"In watermelon sugar the deeds were done and done again as my life is done in watermelon sugar. I'll tell you about it because I am here and you are distant. Wherever you are, we must do the best we can. It is so far to travel, and we have nothing here to travel, except watermelon sugar. I hope this works out."

Richard Brautigan

Getting caught up at the office. Watch a little football tonight.

Tomorrow I am getting up early and hitting the bike trail. I want to be 'out' before dawn and not back until sunset. Fifty miles out, fifty back. It's not going to be a power ride. I expect it to take me all day. I have some poetry packed, a couple of old hippie books - good old Brautigan- some oranges and bananas. A little smoke. A bottle of water. Some paper and a pen.

I hope it is a good ride.

Love&Stuff

Oh, Wowsers &stuff!!!

The Mathman and Dcup are celebrating 20 years of producing children, baseball, blogging, rock&roll,gardens,Edward Gorey,photographs and a whole bunch of stuff& such.

Now, and I really gotta do another big wowsers here, twenty years of doing ANYTHING is a long time.....

....but twenty years of married?

That is a long time of doing EVERYTHING!

Now, getting married may be as American as apple pie.....

.... but it sure takes some good apples

.... and making a good pie is a buncha work...................................... a hard job.... kinda like marriage

.....and everyone knows that you need to be super safe when you are working ..... especially when you are constructing a marriage.

.... So I would like to take a moment out of my extremely busy day of doing extremely important things upon which World Peace, Free Trade, and Global Warming all hang in the balance.....

...to say "Way ta Go!"

.... and to also thank them for having the good sense to get married on my birthday....

I can always use another reason to have another beer.

Love me some football

A few years ago I got some free tickets to a Packer pre-season game. They were great seats right behind the Packer's bench. A friend felt he owed me a favor and gave me the tickets on short notice. I had no luck getting in touch with someone to go with, but I did have the phone number of a rather good looking blonde woman I had met and talked with about a week previous. So I called her up and asked if she would like to go. She agreed. Well it was an ok game, but she didn't understand football very well, said she had never been to a football game and was rather quiet most of the night

After the game, I asked her how she liked the experience.

"Oh, I really liked it," she replied, "especially the tight pants and all the big muscles, but I just couldn't understand why they were killing each other over 25 cents."

Dumbfounded, I asked , "What do you mean?"

"Well, they flipped a coin, one team got it and then for the rest of the game, all they kept screaming was: 'Get the quarterback! Get the quarterback!' and I'm like....'Hellooooooooo?' It's only 25 cents!!!!!! "

I screen dates better, now.

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*Wowsers*

Doing some catalog shopping for hot sauce. This is more fun than writing a post.

I just need to

stop and get some beer & chips.

Juan

Juan is going away, for awhile, and it is breaking my heart.
His family had a big picnic for him yesterday. Lotta family. Lotta refritos, rice, homemade tortillas and chicken mole. Brats and potato salad, too. It is illegal to have a picnic in August without bratwurst and potato salad.

We met the Arguello family seventeen years ago when Juan's older brother, Luis, buddied-up with Bubba in kindergarten. They live in a Habit-for-Humanity house about four blocks from our house. Close enough to put the boys on the same soccer and basketball teams in the youth leagues. You get to know a family rather well when your kids are on the same teams for seventeen years.
My backyard was the spot for the neighborhood kids. Patio under the pines with a big picnic table, an elevated 'fort' that I had built and just enough room to play kick-ball if you only use two bases. Bubba, Logan, Luis, Juan, Ben and Jayna..... and the othe usual group of suspects. I just needed a steady supply of bactine, band-aids and cheap popsicles. Good kids.

Juan, though, was always the stuff. Competitive, intelligent, intense..... and a bit hot-headed. When he played Oshkosh Youth Soccer.... he was one of the best in the city. Would usually score 4-5 goals a game as a striker and finish the game as a defender to insure the shut-out.

When he got to high school he decided to play his favorite sport, football. But he was only 5'6" and was really too short to be a Dback.... same thing at linebacker..... so Juan lifted weights, pulled himself up to 180.... raw muscle..... and became a starting defensive tackle. He was quick, agile and loved to pound ass.... it was always fun watching him beat up players five or six inches taller who outweighed him by 20-30 lbs.

And the kid is friendly.... great smile.... was one of the most popular kids in school. He was the Home Coming King his senior year.

But his grades were not as good as his older sister. He joined the National Guard to get through college. He has earned 50 credits at Chicago-Loyola; last semester hit a straight 4.0.

On Wednesday he ships out to North Carolina, and two months later to Afghanistan.

I guess the Guard has another education for him. He isn't complaining. Neither are his parents. And neither am I........ it just isn't the way things should be. He was only 12 when all this shit started.... he won't be 21 until next year.

This is not the way things should be..... It is breaking my heart. I gave him a key chain with a bottle opener.... when he comes back.... Bubba and Luis, Juan and I will open as many bottles as he wants.

Miriam,Juan,Bubba,Celia,Luis,Maria

The War Is Over

Silent Soldiers on a silver screen
Framed in fantasies and dragged in dream
Unpaid actors of the mystery
The mad director knows that freedom will not make you free
And what's this got to do with me

I declare the war is over
It's over, it's over

Drums are drizzling on a grain of sand
Fading rhythms of a fading land
Prove your courage in the proud parade
Trust your leaders where mistakes are almost never made
And they're afraid that I'm afraid

I'm afraid the war is over
It's over, it's over

Angry artists painting angry signs
Use their vision just to blind the blind
Poisoned players of a grizzly game
One is guilty and the other gets the point to blame
Pardon me if I refrain

I declare the war is over
It's over, it's over

So do your duty, boys, and join with pride
Serve your country in her suicide
Find the flags so you can wave goodbye
But just before the end even treason might be worth a try
This country is to young to die

I declare the war is over
It's over, it's over

One-legged veterans will greet the dawn
And they're whistling marches as they mow the lawn
And the gargoyles only sit and grieve
The gypsy fortune teller told me that we'd been deceived
You only are what you believe
I believe the war is over

It's over, it's over

Phil Ochs