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family / photo / running / Tuesday — Comments Off on Plastic spatulas are the key to faster paces
17
Dec 19

Plastic spatulas are the key to faster paces

I had the great good fortune to visit with my grandfather today. We’re trying to talk him into going to dinner with us tomorrow night. I’m sure he will, but we just have to work on him a bit more. We are determined and persuasive.

We also stopped by to see my aunt and uncle, who married us in 2009. (And I officiated his daughter’s wedding in 2016, but that’s a different story, I suppose.) Sat with them for a bit and then strolled into town to do town things. There are the regular provisions to procure. And then, of course, there are three or four items we can’t find at our own local, inferior grocery store. Each trip we return with cans of this and boxes of that.

It’s never cans of that and boxes of this. Have you ever wondered why that is?

I think it is because the this would run right out of the boxes. Leak right through the paperboard, right onto the shelves and floors.

I stood on a ladder for a good long while yesterday. It was time for the annual light bulb changing event above my mother’s television. It requires a great climb and I am still agile enough for the work. The hardest part is moving a giant ladder in from the garage and into the living room.

Since I brought the ladder in for that, there was no reason to take the ladder out the back and get onto that gutter my mother asked me to look into. There was a slow drip, for days, she said, after a big rain. And could I see what was going on?

What was going on was that the gutter needed to be cleaned. The backyard of the house sees great sun, but that gutter does not, and the asphalt runoff from the shingles was just sliding down into the gutter, never drying, always accumulating and now, in spots, had started growing moss.

Grab yourself a spatula and some bags and start removing the gunk. If you can find the right size spatula or spoon, or garden hoe, you can make shorter work of it. Because it is a long gutter, I filled up most of a garbage can.

It was also a very tall ladder. And it might have impacted my run today, which was a picturesque and slow 3.69-mile experience.

I discovered a road running alongside the nearby high school. The map tells me it runs all the way to the water. I didn’t grow up here, and I didn’t run all the way down the road, so the road was new to me and I’m taking the map’s word for it.

But that first little bit of that new road:

It turns out, you can miss the pines. This morning I realized I miss the pines.

I ran about six-tenths of a mile down the road. It sounds like nothing, a thousand yards, but it felt like a lot. Anyway, the road apparently branches off three different times before they all drop down to the river and a little creek inlet. I didn’t go that far because life has taught me that if you get to the water you’re going downhill. Which means you have to go uphill.

And none of that for me, thanks. I just ran through pastures and by one little house. There are more down by the water. I know they are there because several cars passed me by. Several nice cars.

I always wonder what that’s like. In my neighborhood there are a lot of sidewalks and walking paths. And of course there are a lot of young people running around. You begin to see the same people if you are out there enough. But, here, where we are running just now, it’s just roads and houses and businesses. There are broad shoulders on the highway, but I can’t recall having ever seen a lot of people running around these parts.

I bet the local folks don’t see a lot of people running around here, either. And I bet these last two days cars going by have been wondering what that crazy fool is doing out there.

I wonder that every time, too. But at least I am wondering in slightly warmer temperatures this week.

(Spatulas are good for cleaning gutters. If you have an old plastic one you can cut it to the proper width. A good spatula speeds up the process, then, hopefully reducing the time you spend on a ladder.)

adventures / family / Instagram / memories / Monday / photo / running / Twitter — Comments Off on Beginning the holiday travels
16
Dec 19

Beginning the holiday travels

The thing we celebrated this weekend:

That was yesterday. Still a good story, still the best story.

On Saturday we went for a run.

This was notable only for two reasons. It was my third day of running in a row. Eleven miles since Thursday! I guess I am better, or healed or whatever, and starting to round into shape. Good thing, too. I’m running out of “first time since” sort of incidents.

But now, I guess, this means the real running can begin.

The other thing for which this run was notable:

These skies. Good gracious. Hang all this, I say. We’re leaving tomorrow! Which was yesterday. Which we did; which was the plan anyway.

And so we’ve come south. We had barbecue last night with friends in Nashville.

And then we drove on, getting in late last night to begin the holiday visiting circuit. This week, with my folks. And so it was that we ran in Alabama this morning. It was gray. Tonight it stormed, even. Hey, it’s warmer.

Ran by these:

Local legend* has it that the only thing two young people loved more than lions was each other. One was the mayor’s kid. And the other’s dad was from the wrong side of the tracks. Their parents wouldn’t agree to the relationship, and so the young woman jumped into the river. In his grief, the boy followed.
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When they pulled them out downstream, the two young people had turned into these lion statues. The local school honors their love to this day.

My run today was awful – and I had a rest day yesterday and everything! — I suppose the long, loooong car ride doesn’t really count as a rest day. But we ran through the neighborhood my folk’s house is in, and then down to the high school, where there is a track, which was closed to us because of construction. So we ran in the school parking lot and an adjoining road and probably somewhere else and it was all awful.

I did get to see a mosaic, though:
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There was a storm this evening. Bad. Violent. We watched it on the radar and we watched it in the yard. At least until the lightning rolled close by. We weren’t far off from going into a room in the basement — as a precaution I’d already gone down stairs to turn on all of the lights and find the appropriate spot — when it shifted just enough to the south.

A dangerous line came through, the worst of landing just a few miles away from where we are. Some houses were destroyed and, as I said on air more times than I care to count: we’ll have to wait until the sun comes up tomorrow to know the full extent of the damage.

Dinner was at a little restaurant that sports this statue near the door.

Yes, I know.

It’s a quiet place, being out of the way from anything, but it is pretty good.

We may be going back when my step-father gets back in town. Oh no. Más enchiladas. Happy me.

*The local legend that I just made up.

photo / Thursday — Comments Off on The best views
12
Dec 19

The best views

Every now and again you should really consider how far digital photography processing has come. You can do this with the camera you have right now, if you shoot something in the dark, and quickly, and from the hip, perhaps while driving slowly, as if you are preparing for a turn.

Which is what I was doing, having driven the last bit of the day’s drive west, it was time to turn south (ha!) into the subdivision where we keep all of our things. The way the house is oriented, the way things surround it, you get only the most brief sunset. So, sometimes, if the timing is right, I can see a bit of sunset on the ride to the house.

It was the second best view of the day.

The best view was having lunch with The Yankee. We don’t do a lot of food photography around here, so there’s not a picture, and I hope you’ll just take my word for it.

I guess, then, that makes this the third-best view of the day:

It was a five-mile run, the longest of my very slow rebuild. We have two solid three-mile routes in the larger neighborhood area, and there’s a solid 10K, too, but I’m just making stuff up at this point. The problem with running something in-between is that you have to get back to where it is warm, and dry, and where you don’t have to run. So there was some willful backtracking through another neighborhood. These were roads I ride on my bike. But that’s a different speed — which changes a lot of our perceptions – and in the daylight.

The house with the fountain, though, has found a Christmas duck.

It’s both genius and maniacal. Who would design this? Who would approve it? Surely there must have been a board meeting, a marketing whiz all agog over the idea — imagine the images in the bulk mailers — but an MBA asking How is this going to scale?

Market research, says the market research firm, says people with fountains need giant ducks with winter caps and scarves. And over the second martini that started to make a little sense to more people around the table. And here we are.

I can’t remember if I’ve seen this before. Last year, maybe. But it could be a false memory. How silly would it be, and how impressionable would the mind be, to think to itself, while you’re running “Oh, yes, this was here last year.”

So I’ll have to see if it is there next year. If I remember. On a day when I don’t have two other great views. This duck deserves a promotion.

books / journalism / Monday / photo — Comments Off on A random assortment from Monday
9
Dec 19

A random assortment from Monday

On Saturday, Poseidon had the howling cat blues:

He looks like a different animal with his mouth open. It’s weird.

Phoebe, meantime, was unimpressed.

What’s nice is that, as you can just see from that side view of the window, it was a gorgeous day. You can even see it based on the light bouncing off this Chick-fil-A window:

That’s one merry dairy cow, I said on Instagram. And not enough people appreciated that word play and my taking advantage of every chance possible to point out that, for decades now, Chick-fil-A has been using the wrong breed of cattle in their promos.

But it was a lovely day to make that argument. Today, today was less attractive in every way.

I used to count how many times I’d seen someone leave their cart in this particular parking lot’s handicapped spots. It’s a rural area. There are a lot of older people shopping in those particular stores. I visit once a week, or so, on a regular errand and I have met plenty of people that might take advantage of that spot.

The last thing anyone that needs a handicapped spot wants to deal with, besides the rain and the cold and whatever condition they feel like that particular day, is the laziness of a person who can’t push the cart to the corral not 25 feet away.

I’m sure you were just in a hurry.

So I pushed the cart up to the store. Someone ought to.

Every once in a great while you get to read a real treat of a story. I consume a lot of news, part of the job, and over the years I’ve written or read almost every kind of formula covering most any kind of story you can put in front of your eyes on any given day. They still have value, but you sometimes just know where a story is going.

But once in a great while, you get a treat. Here’s one now.

The first time he spoke to her, in 1943, by the Auschwitz crematory, David Wisnia realized that Helen Spitzer was no regular inmate. Zippi, as she was known, was clean, always neat. She wore a jacket and smelled good. They were introduced by a fellow inmate, at her request.

Her presence was unusual in itself: a woman outside the women’s quarters, speaking with a male prisoner. Before Mr. Wisnia knew it, they were alone, all the prisoners around them gone. This wasn’t a coincidence, he later realized. They made a plan to meet again in a week.

On their set date, Mr. Wisnia went as planned to meet at the barracks between crematories 4 and 5. He climbed on top of a makeshift ladder made up of packages of prisoners’ clothing. Ms. Spitzer had arranged it, a space amid hundreds of piles, just large enough to fit the two of them. Mr. Wisnia was 17 years old; she was 25.

You can’t excerpt a story like this, to give it justice, and you will find yourself glancing over at the scroll bar and sad to see how you only have so much of the story to go. You’re going to want it to go on, like a great book. You’re going to run through almost every emotion possible. And you’re going to want to keep reading it. So go read it.

Speaking of books …

It’s dense. It’s detailed. We’re starting to catch up to the period on electricity. I’m going to finish that one, some day.

Friday / friends / IU / photo / Twitter — Comments Off on Friends, let us weekend
6
Dec 19

Friends, let us weekend

My friend Bryce took this picture of me, outside the studio this morning. It was an ambush job which, as a shutterbug myself, I appreciate. This was somehow the only pose I could imagine at the moment:

I assume that was because my mind had already been melted for the day after an early meeting.

Also, in looking at it, this is the photograph that told me I needed a haircut. And some go-to poses for photographs.

Anyway, the morning show was in the studio this morning. It was their last show of the term. We have one more night of productions, next week, shooting our last two shows of the semester.

I’ve been looking for a new fall guy for stories. Somehow, this never occurred to me until today:

It’s a big fib. My roommate was a great guy. He dated nice people. But it’s just far enough removed to not seem mean-spirited, but close enough to feel plausible.

I mean there was that one young woman he dated from back home. She really worked him over at one point. Set him free for other people though, but not until after many, many nights of ballads and conversations trying to figure out what just happened.

What just happened was … hang on … let me check his social media. OK, good, that’s not the woman he married.

See? Seems realistic.

Got in a nice little 5K this evening. And then I got the laundry in the washer. I did this because I like having laundry done before the weekend, but completely forgot about that fact on Thursday. So I’m doing laundry on the weekend. It’s a nice domestic feeling, knowing the clothes hamper is empty, the dresser and closets are full and there’s no noise coming from the laundry room.

It’s better than the alternative, washing clothes tonight, wondering if I’ll forget to finish all of this and have to put clothes away on Sunday night. What a modern sadness: I must go to the office tomorrow, I must sort the socks tonight.

Thursday, then, is an ideal time for laundry. Someone please remind me of this every other week.

But now it is time for the best part of postseason football:

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