The last working oil well in Chester, TX

last week—July 29

Thought.

The leaves of the camilla closest to the house are a darker green than the bright green leaves where the sun is shining through. They make a nice contrast to the dark green of the oak tree across the street and to the brilliant blue sky that fills the rest of the scene framed by the window.

It is high noon.

Which raises the question, why isn't it called 'low 6' or 'high midnight' (sorry stupid question–midnight has a time stamp built into its name)? But why does 'noon;' need 'high' attached? And why do only 'the twelves' have names?

Fun fact.

So, at 5 a.m. my semi-sleeping brain asked the rest of my brain how loud two machines, each cranking out 50db, would sound to the naked ear. The rest of my brain replied, 'I dunno. I'm trying to get some sleep here. Shut up.'

The correct answer is 53db, which should be a lot more fun than it actually is.

Stop and think time.

Nikki Giovanni provides STT with the opening lines of her poem A historical footnote to consider only when all else fails:

While it is true
(though only in a factual sense)

While it is tempting to go with the obvious where else truth exists besides facts, I'm a little more interested in the selection process for choosing the historical footnote.

Padding the list.

Certain professions really should see the wizard for a brain. Real Simple provides Exhibit A as they detail 8 Things You Should Never Store in Your Bedroom Closet, According to Organizers.

'Food' is number 4. 'Shoes' is number 1 (apparently shoes should go at the door, creating visual clutter, and a real problem if you have more than one door you use). And three items that you should not put in your closet are—clothes.

Gonna be lots of space in there.

News flash! Rocket scientists take over running major retailers!

For some reason, it was left to Men's Journal to tell us Major Retail Chains Like Walmart Are Reducing Self-Checkouts for Better Customer Service.

Surprise, surprise! Retailers finally figured out that customers didn't like being hectored by the most annoying robot voice possible to 'put the item in the bag.' Instead, customers like leaving the chore of scanning and putting items in bags to professionals. Smiles are optional–nice if you get 'em, OK if you don't.

I'm sure that self-checkout seeming to be a major contributor to 'inventory shrinkage' has ' nothing to do with the decision to go back to cashiers. Nothing! It's all about customer satisfaction. Really!

More sciencey stuff!

The wall Street Journal tells us Scientists have figured out how fast the universe is expanding.

The answer? 46 miles per second, which I will grant you is more precise than my answer of 'very,' but not by much.

Key takeaways:

• Objects recede faster as they become more distant. Anyone who has lost control of a three-year-old toddler will confirm this observation.
• The rate is mind-boggling small. It would take a football field a million years to expand by one inch. In other words, objects in an expanding galaxy could not beat a Chevy Corvette in a street race.
• Anomalies in calculations can be explained by 'dark matter' and 'dark energy,' neither of which we can perceive or measure. We dare you to prove the darks don't exist. So nyaaah!
• The universe will cease in 46 trillion years. Please excuse me if I'm not at the afterparty.

Misreading it.

I regularly mangle the written word, extracting meaning that is nothing at all like the author intended. For example, I recently 'saw' a headline that said 'Rock legend dead at last.' What happened was I kinda left some words out, like 79 and Last song, so I didn't read Rock legend dead at 79: 'Last song...' Although the way music legends are hanging on these days (see: Keith Richards, Barry Gibb, Grace Slick, Ringo Starr, Willie Nelson), it's an understandable mistake.

It also brings to mind this snippet of dialogue from Monty Python and the Holy Grail: 'Bring out your dead!' 'But I'm not dead yet!'

I don't see what the problem is.

For a very short season, Indian mangoes are available in the United States. They are popular and sell out quickly.

One importer complains, The problem is that the mango boxes come and they get sold out.

Or, what other retailers call success.

Random observations.

God does His best work in the gaps and spaces and voids of our lives.

Why is it our visions of hell are excruciatingly detailed, including the tortures we will suffer, even the environment almost to the degree, while our visions of heaven are fuzzy at best?

Another thing about those ghost shows.

I've already mentioned my annoyances with ghost shows. But here's another—why are there never any animal ghosts on these shows?

You know they have to be there, especially in a residence. Why are there no sudden heavy weights in a lap, indicating Mittens' ghost has settled in for a nap? Or a nudge on the knee (or worse, in the crotch) from a spectral Spot, who wants his head scratched? Or the sounds of a food dish being pushed across the floor by a playful phantasm puppy?

Linguistic wonderment.

In English, we have many familials, the names we call parents and grandparents when we are children.

I wonder if the same thing applies in other languages.

The pick-up truck waltz.

four weeks ago—July 15

Three reasons.

A couple of noisy readers have complained that there seems to be a lot more weather reporting on the news.

They're right. Some would say Mark Twain, with his observation Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it, should get a mention here, since TV news talking heads just talk, and don't do anything.

There are three likely reasons:

There is more big weather affecting more people. You'll notice that news people always mention how many people are affected by the rain, snow, fire or hurricane. So 117 mill is better than 78 mill, especially where potential viewers are concerned.

Two: the weather doesn't threaten to haul people into court, sue, or generally complain about unfair coverage. So it's a safe target, usually providing lots of visuals.

Three: 'better' (or at least more) technology. We've got satellites, radar, infrared, precision measuring, and an infinity of cameras to detail what's going on. You've got footage, you use it.

Bonus: the weathadoodles get to trot out their 'voice of doom be very afraid' voices. Unless you're right in the eye of the storm or have affected friends, it doesn't mean any more for you than the ad for the drug that cures a disease you don't have that it precedes.

I enjoy chance occurrences of delight and unintended meaning. This headline from MSN Qualifies: Lindsey Graham’s legacy and a new dinosaur discovery: Morning rundown.

In passing.

R.I.P. Bonnie Tyler. She may have had only one big hit, a sort of of anthemic song, but she put it all out there in her singing.

Apologies.

I was intending to attach a bonus piece on language to this week's post, but as I was reading it, I found it failed the Elle Woods test. As you recall, in the trial scene, the prosecuting attorney interrupts Elle with:

Objection, why is this relevant?
Elle: Oh, I have a point, I promise.
The Honorable Marina R. Bickford: Then make it.

Elle then goes on to win acquittal. Unlike Elle, I found I didn't have a point. So back to the shop for tuning and revision.

Something you have to read.

You can add Billy Collins to the list of 'writers I hate' because they write something delightful/insightful (,desightful?), but while I'm reading, I think 'I can't do that, will never do that, will never approach doing that even if I have a rocket powered sled.'

Why Billy? Mostly because of this poem, which neatly encapsulates the life of every English major Boomer ever.

That's why Billy Collins is a Poet Laureate.

At the same time, I feel bad for succeeding generations of students who didn't get to experience Dick & Jane as a critical part of their upbringing.

The double-edged blade.

I attended an 'open mic' the other night, populated mostly by poets. It was a small group, with only five other audience members/participants. I had a chance to watch people as they went to the stage, read, and return. I don't know if I was the best reader with the strongest material, but I more than held my own.

But part of the 'entertainment,' at least for me, is sussing out the people as they walked to and from the stage. More to the point, I wondered how participants viewed themselves as they performed.

I will admit the question is somewhat self-serving. I know that I am no longer walking as confidently and as steadily as I did even a year ago. But has that freezing of joints obliterated other parts of my aura, of my presence or personality? Just because my knees don't work doesn't mean my brain is fried.

I guess what I'm sort of asking for is what Robert Burns asked for in To A Louse, On Seeing One on a Lady's Bonnet at Church.

O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us

No matter how much it doesn't matter, we do form opinions of others based strictly on physical characteristics. In this case, as soon as the other poets started speaking, they revealed dimensions not visible.

In the meanwhile, though, I know I've recently added a couple of clicks on the ol' 'growing old' meter. There's a general slowdown, it takes a little longer to get up from a chair, and the floor is a little further away if I drop something. My mental self-image hasn't quite caught up, though.

I wonder what it will take to update the self-perception.

Oddly enough, The Picture of Dorian Gray, which I just finished reading and has been useful in a number of conversations, kind of fits into this whole thought process, what with the main storyline about trying to deny or hide what we really are.

Words, English. Meaning, unknown.

An advertisement for a hotel proclaims that it is the sanctuary of artistic energy.

Just a funny line.

At least, I thought so. From The Hill: Others settled on 'demonic possession,' which in internet discourse is considered the moderate position.

Nicknames

This post may be a re-cycle, casting, or thinking of the answers I have already given to the question, ' what's in a name?'

My sister was always the more daring sibling, feeling free, among other things, to call our mother 'Margaret.' I was able to master 'Mom' but went no further. She herself never tried to go for a nickname or pet name 1that I know of).

That's because she was always Margaret, just as her sisters were Mary and Kathleen. Only her father and brother escaped, both going by Jack (which, by the way, I was never Jack. Too many Jacks in the family).

It's not like there aren't a lot of 'Margaret' options. One website claims there are over 200 nicknames for Margaret.

That's a lot of choices to make. But I wonder if Mom would be Mom if the world knew her as Maggie. or Meg. Or Peggy. Or Daisy. Or Garet. Would she be less precise? Or less stiff?

We'll never know, especially not even how different out lives would be if Mom went by Peggy.

With deepest regret.

It is with a great sense of loss and profoundest sorrow that we announce that after 22 years of mostly good and faithful service, we are giving up our home telephone, aka 'landline,' aka 'copper wire' telephone. It has, over the course of its life, provided fax services, a safe and secure means of communication during power outages, and a buffer against people intent on hacking cell services. Of course, that was a long time ago, in the days before our cable/telephone provider so ungraciously pushed us into VOIP services, which provides us none of the benefits we previously enjoyed, and why we had the landline in the first place.

We apologize to the seemingly hundreds of families living in small towns across Virginia and the United States whose meager sustenance was provided by breadwinners who depended upon making 'spam' calls to our landline. We wish you success in your future endeavors, as we, too, charge into the future, untethered by copper lines. We wish we could provide our cell numbers (disclosure: no, we really don't), but since you never left a message with a callback number, well, we can't.

Bon voyage!

Popcorn ceilings.

When I was a kid, we had popcorn ceilings in the house. On the one hand, they struck us as a little weird, since the walls were flat-finished and the ceilings bumpy, but no matter.

On the other hand, popcorn ceilings were a bonus for dreamers. Sometimes I'd be in bed looking up at the ceiling. If the light was just right, shapes would emerge, like animals, faces, or somethings that I couldn't identify but were definitely a shape.

I have no idea why I'm mentioning this. Maybe I feel bad for young dreamers who now have one less source of inspiration to be churned for creative output.