVERYWHERE.  At this point, Catfish had not blinked in close to five minutes, and I’m pretty sure I hadn’t taken a breath in close to eight minutes.

As the last of the vinegar was expended, and the girls were much relieved from their pain, I finally breathed again.  I looked at the small crowd that had gathered to watch the spectacle.  A big, biker looking guy smiled at me.  He glanced at the girls, and looked back at me.

“Some people would pay good money to do that.”, he said, and he turned and walked away.