Think I will start my 4th of July holiday with my cousin Al on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain! Gotta stop at Bass Pro Shop outside of Baton Rouge in a few minutes. Yes, yes, I am aware of threats made by ISIS. I am packing "Preparation H" for the possibility of such minor flare ups! Some of my followers commented that they found my post funny, obviously appreciating my attempt at humor. Another one of my more extreme right leaning friends came right out and asked me if I was going to support "that racist flag" over the 4th of July holiday I intended to celebrate? As his comment came across my facebook post, I died laughing at his question because unknown to him, I was actually standing in the Bass Pro Shop, with my eyes absorbing the very subject of his radical prodding! It actually helped make up my mind to go "all out" and do exactly that. I sent him a picture of my desire and told him he could bet his ass that I certainly was! I found my preferred size, took it off the shelf and after a quick debate of properly displaying said racist flag, I felt since the SCOTUS could re-write the constitution, I could chose to define how I wanted to display said object. Besides, I would simply find it entertaining for someone to throw me on the ground with the intentions of stomping on this bad, bad boy! In fact I just might give up a little leaking to convince whomever their efforts were not in vain. Eventually at some point in time they would understand I felt myself to be in danger of great bodily harm or possible death and respond like wise to their poorly and so ignorant choice of assaulting something I hold most dear!
Posted July 1
Wide awake in the predawn hours of July 2nd as I stare at my dimmed iPhone's screen in the dark third story bedroom of my cousin's home on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain. I have been awake for the last couple of hours for no apparent reason other than sleep avoids me. I have skimmed through posts I've collected on my blog from months past as stormy winds off this massive lake whistle with various levels of intensity against the window of my elevated room. Even though I focus on the dimmed screen of my phone, I can see the occasional flash of lightening through the window out of the corner of my eye off to the southwest! It is way out over the Gulf of Mexico, maybe? I check my Storm app and sure enough, a massive heat storm exists! I can't help but think of the disturbed waters beneath the fury of that intense storm! I recall the loss of my friend Chris, off Dauphin Island as a similar storm swept him from his sailboat just a short time ago this past spring. Dauphin Island and more memories of similar loss stir as the wind begins to pepper rain against the window of that third story bedroom that harbors the fragmented thoughts I try to put into words. What is it that pulls me to this beautiful place here on the North Shore? Of course it is the fellowship of my widowed cousin, the closest thing to a brother I will ever have. I asked him just hours ago as we sat on his second story balcony if he had seen that Eagle he told me about recently? He had in fact, and added there were actually two now! My thoughts went to my Southwest Florida Eagle cam that an acquaintance on facebook introduced me to a couple of years back. I have viewed the last couple of seasons where I was able to watch a mating pair of Bald Eagles, Ozzie and Harriet raise two of four hatch-lings to fledgling Eaglets. Seems right before Egg number six or E-6 was to leave the nest, Ole Ozzie found himself recovering in a wildlife rehab center after breaking a wing following an unfortunate encounter with a vehicle's bumper! Watchers of the eagle cam are now wondering since Ozzie has been released, if he and Harriet will re-unite? Rumor has it she has found another Beau! Kindrid spirits on the webcam's blog and facebook page refer to him as FV, a synonym for Frequent Visitor! I mean seriously, Rumor? Didn't take Harriet long to sort of "gravitate" to his sense of humor in Ozzie's absence. She had no choice if truth be known. It is good that nature provides for bonding without the ache of loss. It is so easy to be forgotten, isn't it? So very similar to real life yet that is nature at its best. Survival of the fittest, as those we care about the most struggle to find a place where they can never be taken from us again? I think I will let that dog sleep, while in the meantime, It has fallen silent outside of my temporary bedroom window now. It is not long before the sunrise I so much enjoy watching here over a cup of hot Community dark roast coffee. Sunrise, just a scant :45 minutes away. What to do? My eyes are getting heavy and yet my nerve damaged feet urge me to get up and go downstairs. I am on vacation! After all, it is the beginning of a long 4th of July week and weekend. I can sleep later.
Posted in the Early Morning hours of July 2
On the rare occasion my youngest daughter asks Linda to baby sit her four children while she and her husband go eat and maybe take in a movie, I search for the opportunity to seize upon any given moment to imprint the minds of these children left to my attention, love, care and protection. Ashton, the oldest child at 9, amuses himself and doesn't hesitate telling me he will be a teenager in just four more years! Now, Katie is 6 and Gabby is 3, soon to turn 4 in October. Little Garret Ferret just turned 1, so he hangs onto the side of his soft bar holding-cell we call a playpen and observes in usually, general silence, the common interaction of sibling activity in this strange environment known as Maw Maw and Poppy's house. Now to me, the key to my peaceful existence, is to entertain the kids in my part of the house less than they entertain themselves in Linda's part of the house! You see, I know the two girls are bored and miss their mommy really bad! I can only get so much sugar before those two girls alone become more demanding of food, more hugs, endless questions, picture taking, basic meddling or whatever they can find to aggravate. :I have one method that usually works a couple of times! I suddenly sit up and ask, "Is that mommy down there?" In a flash it begins! There is a mad dash as they run to the door located in Linda's end of the house to see if mommy is actually there! That gives me a short reprieve before they eventually gravitate back to my domiciliary area where they find another activity that chips away at the personality of my aging patience. They begin to spin the chair, pester poor Meggie who is simply trying to bide time beside me in short cat naps before being terrorized once again by one or both of those sweet (dear lord) girls of whom both think, my sweet cat is taffy!
Posted July 5
Well, it took long enough, but I finally upgraded to the iPhone 6S today. I was not enticed by the new enhancements of said adult necessity but simply because my companion of almost 4 years, my iPhone 4S, simply gave up the spirit. Everything functioned well up to the last moments of this durable toy that became a mainstay companion despite finding the bottom of my "being used" toilet. Yup, I snatched that bad boy from the ceramic bottom it fell victim to before the poor thing even knew it was wet! All in mid stream perpetual motion! I immediately pampered its entire exterior with a soft towel and put her to sleep in a baggy of white rice. A very restful night eventually passed as I pull her out of the baggy, poured the rice back into the container it came from and held my breath as I turned it on! That white apple appeared against the dark screen and there she was! She totally had forgiven me for that silly mishap. Same phone now, some few months later in the summer of 2012. My wife talked me into working the concession stand at some Dixie Youth Baseball Park for an entire season! During one of our "change the cooking oil" that everything is fried in at your typical ball park setting, I leaned over to stop the drain of cold used cooking oil into a five gallon bucket when guess what happened! My treasured iPhone 4S sought the bottom of said bucket of cold, dirty cooking oil. My affection and need for her found me rescuing her and again pampering her once again for a return to normal. It took a while, but after an entire can of compressed air cleaning, she returned to a semi normal operational mode that lasted until today! Everything was normal except for the fact that when I called or was called by anyone, I could hear them fine, but they were denied the conversation with me. I took my constant companion of 4 years to Apple Pie, an iPhone rehab and repair center hoping it might be a simple fix? As the technician entered the forbidden treasure of her operational secrets, he smiled as he noticed the grease that watermarked her three years ago. He shook his head after a few probing questions and told me her useful days as a functioning companion had reached a saturation point. To me it was a death sentence. It was her microphone that was attached to something similar to a motherboard?? I was somewhat saddened that she chose to put me on another path of destiny with another iPhone, but as electronics go, she could no longer function to satisfy me needs... I had no choice. The memories we made I will hold forever in my mind an heart because of her? How I wish she could have stayed with me. Just this very day I dressed her in a brand new case complete with a carbon print flygrip stuck on the back! Stop!!! It is over... Carry me with you until, she muttered, as I struggled to text friends and family of her demise... I wrestled with just the 5S but with her encouragement, I settled on the 6S. A slow motion camera? I think she approves. As I finish this last refrain in memory of her, I am restoring her soul into my new Rodney's Iphone from backup that existed in some iCloud location. If it is successful, I will take my 4S into my hands one last time, find the box she came to me in, and restore everything in her back to default. Her memory of me will be gone forever but she will remain part of me until I am restored to my default setting somewhere down my traveled roads. Until then, I just hope I can adjust to Ms. iPhone 6S. I so hope she is not temperamental and has the hold up power my baby 4S had all these years...
Posted July 9 from my late evening home
The second full moon of the final day of July will present itself tonight as what we commonly refer to as a blue moon. Usually I am drawn to such specticals of celestial Divine programmed diversity but tonight I find myself some what puny and already in bed for what I hope is a peaceful night. Yes, that full moon. Since the early days of my youth I have been drawn to sit and gaze at her climb into the dark night she so dominated. I know it is unseasonable now at the end of this sultry July, but nothing intrigues me more than an ice covered twig of any defoliated tree. Very seldom does that phenomenon occur here in our Louisiana, but when it does, I have taken the time to discover the moon can reveal a rainbow in that glazed over, clear icy cover that protects the coming springs bloom in a 32° blanket of controlled comfort. So, as expected, after a little time of increased suspense, the magnet of my affection drew me from the protected covers of my bed to my patio clad only in my leather flip flops and new boxer brief drawers! There she silently smiled upon me in the East South East Sky, rewarding my efforts as she was bathed in a total aura of Rainbow Colors! In awe I stood there gazing upon her beauty. Not one pulse of contrite remorse saddened my heart, instead I called to Linda and Kbear to view what I was seeing!! They eventually made their way outside and glanced at what most people take for granted and walked back into the house. My wife casually responded it was my new glasses that was seeing a rainbow because she didn't see nothing! I flung the covers off once again, and pounced back onto my patio again focusing my attention on what I clearly viewed as a moonbow! I see color! Snatch off my new glasses and I still see color! I tell them both they are crazy that I can see a rainbow around my moon with and without glasses! Linda keeps walking dismissing my rant as early stages of dementia. Kbear, out of respect, returns to my side. In soft pleading words, I again implore her to tell me if she cannot see my rainbow? She looked and finally agreed there was color. Black and white are colors, I implored, I can see blue, yellow and red. Can't you? Probably more to appease me, she agreed color was there. Looking back at my rainbow encased blue moon, she reminded me of the saying that beauty is far deeper that the visual skin. Neither of those two would brave the cold winter night to hold in their fingers the tip or twig end of a deciduous tree limb that is encased in ice for me to reveal a rainbow unto them. Knowing that, how could you ever expect them to share the intricate secrets you and I share together when all you have to do is seek Me? I walked to my bed and returned to the protection of my covers wondering, Why do I not seek more often? I passed effortlessly into man's programmed diversity called August.
Posted July 31 from my late evening home
