September 1, 2007
The newest craze gripping the Grand Banks is the Cod Fisher Dance. Created by four cod fisherman during a lull in the running of the cod, it has become the surprise hit of the season, sweeping through the North Atlantic fishing fleet like a get happy virus. As one guy put it, “It’s so different from fishing for cod!”. I’ll say! Get down, boys, get down.
September 2, 2007
This was so weird. Yesterday, I got a 1 day cold. It came out of nowhere - one moment I’m feeling completely fine and the next it’s like I’m in the 3rd day of a nasty dreary cold – sore, runny nose, sneezing, coughing - and it lasted all day until I went to sleep. I woke up this morning and it’s gone! Completely, like it never happened! What the... I mean, come on, you know?
September 3, 2007
A few days ago I put up a bat house down near the barn. They're wonderful to have around as bats eat like a billion mosquitoes a night, plus they’re nocturnal, so our lives don’t overlap much. Except when one gets trapped in our screened-in porch because I left the screen door open, and then closed it without realizing a bat lurked within. With no way out, the bat ended up flying back and forth nonstop in the enclosed space of the porch, scaring Maddie, who was on the porch at the time, and who alerted me to her unhappiness by howling. When I saw our flying friend, I slipped back out to the porch without letting the bat inside the house, a neat trick as the little buggers are pretty quick, calmed little Maddie, dodged a couple of the bat's back and forths, and managed to get the screen door open again. Maddie bolted, I followed, and the bat followed me, flying off into the night to the relief of everyone. Shortly thereafter, we all went back to our lives.
September 4, 2007
Jeez, the water heater broke yesterday and flooded the basement. Nice. Got my hands full. We’ll do this blog thing another day. Ta.
September 6, 2007
-- You’re giving me a car?!
-- No, Johnson, I’m telling you to go park mine. And wax it while you’re out there.
-- Because at first I thought, Mr. Phelps is handing me car keys!
-- That’s right Johnson, mine. Go check the air in my tires. And hang a new one of those little scented cardboard trees from the mirror too. The old one doesn’t smell so good.
-- But Mr. Phelps, I’m retiring. I thought the keys were...
-- Yeah, well you thought wrong, Johnson. Hey, you want to know why we’re making you retire early?
-- But that was to be our little secret, Mr. Phelps.
-- It’s ‘cause you wouldn’t wear bow ties like me, Johnson. You’re the only one wearing a regular tie. Frankly, I didn’t much like it. Now run to the store and get me some beer.
-- If you would have told me to switch I would have! You never said a word about my ties!
-- Yeah, well, I figured you would have figured it out by now. Guess you didn’t.
-- But Mr. Phelps-
-- If you want to know the truth, I’m firin’ ya because of your creepy Christopher Walken-like presence. I keep expecting you to knife me in the back or something.
-- But that’s ridiculous!
-- Go tell that to my shrink. Ok, so long, Johnson. Before you go, bring my car around, the missus and I want to leave. Bye bye.
September 7, 2007
According to one of our neighbors, there have been 3 bears hanging around our place all summer. Really? Yup. Yeesh. Ah, the rural life.
September 8, 2007
P u b l i c S e r v i c e A n n o u n c e m e n t
Life can be big and smack you down or give you a rip roaring jolt, sure, but it also has its nuances. Take discretion, for instance. Discretion in life is a nuance of life. If you’re not aware of being discrete, you can’t help but be indiscrete, right? But get this, the discrete wince at your indiscretions, they do, it pains them, knowing the difference and all, them practicing the nuance of discretion, you not so much. All right then, here’s the good part. Because you can only recognize indiscretion if you’re aware of the nuance of discretion, we’re telling you about it right now! Most excellent, eh. Ok, so no more talking too loud in public, blabbing your friend’s personal secrets to anyone who will listen, that sort of thing, ok? Boy, we did some good work here today.
This public service announcement has been brought to you by the concerned folkery at Keith Ryan Publishing, where we believe that your personal discretion is so loose that we have taken it upon ourselves to put you on 3 second delay. That way, we can stop you before you begin. We care about you that much, do too.
September 9, 2007
Just lazing in the hammock looking straight up into the blue sky I see way up at like 10,000 feet, a faint V wing of Canadian geese heading south by southwest. I have been officially informed, by those who know, that Fall has arrived. I watch until they pass by, then close my eyes and think about the wonder that is this place.
September 10, 2007
Watching Sunday football, I got to wondering who the oldest player (not part of the kicking game) is in the NFL – and imagining how tough that guy must be...because lordy, that game is full of enormous athletic men beating each other down. If you’re not huge and you’re not strong, you’d better be fast (or a part of the kicking team). If you’re like 40 years old and doing it, you are a man’s man. That’s all I’m sayin’, you know?
September 11, 2007
I just found out that I have a nephew playing college football in the States for an NCAA Division 1-A team. Pret-ty cool. Wait, you hear that? That’s the sound crazy ideas make when they enter your head. ‘Cause the way I see it, the boy is just one step away from pro ball. Ow! I’m feelin’ it. You feelin’ it?
September 12, 2007
-- Johnson, that fish, you're stinkin’ up the joint.
-- Mr. Phelps, when you said you’d keep me on –
-- It was all that crying and whining.
-- But I never expected to be working a fishing boat in the Aleutians! I didn’t even know our company had fishing boats in the Arctic.
-- We didn’t before all your crying and whining. Now hurry off to the kitchen and cook that bugger, I’m hungry.
-- But Mr. Phelps, when can I stop fishing and come back to the office?
-- The office? Silly boy. By the way, I like the hat. It makes you look less like a psycho killer. Heck, you look like Ted Williams now.
-- I’m away from my wife and children 8 months of the year with the fleet.
-- Whine whine, eh Johnson.
-- It's hard work, Mr. Phelps. It smells all the time. That's the truth.
-- Johnson, you’re holding a fish, what kind of credibility do you think you have?
-- I’m sorry, Mr. Phelps. I can’t do this anymore. I’m going to have to quit.
-- Too late, Johnson, you’re fired. On behalf of the company, so long and thanks for all the fish. Bye bye.
September 13, 2007
It doesn’t matter what it is, if you don’t think it’s possible, you will not spend an ounce of energy to try and attain it. If you do think it’s possible, then you will work toward achieving it, and possessing it, all because it is possible, to you. It has to do with what (you think) is worthy of your time and efforts. All of that decided by a mental projection of your self in the belief or lack thereof of accomplishing it. Is it possible; is it worthy; can I do this; do I want this; each and every time, only you decide. Each and every time.
September 14, 2007
I’m painting today. And not some artistic canvas with a haunting yet beautiful rendition of my inner psyche, no, I’m talking oil based exterior stain on the outside of our house. Oh boy.
September 15, 2007
It’s precarious because I’m up on the very last rung of a tippy ladder perched on uneven ground and I’m reaching as far as I can to paint the very top of this board up near the roof soffit, when I hear something large moving around in the bushes below. I have enough going on so that I don’t really want to look but the thought of some just escaped circus bear who was trained to climb ladders and was going to start up and trap me at the top flashed through my mind so I forced myself to look down and see what was going on below me. No bear. Instead, a beautiful white tailed buck with a big rack was foraging directly below me, and so my new worry was that I would fall from my precarious perch and impale myself on his antlers. That would, of course, really hurt, which started a chain of thinking about which would be the better worse way to go, circus bear or antler impalement. I turned back and finished painting, never really coming to a definitive conclusion.
September 16, 2007
-- Now the shoe’s on the other foot, huh Phelps.
-- Johnson, how did you do that?!
-- That’s Mr. Johnson to you. Get going, Phelps, check my motor oil.
-- I don’t believe this! Why am I looking backward? How did you-
-- Quiet, Phelps. You’re mine now.
-- That's so kinky.
-- Isn't it.
-- Johnson, you’re not going to send me fishing in the Aleutians, are you?
-- That’s for me to know and you to find out. By the way, Phelpsey, we didn’t just switch heads, we switched lives...and I’m just now laying my eyes on your pretty little trophy wife, Lori Sue...
-- Johnson, you wouldn’t dare!
-- Oh, wouldn’t I? You should have been nicer to me when you had the chance. Too bad for you, Phelps. Now go bring the car around.
-- I’ll turn psycho! I’ll stab you in the back! Or the front.
-- You don’t have the head for it, Phelps. Now go gas up the car and stock it full of Red Bull. Me and Lori Sue are steppin’ out.
-- I’ll get you for this, Johnson.
-- That’s Mr. Johnson to you. And the only thing you’re getting is my car. Now hurry along, Phelps, we don’t want to keep the missus waiting.
September 18, 2007
Tiger Woods says that he loves to go spear fishing. I would not have thought that such a beautifully centered and balanced man would enjoy intentionally killing things.
September 20, 2007
I woke up on the wrong side of the bed today. I’m warning everybody, stand back!
September 21, 2007
The most worn out dog eared card in my tarot deck is the High Priestess, which represents intuition. That means I’ve drawn that card more than any other. So is intuition a part of the answer to most of my questions? Seems so, eh? I see it as just another way to depend on myself. Intuition is me talking to me. Gotta like the source, you know? My goodness, literally.
September 22, 2007
-- Lori Sue!
-- Hello, boys. I heard ya talkin’ about me. Maybe a gal wants to defend herself, you know.
-- You tell him you’re my property, Lori Sue. Go on, tell Johnson hands off. What the hell are you wearing?!
-- Your property?! Why you louse! Hey, watch this-
-- I’m with Johnson now.
-- Ooh, did you hear that Phelps?
-- Shut up, Johnson. Lori Sue, you can’t be happy with a schlub like him.
-- She's all mine.
-- Shut up, Johnson! Lori Sue, you take off that ridiculous party outfit and stop that sexy provocative behavior right now. You hear me? Lori Sue?
-- Now you shut up, Phelps, and go bring the car around like I’m telling you. Or the next stop is Alaska for you.
-- Yeah, echoed Lori Sue, and then shook it like Shakira to drive home her point, whatever that was. And so began the unraveling of Mr. Phelps, CEO.
Is there a lesson to be learned from all this (besides how to badly Photoshop in public)? Well sure! Probably. Maybe... Nah. No lessons here.
The end.
September 24, 2007
George Bush and his cadre of crooks and liars should be example enough of how the U.S. two party electoral system needs massive reform. Let’s get real – does anyone believe that out of over 250 million Americans, this moron is the best person to run the country? In the U.S. they debate whether Iraq is in a civil war, but fail to acknowledge the political civil war that has neatly divided America into liberal or conservative, each the horror to the other. What’s the good of that? It’s time to dump the electoral college (and all the power it brings to the two party system) and bring in the popular vote. Have candidates run on what they believe, and if enough constituents agree with them, they will get elected. I dunno, seems pretty egalitarian to me.
September 25, 2007
I know 4 people who have their birthday today. So Susan, Ben, Gabriel and Joy, have a most wonderful birthday four times over. But wait, why not square that and have it 16 times over?! I know it sounds crazy - but why not?! Powerful birthdays such as this show just how fortunate it was that those people were all born at once like that.
September 26, 2007
I have come across this incredible photo from the archives - one that shows that the moon landing was faked! Take a look at this. See Larry Wheeler there on the right, well he’s a gaffer caught in the frame of the fake astronauts who are discovering a fake flat tire on their fake lunar rover. My god, what more proof do they need?! An investigation oughta be launched, dontcha think?
September 28, 2007
Is better really better? My router and modem are blinking away with messages and bits from other folks living other lives in completely different places on the same beloved planet. They send it, zip zip, it's here. Can you remember back in the day when nothing zipped? We’re so modern. Sigh. Is better really better?
September 29, 2007
Cold pizza may be the perfect breakfast food. Frankly, I’m surprised that some cereal manufacturer hasn’t put out a Cold Pizza cereal. Maybe a box full of tiny wedged shaped doughy things, or hell, literal slices of cold pizza itself. Shoo, seems like a natural to me. What?
September 30, 2007
If I could rent like an hour on a time machine, I’d go far enough ahead to see how the future will excoriate Bush and Cheney. See what they have to say about when America went nuts for seven years and embraced these criminals. Then I'd come back here, secure in the knowledge that the planet will survive these dangerous and stupid people.
