Ho, Ho,..............etc..

I was browsing through the selections at the local video store the other night in preparation for yet another exciting Friday evening in the basement. There was a couple there with a small boy. He was probably around 2 years old, cute as a button, into everything, and running off at the head like a physic woodpecker.
At one point, I heard him say; (in that sotto voce that passes as a whisper for the very young and can be heard a city block away) "Hey Daddy, is that guy Santa Claus?"
We were the only customers in the store at the time, so I knew he was referring to me, and I answered him; "No, Kiddo, I'm his younger brother Cecil Claus. People get us mixed up all the time" The little guy's eyes got real big and his Dad was grinning, so i added; "You know, I was talking to my brother just last night and he told me that you had been a really good boy this year."
I smiled, wished them both a Merry Christmas and left the store.
So I leave it to you.................be honest now, do I look like Santa Claus to you?
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Thus endeth the entry

Nadir...........

Solstice............

The shortest day of the year......

I miss my son.

Thus endeth the entry

Burnt weinie sandwich............

I tried to drink all the beer in Mauckport, Indiana last night......I think I might have made a pretty good dent in the supply.

After an afternoon of holding forth with Uncle Clayton and cousin Loren I found myself, at around 10:00 pm, the last man standing. It being no fun at all to drink alone, I headed back into Corydon. I had eaten a sizable cow sandwich and fries earlier in the evening, but by the time I got back to Corydon I had a world class case of the beer munchies.
Nothing was open..............except the (shudder) White Castle.
I had been to a White Castle before.........I think it was sometime in 1965 when my Grandfather was in the V.A. hospital in Indianapolis. I remember remarking at the time that the grease on them was so thick they had the texture of a cheese burger.........without the cheese.
Time has a way of softening the memory of just how bad things really were.........and making the good times seem even better (which explains why people get back together with exes).
So I pulled in to the drive up and ordered a "sack o' sliders".........(no shit, that is what it said on the menu board) 10 bite sized little grease boogers for about five bucks. I knew I was in trouble as soon as I had them in the car and rolled up the window...........they smelled like shit. I can't really describe or quite put my finger on just what they smelled like except that it was strongly sulphurous.........and altogether fucking nasty.
I got a 20 oz coke at the hotel and ate every god-damned one of them.......'cuz I was God's own drunk, and a fearless man.
I didn't really have a hangover the next morning but I did have a generally unpleasant queaziness. Kind of a gastronomic equivalent of waking up next to an ugly naked fat chick..........an "Oh fuck, what did I eat last night?" sort of feeling.
I know now why it has been four decades since I'd last eaten at a White Castle......the full horrid force of the memory of that long ago dining trauma came back to haunt me with vivid ferocity.
I'll never get that hungry again......there are bound to be stray cats or dumpsters or roadkill that I could turn to first.

Thus endeth the entry.......

Snow Days..............or: The Best Laid Plans etc

I woke up yesterday morning at 4:30 with ambitious plans for a long and productive day. The upper respitory crap-itis that had plagued the previous three days and nights was mostly at bay and I have at least two or three car loads of sundry "stuff, assorted, not otherwise indicated by name", ready to go to Goodwill and/or my storage locker.
Of course, the world as far as the eye could see was buried under two or three feet of drifted white fuck you flakes.
I would love to post a picture of it, but I think I killed my camera at Joe's house on Thanksgiving. I was invited there to share a marvelous dinner with him and his family. On the way into the house from the car, I caught my foot on a railroad tie edging the drive and did an ungraceful, old-guy swan dive off a three foot retaining wall into the front yard........but I digress.
At any rate, I rethought my plans and decided that I would repair to "Da Greeks'" with mobile library and office in hand, breakfast on biscuits and gravy, hold forth for a while with the usual suspects, catch up on some correspondence, review and revise some lists and tentative schedules, and knock off a chunk of "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt". (more on that when I am in a literary reviewing mode)
Generally speaking, I belong to the "Bull-through-for-now-and-let-solar-power-work-for-you" school of snow removal..........it didn't work. A one foot run is not enough to blow through a three foot drift in a rear wheel drive Lincoln Mark VIII...........a glaringly obvious design flaw peculiar to that particular model with which I was unfamiliar.
I looked for my snow shovel, but I believe it is in the shed in the back yard......which is itself half buried in snow.
I made biscuits and gravy at home................
Insofar as the solar gain aspect of my system is concerned, the ambient temperatures stubbornly remain below freezing and, though the sun is bright and strong this morning, the snows' unbroken pure albedo is reflecting enough free radiant heat to smelt several tons of iron ore uselessly back into space.
For those of you inclined to fret over my well being, I really could stay snow bound for about a month..........I have enough in the way of staples, with the exception of milk (and in a pinch I could reconstitute some evaporated milk if I needed it for cooking or cereal), I have what I need to make bread for sandwiches, there are at least a hundred books here that I haven't read yet, I have enough tobacco and papers for about 200 cigarettes, two cans of coffee, about fourteen beers, a bottle of Jamesons, and fifteen hundred hits of aspirin.
I'm good...........
I was fascinated with the idea of being the live in caretaker of a place like the "Overlook" when the novel "The Shining" first came out.........without all the spooky devil shit of course.
It would really be kind of nice to be snowbound for a season..........I could handle it by myself. I actually scoured the internet for just such a job a couple of months ago when I was making a rough plan for the immediate future. It goes without saying that it would be better with a truly compatable friend...........by which I mean someone who knew when to leave me the fuck alone and find their own corner to play in for a while.
'Twould be even better with a truly compatable "intimate" friend....*grins*
..........even better in a cozy wood heated cabin instead of a honkin' big-assed hotel.
In the midst of civilization, however, it isn't long before some energetic young capitalist is pecking at your door offering to shovel you out of your sweet isolation in exchange for filthy lucre.............I should be freed from my crystaline Walden by the time the sun goes down..........for the bargain price of thirty bucks.

In the meantime, I have enough to keep me occupied along any one of at least a dozen equally necessary avenues of endeavor.

*sigh*

Thus endeth the entry..........