Hanging the Ivy (A week in the life of a handy man)

Monday

I went to Home Depot today and told the sales guy I wanted to buy a stud finder finder. He said “You mean a stud finder?” I said “No, I already have one of those. I just don’t know where I left it.” Well to make a long story short, customer service is NOT a top priority at this place. Okay “Mr. Tool-man” that condescending attitude just cost you a customer. Geez, Sometimes I think those orange vests go straight to their heads!

Tuesday

I went to Lowe’s today and told the young sales lady I needed a stud finder, but I wasn’t about to buy one from those knuckleheads over at Home Depot. She smiled knowingly and said “If you’re looking for a stud, all you need is a mirror.” Oh yeah, the service is way better here at Lowe’s …way better! I followed her down the aisle, finished my shopping, and filled out a glowing comment card. Then half way home I realized …oh crap! Now I have to explain to my wife why I bought this dang mirror, and I have to find a place to hang it …but before can I hang it, I need to go buy a stud finder.

Thursday

Okay, today I’m standing on the edge the bathtub holding my new top of the line electronic stud finder, with built in voltage detector (purchased yesterday at Ace Hardware.) I position the stud finder against the wall, just above a window where I’ve been planning all week to mount some decorative cast iron hanging plant brackets, so that soon my sickly green ivy plants will be flourishing over a steamy Jacuzzi tub as they swing in the late afternoon sun. I press the button and begin scanning the wall in great anticipation only to have the Studmaster 3000 blurt out “Whoa, dude, there’s nothing behind this sheetrock but a bunch of hot wires, and maybe a little wood here, and a chunk over there. I wouldn’t hang a picture of my mother-in-law on this wall! …let alone those heavy brackets.”

And so here my story ends …with a new stud finder, and some nice iron brackets (and a full length mirror, if you believed that part of the story) all being hauled out to the garage, to be added to that pile of stuff that I might need someday. I guess I’ll go to Home Depot tomorrow to buy some of those cheap ceiling hooks for my disappointed ivy plants.

”Come on, stop pouting ivy. Just another day or two on the floor, then you’ll be livin’ the high life …I promise.”

“Sounds like more fertilizer to me” mumbled one of the plants.

”Hmmmph!” said the other.
  

November Recall

  
My unsettled thoughts
seem to stir in November.
I wonder, do you have
a month that you dread?

A time or a season
when angels forsake you,
to gather in valleys,
with wings to be shed.

When hope turns to sand
sifting fast through your fingers,
cascading o'er beaches
where memories still play.

Where you walked to your future,
and followed your own path,
and left your own footprints
that waves swept away.

And I wonder today,
could you swim in that ocean,
on the blackest of nights
without any fear?

And the wind on my neck
coldly curls up to whisper
in the voice of a memory,
“November is here".
  

Luckily, I’m More Forgetful than I Used to Be

  
I can’t tell you how many times (although my wife probably could) that I’ve put something on the stove, or in the oven and forgotten all about it …until a cloud of smoke caused me to suspect that perhaps I was cooking something. Well today would have been number something or other in that long series of mishaps, but luckily evolution in its slow, but ever prudent manner averted what could have been another smoky disaster at my house.

You see, about an hour ago I put some fancy jalapeno bread on a cookie sheet, grated some cheddar cheese over the top, and flipped on the broiler. Then I filled my coffee cup and wandered off to the computer to do a little reading at Craneleg's Pond. Well, a little reading led to a little writing, and the next thing you know I thought I smelled smoke. So I ran into the kitchen and flung open the oven door. I know readers, I know ..."you’re not supposed to close the oven door when you’re broiling, blah, blah, blah," but that little lecture is wasted on me. I always close the oven door. I've convinced myself that “with the door closed, whatever’s in there will cook faster and be done before I can forget what I was doing and wander off.” What? …you don’t see the brilliance in that? Okay, I’ll concede that point.

Note to self: From now on …uhh …something about an oven door.

Now where were we? Oh yeah! I flung open the oven door and only a tiny puff of smoke came out. Where was the usual head enveloping, eye watering, cough inducing, billowing black behemoth that I’ve become so accustomed to? ...and where was the carbon lump, and ruined cookie sheet that should be in there? It’s gone! Where’s my cheesy bread?!

Oh, there it is …sitting on the counter by the coffee maker. I forgot to put it in the oven. Well how’s that for Darwinism at its best! You see, forgetful Randy may have nearly burned the house down again, but super-forgetful Randy merely preheated the oven to the Hell setting. Well to make a long story short, I popped the cheesy bread under the broiler, shut the door and came in here to tell you all about how I almost ...Oh crap!!!
 

Unfinished Letters

  
A pencil whispers secrets to the page.
A pen scrawls out in bitterness and rage;
while typewriters plink, and clink,
and hammer at their ribbon’s ink,
catapulting words at paper walls,
sending soldiers running down the halls
with orders stuffed in envelopes
dashing everybody’s hopes
that they may all be home before the fall.

A Private writes his fiancée a poem.
His Sergeant scribes an angry letter home.
Then rockets shake, and bullets rake,
and walls collapse, and windows break,
and blood runs o’er the words of each man’s page;
o'er the truth about the waste of war they wage.
But it’s in plinks, and clinks as cold as ice
that we’ll read of their sacrifice,
then fold our paper, sip our coffee, disengage.
 

A Cowboy in Time Square

  
Along the sidewalk he strode,
'Neath the shade of a well worn Stetson,
Past a thicket of women.
They beckoned to him.

As tempting as a clump of August blackberries,
And seemingly as juicy and sweet.
Their smooth plump fruit,
Hanging swollen in the hot sun.

But he imagined the vines were tougher,
The roots more hardy,
And the thorns even sharper,
Than the blackberries he knew from home.

So he kept on walking.
Though he had to look back and wonder,
What it would be like,
To pick just one.
 

The Turkey Sandwich Incident

  
Does anyone remember when manufacturers started packaging mayonnaise in plastic jars? I suppose it seemed like a good idea at the time, like getting rid of whitewall tires, but after today I’d like to go back to a simpler era (whenever that was) when mayonnaise came in good ol’ fashioned glass jars. Back then when you dropped a jar it broke like it was supposed to; the mayo oozed out, and the whole mess stayed on the floor where it belonged for easy clean up. But you can kiss those fun times good-bye because now mayonnaise is packaged in plastic NASA designed mayonnaise launching containers.

That’s right “launching containers.” Today while making a turkey sandwich I accidentally knocked a newly opened 30 oz. launcher of Kraft Light Mayo off the edge of the kitchen counter, and before I could react a physical chain reaction demonstrable by a mathematical equation had been set into motion, and there wasn’t a darn thing I could do about it. Now in the good ol’ days that equation would have been (Mayo + Glass) x Gravity = Splat. But noooo! …now we have to do the “new math.”

What happened today was: As the 30 ounces of mayo accelerated towards the floor, the jar’s aerodynamic design automatically tilted the tiny craft to the optimum launch angle of approximately 60°. Then at T-minus .2 seconds the lid was ejected in preparation for launch. Upon impact the bottom crumple-zone of the launch vessel instantly reduced the capacity of the 30 ounce jar by a good 8 to 10 ounces. Mathematically speaking, the now 20 ounce jar, still containing 30 ounces of mayo, could only do one thing.

Unable to get out of the blast zone in time, I could only watch in horror as the mayonnaise meteorite hurtled skyward. Now in deep space a mayonnaise meteorite can orbit for eons, but within the confines of a modern American kitchen with its heavy atmosphere and all, these things tend to sputter out in short order …but not without leaving an impressive path of destruction (called mayonnaisation) in their wakes. This one for example managed to hurl mayo across my pants, shirt, in my hair, all over several cabinet doors and drawer fronts, the range, refrigerator, countertops, toaster, coffee maker, curtains, window, table, light fixtures, ceiling, floor, and various other kitchen items …and a little, just a little, just enough, landed on my sandwich.
  

American Mosquerade (a party crasher's viewpoint)

  
The U.S. Constitution applies to all Americans, not just to Republican WASPs, and it applies 24-7-365, not just when it’s convenient. So to Sarah, Newt, FOX “News”, and their Tea Party sheep who continually abuse the first amendment as they cling to the second at the peril of the other 25, they can take their feigned Constitution lovin’, States rights touting, no government intervention B.S. hypocrisy and shove it. We don’t need their lies anymore. The Mosque at Ground Zero, that isn’t a Mosque, and isn’t at Ground Zero is just the latest in a long list of things they want us to fear. The entire power-hungry mindset of the Republican Party is based on just one idea: “People in fear are people that can be controlled.” We, who are still sane in America, need to stand up at every opportunity and call them out, or America will surely slip back into the mire that we have come so close to crawling out of. And given the putrid bigotry that has shown its ugly face during these past two years, we are in danger of slipping even deeper into that mire than we could have previously imagined. And if we slip, history will look back at our time, and wonder why. Why, as we wonder why slavery was accepted, why Hitler was revered, and why masses of Japanese Americans were imprisoned in American internment camps. If we fail to stop the attack on our country by the right wing multi-national corporatist Generals (armed with billions of dollars of now legal campaign contributions,) and their conservative Christian Lieutenants (who lead an army of ignorant Tea Party foot-soldiers) history will, as it has so many times before, look back at this generation and ask why …why were so many so blind?