Good morning Boys and Girls.

Tomorrow is May 1st, 2006.

Today is the very last day of April, 2006 any of us will ever experience.

Looked forward to the month with anticipation like many of it's predecessors. Now I bid it farewell with the same lack of remorse I have done at the end of most of the months during my life.

There are a few, however, that jump back at me every now and again, waving their hands to be seen from the long line of calendar pages marching slowly away. They walk in a line toward a bright light, thin papered, their grids and numerals backwardly apparent through their unprinted backs.

They, the jumping, waving ones, are the months in which I did something of which I'm either not proud, or contained actions so foolish that I think they feel it's their job to make me remember them, if for no other reason than to help me make sure I don't repeat anything similar in the future.

Thankfully, the "foolish months" outnumber the ones where I did something really wrong, and don't show anywhere near as much effort in getting my attention as the "baddies."

One in particular stays with me and makes me shake my head in shame every time I look at it, now some 25 years down the road, and thankfully, growing smaller each time I see it. Even so, I DO see it and I'm reminded and truly ashamed of what I started during that month of December 1981.

I had an incredibly loving wife and two kids at home. Ry was about three and a half and Andrea was just over one. We'd struggled for a couple of years after a rash decision we'd made together had ended in a financial cluster-f**k, but things were slowly coming together again.

A guy I did some work for invited me to a Red Wings game. On the way, we stopped for a beer. He got out some coke and offered me a line. I took it.

Stupid.

Over the next year and a half, coke became "it" for me. I spent thousands upon thousands of dollars on the damn stuff and even started selling to my friends.

In June of 1983 I almost got busted. I SHOULD have been busted in fact. I was sitting in a parking lot with a coke buddy. We'd just bought a quarter-ounce of the stuff. We were about to go to his house to split it up into grams, and though we'd sampled it inside, we had to try a little more, and then a little more. It was the biggest buy in which I'd ever been involved.

It was after two a.m. Suddenly a police car pulled in next to us, no lights, no siren. Jim thrust the little bag under his seat. The cop came to the window and asked us what the hell we were doing there, shined his flashlight around the inside of the van knowingly, and asked for I.D.

He knew why we were there. He knew -- and we knew he knew.

He was just about to ask us to get out of the van when his radio squawked, which we could hear too because of where he'd parked and everyone's windows being open.

There'd been a robbery a few blocks away. He HAD to respond.

The look on his face was exactly what you'd expect. He was pissed, frustrated and... thankfully for us, rushed. He gave us back our I.D. and told us to get the hell out of there.

I went cold turkey on the spot, told my buddy he could keep my half of the coke and got out of the van and walked back to my car, a couple of miles away -- and secretly thanked the robbers, whoever they were.

Thank God for that incident. I often wonder what my life would have been like had that radio not squawked at the very moment it did.

Know the worst part? I tried to get my wife to try "it" on any number of occasions. I'm more ashamed of that than anything else. Thankfully, she was smarter than me, and in fact, had she known the extent of my involvement during that eighteen months, I'm sure I'd have been divorced twenty years earlier, and deservedly so.

It's, by far, the worst thing I've ever done.

Most months just fade away, marching dutifully.

Some... Not so much.


Be good to everyone.

Good morning Viet Nammmmmm.

Huh? --I hear you cry.

I just got done listening to a 20 tape, 35 hour read of "Up Country" by Nelson DeMille. The story was my constant work companion this past week and kept me riveted.

Demille is the guy who wrote "The General's Daughter" which was made into a movie a few years ago. I remember reading, or listening to it five or so years ago, but I didn't see the movie.

This book stars DeMille's regular protagonist, a retired Army Investigator named Paul Bremmer who's asked to go back to Viet Nam around '97 to look into the murder of a American soldier by his own captain thirty years earlier.

The story itself was okay, but what kept me so mesmerized were the incredibly vibrant descriptions of the countryside, cities and jungles that make up the country, and, of course, the many groups of people who live in Viet Nam and the historic conflicts between the various groups and tribes that have lead to so much turmoil there over the last thousand years.

Really was fascinating. Especially, perhaps, because it's not the sort of book I'd normally be drawn to. I grabbed it simply because I couldn't find another unabridged audio book at this particular branch that I hadn't listened to, excepting, of course, the entire frigging Danielle Steel Collection that every library that contains even a single audio book seems to have.

Updyke? Nah. Never.

Roth? Usually none. Maybe Portnoy's Complaint.

Hemmingway? Max two. "The Sun Also Rises" and maybe "For Whom The Bell Tolls."

Margaret Atwood? "The Robber Bride" for sure, and maybe "The Handmaid's Tale. Although I just found "Oryx and Crake" at the main branch and grabbed it like a junkie in an unattended jewelry store.

But Steven King, Danielle Steel and for some reason W.E.B. Griffen? -- they'll have three dozen each by these folks... Oh, I forgot. EVERY library has a complete set of the Jenkins and LeHaye pre and post rapture crappola. I think they must have been purchased and donated nation-wide by some big-time-born-again pooh-bah who wanted us all to get a glance at what I'm assuming they assume is the very near future.

In fact, now that I think about it, only the rapture occurring might make me listen or read Danielle Steel; ya know, while I'm sitting around wondering where all the born-agains went. Then? I'd go to the coffee shop and read "My Chaste Lover" (or make up your own Danielle Steel title - as I just did, perhaps "Lovingly, Lustily Livid" or "The Hardest Way.") while I await my smiting -- or whatever the latest theory is on what happens to those of us "Left Behind."

Be good to everyone.

Good morning Boys and Girls.

I went to bed with the windows wide open, a cool breeze wafting in, sleeping in underwear, a light blanket loosely covering me about halfway.

Woke up around four a.m. to use the john, shivering like crazy.

According to yahoo weather, it's 33 degrees here right now and the forecast says snow is possible.

What the hell? May starts in five days!

It's getting to the point where it seems we're going to have to start looking like crazy people and taking to the streets in protest if we have any hope of keeping the nut in the White-house from doing what he's saying the nut in Tehran will do if we don't.

DrForbush writes about an upcoming test in the dessert that looks to be a non-nuclear equivalency test to see if we'd be able to use a "small" nuke to bust up the bunkers we assume the leadership in Iran might hide in, in the event of us preemptively attacking.

This all feels like a real life Mobius Strip.

We got away with using the bomb a couple of times at the end of the WWII, and perhaps it was for the good -- though I'm still not convinced -- but regardless, to date, we're still the only nation ever to use one. If we do it again, we'll sure NEVER be able to complain when someone else decides that using theirs is the expedient thing to do, and for whatever reasons they decide to use it/them...

Lord knows we've trampled the delicate brush on the moral high-ground recklessly for the last few years, and as a result, I'm just as sure the necessarily feeble, toothpick-like supports holding it up there have been pushed into the earth a hell of a lot further.

These days? We're just another country run by ideologues who could care less about what the citizenry wants. Remember when we thought countries like that had real problems?

And what's the recourse? To go out in the streets and protest? We've been conditioned over the past twenty-five years to think those who do that are nuts.

"I'm the decider."

Sounds like Stalin without the firing squads to me. And if people like him are continually elected? It won't be long till that kind of stuff starts happening here too, albeit under the guise of protecting freedom, of course.

Still can't believe my country attacked even one country preemptively. When Japan did it to us -- for what they considered to be similar reasons, actually, (they thought we were a threat to them) -- we considered it an act of cowardice. Now? Seems we're gonna make it standard policy.

I think it's what happens when little kids are brought up to "know" that they live in "the best country on Earth" -- without an understanding of what that sort of smug nationalism breeds, and certainly without many personal experiences outside the country to use for comparison. It's absurd.

I'd rather live in a country that continually strives to be the best it can be. One that replaces flag waving and self-aggrandizing slogans with grateful thanks, offers of peace and a constant aim toward self sufficiency -- and an unapologetic habit of taking good care of the weakest of their own people.

In the end, we may become the best country on Earth for a while. But for now, it's like claiming we've arrived at a destination still many states away and to which we're driving an extremely zigzagged route to reach. A route, in fact, that right now seems so callously planned, that it involves backtracking.

Maybe we just remembered we might have left the coffeepot on, and have to go back to make sure it's off.

I love us, but right now I'm ashamed of us. I say let's love the country like adults instead of like three-year-olds reciting a newly-learned nursery rhyme, who still think their parents are perfect.

Let's love the U.S. for the best reasons of all: because it's home and it's us.

It's enough, I swear.


Be good to everyone.

Good morning Boys and Girls!

(ring. ring. ring.)

"Hello. (yawn)"

"Hello sleepy."

"Hi! Sorry for yawning. How are ya? Thought you fell off the earth."

"Nope. I'm fine. I've been in ten countries in the last two weeks."

"Wow. Where are you now?"

"Paris."

"Paris? Wow."

"I'm here to see some distant relatives."

"What? YOU have relatives?"

"Sure. But it's not like they'd know it. They're down the line on my Mom's side, I haven't figured out the lineage, but we're distant cousins removed a few dozen times. I was supposed to spend Easter with them, but I got hung up in Prague."

"Why the fast track globetrotting?"

"People. Friends. Sickness."

"Usual fare huh?"

"Yeah. I'm kind of tired actually. Last time I really relaxed was on the drive South with you a few weeks ago."

"So take some time."

"Not for another week anyway. I'm leaving here this afternoon for another trip to Iraq and Iran."

"Oh man, Iraq's dangerous enough, why the heck do you want to go to Iran?"

"I'm friends with a couple of Clerics there. I'm going to talk to them."

"Geez Jesus. Is that safe for you?"

"I don't know. I don't care really. I've got to go."

"Are they really getting this nuclear thing together as quickly as it sounds?"

"Seems like it. I'm just going to try to put a word in for Dad about cooling down the rhetoric. --Letting things calm a bit."

"Their President is nuts."

"Yeah. But he really thinks he's doing what he has to do to keep his country sovereign. They don't get why they shouldn't be allowed to do what any other country does to protect themselves."

"Come on Jesus, they want one to USE, not as a defense strategy."

"I'm not so sure about that, though he sure does like to stir up the pot."

"Hell, he wants to blow the pot to kingdom come!"

"Well, maybe I can have a rational discussion with my friends. One of them has his ear."

"Good luck, (sarcastically)."

"Luck I don't need. Listen. Have you heard anything from Steve and Martha? I've called them a few times but just get their machine."

"Not in a couple of weeks. Want me to call them?"

"Would you?"

"Sure. Maybe they're out on the boat, though it seems kind of early."

"Yeah, I wondered about that. I'll be flying into Chicago at the end of the week. I'd like them to pick me up, maybe stay with them overnight."

"I'll call Steve at work today. I'm sure they'd love to have you. Do you know when, exactly?"

"No. But tell him I'll try him again later tomorrow."

"Okay. If they can't do it or are gone, I can zip over."

"Shouldn't be necessary, but thanks."

"Okay. Be careful for goodness sakes."

"I will. I'll wear my Muslim get-up."

"When in Rome!"

"Exactly. So call this number and leave me a message if I don't answer."

"Will do. I love the message on your voicemail."

"Yeah, yeah. Bye sur. Hey!"

"What?"

"Be careful picking up hitchhikers."

"Oh no. You too?

"I'm just sayin'"

"I will. Bye Jesus."

"See ya."

(click.)

Good morning Boys and Girls.

When I wake up I the morning, it takes me a few minutes to gather my thoughts and remember what I've got going during the day. That seems normal, I'd guess, doesn't it?

The blanks fill in over the course of four or five minutes more like oil seeping into sand than water pouring into a glass.

Then it takes a couple more minutes for the rest of the background to become visible and settle into place. You know, the things like my own history, feelings about things, my hopes, regrets, habits and the like.

It's this second part of the process that I'd like to be able to suspend sometimes. The background is what gets in the way. Once the internal scenery, against which the play that is our life, takes the expected shape, it is so ingrained, that it limits the actions that take place during our days, and even puts limits on what CAN take place.

I'd intended to list some of the things that make up the background of my life here, but they're not important, we all have them... And once we're adults, hell, we even do all we can to maintain them, don't we? -- meticulously polishing and dusting them off so we can point to them indignantly and say "See? That's why I am the way I am." --justifications we use constantly at least to ourselves, and sometimes, even to others.

Over the past few years I've taken some steps to whitewash some of that scenery that I knew was getting in my way, but like latex over a child's magic marker wall drawing, it takes more than one coat to cover, and if you're the one who's doing the painting, you know that eventually, it'll bleed through again.

The key is to concentrate efforts outward, (toward an audience?) ignoring the worn backdrops and chipped props altogether; almost to live as though you have no past, or at least that part of the past that shapes us in ways we know do nothing more than get in the way of a stellar, life-long performance.

It's hard, isn't it? But I'm pretty darn sure it's worth it.

Want a good laugh? Go to ryanparmenter.com, click on "blog," use the drop-down menu to click on the second to last entry "New Nuts" and click "select."

Be good to everyone. 

Good morning Boys and Girls.

Happy Easter.

Thought I'd post something I wrote for Scrawled.org. Scrawled is an online mag that our own Bourbon Bird (Rinna) is involved with. Check it out. This issue's focus is on epiphanies. Sorry it starts out about Christmas...

...................................

As a child,
I'd feel my hopes
melt into dreams,
Christmas Eve.

This is the first line of a Christmas song I wrote when my kids were little and I was Santa.

By the time I hit first grade at age six, I'd started hearing the rumors around the classroom that Santa was really my Mom and Dad. I ignored the clap-trap and got another year or so of pure excitement out of Christmas.

At seven, I stumbled upon my folks hiding place for presents a week or so before Christmas. "It" was instantaneous.

Christmas morning, when the very same presents were under the tree, as I knew they would be, I was happy enough, but the pit of my stomach yapped at me all morning.

It was my first epiphany, or at least the first one I remember.

My definition: The sudden discovery of indisputable and irrefutable truths.

Some epiphanies, we've all had. They're as predicable as sunrise and as much a part of growing up as discovering that one vegetable we just can't stand.

Our parents are not perfect.
Our parents have sex lives.
Life isn't fair.
We will die.
We have sexual needs.
Love can hurt.

And the Mother of all universal epiphanies:

Dreams rarely come true.

These are givens. Everyone has these. Some are fun. Some? -We don't even like to think about.

There are others that some people have along the way, while other folks don't.

We have a specific talent.
Politics are always political.
Our faith is (or isn't) as real as rain.
Our children are as solidly etched into our beings as anything ever could be.

And many, many others.

But what is the process of epiphany? How does it work? There's a big difference between things we learn slowly and assimilate into our thought processes by, over time, seeing repeated evidence of the truth of whatever it is, and the instantly stark clarity with which things come to us in epiphanies.

I've read that any time we have an epiphany, it's us tapping into that part of knowledge that, in other animals, we call instinct - the stuff of life that's hard-wired into our DNA that was there all the time, but with which we've just become familiar. A door opening into the storage closet, or a synaptic connection that had been waiting, since our birth, to fire.

Perhaps.

If so, they tend to be more like algebraic equations for which our lives, as we live them, supply the various values for a, b and x rather than more static math of the rest of the laws of nature.

The most recent epiphany in my life, though not very exciting, came fairly recently, much to my chagrin. I realized that no matter what I do, I will never again be as youthfully energetic as I once was, and that I'd better learn to deal with it.

I'm thankful it came to me in that form. Better than beating my head against the wall of self-delusion.

Finally then, perhaps epiphany is one more method the universe uses to spare us the horrid fate of having to experience events before we learn from them... cosmic reminders, of things we didn't even know we already knew.

Read that last sentence three times quickly, spin twice and try to drive that uncomfortable image from earlier of your folks coupling out of your mind.

Like I said, some epiphanies, we just don't want to think about.

 
....................................................

"The sky is grey." wrote one

"He says the sky is black!" claims a reader

"No, he didn't" said I

"Yes he did", claims reader

"Where?" I ask

"Let me quote him, "The sky is grey"
See? There's black in grey"

"And white!" I respond.

"Nope, just black."

"But, that's not what he wrote."

"Yes it is. We're at an impasse.
Can't you admit you're wrong?"

"Evidently not." I say, tiredly befuddled.

I turn to look outside
through the window to my left.
A cloudy sky, a grey afternoon.

Funny. I can still see just fine.

Be good to everyone. 

Go to http://telcaster.com to hear a podcast of this post. Click on "Jesus Reporting by surrogate" in featured items.

Good morning Boys and Girls.

6:34 a.m.

There's a "get rich on ebay" infomercial on the TV.

"We've got a lot of corn and it's essential that we get ourselves off oil if we're going to be a competitive nation in the twenty-first century."

That's a direct quote from G.W.B. The flow of the sentence is a little strange, but hey.

About time...

Now if he'd simply announce in JFK style sureness that we're going to do it within ten years (or fifteen, or twenty - whatever...) and set up a system to ensure it happens? He'd preemptively change his legacy from 'corrupt moronic bully' to 'visionary statesman' in one fell swoop. And? I might even find myself donating to his presidential library fund one day, because it would be the biggest step toward peace and prosperity, and most importantly, homeland security, that could be taken by any American President.

I'd support the move with all my heart.

Evidently, according to the infomercial, which is still on, I have enough stuff in my own garage to start my successful ebay business, and could easily become one of the over 400,000 people who make their full-time living from ebay since 1.8 million dollars changes hands every millisecond or so.

Let's see. Think I have a couple of old drivers and a set of knock-off irons I could sell. I have an old pair of ice-skates - but I'd feel horrible selling them to anyone, since they're kind of moldy. Maybe my problem is that I don't have a garage anymore.

Some how, I'm not sure selling these things would automatically parlay into a multi-million dollar business - giving me the glorious freedom to spend more time looking for other crap to sell.

I really hope Bush does this thing.

Maybe I could sell the set of "get rich on ebay" videotapes and sales course I bought a few months ago after watching this same infomercial one too many times?

Nah. Just kidding.

(I'm keeping them with my complete set of "Girls Gone Wild" and "Buy Any House With No Money Down" - they sit over on top of my Ab-Lounge.)

Me?

I'm gonna plant corn.


Be good to everyone.

Good morning Boys and Girls!

Okay. Now I rarely put rules on comments here, but please, no scolding me today.

I pick up hitchhikers.

Always have. Probably always will. I used to hitchhike a lot when I was young and I remember that feeling of waiting and waiting and... waiting. So these days, I just can't pass someone on the road - unless, of course, they look really, really crazy.

So.

I'm heading back North last Friday and I got off an exit about 75 miles into Tennessee, just after I'd gotten back on the road after a stop a few more miles South, actually, but I needed coffee. I noticed a guy sitting on the on-ramp with a sign I couldn't read as I turned left to go over the highway and into the truck stop.

Ended up using the computer kiosk in the truck stop for a half-hour before I took my coffee and left. As I drove over the highway to get back on I-75 north, the same guy was still there. His sign said "Ohio."

Mike was/is a life-long carnie (itinerant carnival worker.) Within five minutes of getting into the car, he began telling stories of various small fleecings he'd been involved with over his, to date, 38 year career.) He's about five months older than I am, and started at 12 years old.

I listened and learned the principle of the three-card monte, the "stand the beer bottle with a plastic fork" scam ("I can make a thousand dollars a day with any old standard Budweiser bottle and a spork from MacDonalds," he said.)

According to Mike, the game doesn't matter; there are dozens. What matters is the patter - the words used to make people keep plunking down their money into a game they pretty much know is rigged right from the get-go.

For the first two hours or so, it was interesting.

Fast forward to a truck stop in Corbin Kentucky. I'd run into the john and when I came out, I found Mike sitting at a booth in the internal Mickey D's munching on a couple of burgers. This surprised me since he'd said he was hungry but was down to thirty cents in his travel budget. I'd been about to see what he wanted so I could buy us both some Mc-Dinner.

I just got in line and bought myself a Mc-Chicken and then went to join him. I asked him how he got his burgers and he winked as he finished chewing and swallowed before speaking. "I told them I'd been here yesterday and they'd put onions on my burgers. Told them I HATE onions and had to toss them. Free Burgers. (He held the one in his hand up, proud.) Presto!"

Just then the manager came over and asked us if everything was alright. I was still getting over the story trying to decide how I felt about being unwittingly and peripherally included in this scam. Mike just smiled up at the manager and thanked him and said everything was hunky-dory. I held my tongue.

After that stop, Mike's monolog turned to the state of affairs in the country. Mostly, I gather, the real problems are caused by "Niggers, Illegal Spics" and especially "Whores." Whores are women, according to Mike. Just about all women, from what I gathered.

After an hour of this crap I told him I was going to listen to my audio-book for a while. I specifically decided not to argue with this guy - or to drop him off before I'd gotten him to where I'd promised to take him, but from then on, I quit listening.

I kept wondering what sort of life this guy had had to get to the mental state he was in. Can't remember being more sad after meeting someone in a long time. This wasn't an idiot. This was someone who seemed to choose to be selectively stupid.

I'd planned on going into some of his theories which were obviously convoluted but almost interesting in their specific ridiculousness. In retrospect? -it's not worth it.

Remember, no scolding.


Be good to everyone.

Good morning Boys and Girls.

(ring)

"Hello?"

"Good morning."

"Hi Jesus. You still in Miami?"

"Nope. Washington."

"D.C.?"

"Yep. Gonna watch the immigration protest today."

"We've never really discussed it, have we? What's your take on it?"

"Well, you know me. I'm not much on nationalistic fervor."

"No. But it's a real problem here."

"So tell people to quit hiring illegals and punish them if they do. They wouldn't come if they knew they couldn't get work.... But that's still a bunch of crap. The U.S. is only as wonderful a place as it is because of immigration over the years and remember, way more then half of the people here are here due to the "illegal" immigration of their forbearers."

"What are you talking about?"

"Ellis Island was all well and good but more people simply walked in at other ports and through other borders than ever went through the official process. Check it out."

"Well what about the fact that so many take advantage of our safety-net system and..."

"That's more crap surrogate. It's a drop in the bucket."

"Jesus, you ever been out west? It's a HUGE problem out there."

"Nope. It isn't. Weighed against the pluses? It's all so much tripe. This is simply a way for people to look down on another group of people to keep themselves feeling superior. It's like any other form of racism, or religious-ism... or any other "ism." This is a non-issue except for figuring out a way to make people who've made this country their home FEEL at home.

"Are you sure about this?"

"Look. There isn't any reason in the world that people who live here now, or want to come here in the future shouldn't be allowed to do so. You know damn well that fresh immigrants are among the most successful people in the country... You folks like to look at the down-side for one reason only... and you know it."

"What about the security issues? The threat of terrorism?"

"Come on. You think deporting people who've been living here for years has one tiny iota to do with the threat of terrorism?"

"I suppose not. But something has to give."

"It would slowly become a non-issue if you allow people to work their way into citizenship, no matter how they get here."

"That won't happen, I don't think. The House won't stand for it..."

"All politics is local. Those guys are are beholden to their constituents. It's the citizenry as a whole who have to change their minds about this - which will happen in time... But you're not there yet. Anyway... You're home and safe I see."

"Yep. Thanks. Got home Saturday around 5:00."

"Good. Thanks for letting me ride down with you."

"Hey, I'm moving in a couple of weeks. I'll have a spare bedroom when you visit."

"What? No more hard couch with springs popping through?"

"Yeah, yeah."

"Take care sur."

"You too."

(click)


Be good to everyone.

Good afternoon Boys and Girls...

Just a short note. Just got a cute email.

Late tonight it will be 01:02:03 04/05/06

Don't miss it! Won't happen again for a thousand years... Don't know about you'all, but by then? I'll be pretty old.

Be good to everyone.

Good afternoon Boys and Girls!

Sitting at my favorite Starbucks last night. Was writing and trying to concentrate a bit bu the conversation behind me kept grabbing my attention. Four people, sitting around the table, umbrella askew blocking one person from my sight when I glanced over that way (after giving up and admitting to myself that I was eavesdropping fully) in an effort to put faces with the various voices...

Man one: ...it doesn't matter man! He can be whatever you need him to be! Need a doctor? Man HE'S your doctor! Need A shrink? Let God be your shrink! He knows all about that shit, man. He...

Woman one: (interrupting the man I'm now assuming was her husband) Yeah, and ain't that the best example in the world... Shrinks! Man those people is nuts. N.U.T. Nuts! You get right with God and you won't ever need those crooks again!

Man one: Exactly. And you outta know huh, Emma? (He looks at the wife who is the one blocked from my view, but I'm assuming she's nodding>) That's RIGHT! Emma went to a psychiatrist for seven years before she got herself straight with God!

Woman one, (Emma) Psychologist actually. They're not quite as bad.

Man one: Bull-SHIT! They just as bad. Hell it's just another word for the same thing. Ain't that right now Emma. You know that's so.

Man two: Well I think it's a different thing really. Psychiatrists have to be M.D.'s. I don't think Psychologists are required to go to medical school.

Man one: They both do the devil's handiwork!

Woman two: My cousin is a psychologist. She cares a great deal about her patients!

Man one: Now there is some true bullshit. Those people only care about the money they can get outta ya. What's she charge and hour?

Woman two: I really don't know. We're not that close.

Man one: Bet it's like $75.00 an hour. God says that's a sin. In the Bible, it says plain as day that rich men... What's That verse Emma?

Emma: Ain't no rich man getting to heaven, that's what it say. No rich woman neither. Cuz a that Needle's eye thing. I'm getting me a refill.

(Emma got up and I got a look at her. Must have been a big umbrella!)

Just then a waitress brought me a sample of  vanilla latte she'd made for someone who didn't want it.

Then I put my earphones on and listened for a while to a tape of "The Murder Room", my head spinning.

Be good to everyone.

Good afternoon Boys and Girls.

It's hot here... Go figure.

Wrote a halfway decent post yesterday and lost it in the ether. Had a wonderful trip down.

I've seen a bunch of people I missed from when I lived down here, plus the feelow blogger I met on the way down, all of whom were fun to meet and gracious.

Tomorrow, the actual work starts for a few days. I'll be here all week and then head back up later in the week or on the weekend depending on how much I accomplish.

This area, (West of Ft Lauderdale) was hit hard in Wilma last October. Haven't seen any homes totally destroyed, but I've seen thousands with damage just while riding around on the main streets, plus I'd imagine the ruined ones are long torn down by now.

Still, can't imagine what the total number of damaged properties is. Everywhere you go, there are "blue roofs." Tarps are serving as temporary shingles on tens of thousands of houses as the roofers try to catch up.

The other big change since the hurricane is the number of missing or radically cut back trees.

Areas that were lush with that special Florida style of trimmed growth look ragged and makes me really feel for the folks in Mississippi and Luisiana where the damage was so much greater on a "per home" basis after Rita.

I'll try to figure out these computers here at the Southwest Regional Librbary, or there won't be much to read here till I get home.

 Be good to everyone.