hot fun in the summertime

we're going to a wedding next month.

that's the good news.

the bad news is, it's in arizona.

i hope no one asks to see our papers.

i mean, what if the local constabulary thinks we look like illegal immigrants?

"papers!"

"yes, we read them. which ones do you mean?"

"you're about to experience an arizona saguaro a whole new way, boy. now show me your papers."

"yes, well, see we're not actually carrying any papers. unless you count this copy of the u.s. constitution. perhaps you've heard of it?"

that's not a conversation that would end well for us.

mrs. spaceneedl grew up in arizona. i lived there for three and a half years.

cosmically speaking, we got out just in time. just ahead of the collapse of the rule of law. the principle that says you can only be accosted by law enforcement if there's a reasonable suspicion that you've committed a crime.

a standard slightly above, "you look suspicious, bitch."

the premise that an illegal immigrant just has "a look" about them is a little nebulous, legally. as a source of illegal immigrants, given arizona's proximity to mexico, one might reasonably conclude that most of the offenders would look mexican.

therein lies a problem: in arizona many people look like they might be of latino, hispanic, or other spanish-esque descent. they account for up to a third of the state's population.

will arizona's already-stretched police departments stop and harrass all of them? if not, why not? aside from the fact that state's new "you all look alike to us" law is unenforceable, of course. put another way, if even the anti-immigration loon tom tancredo thinks this measure goes too far, you should conclude it's way, way out there. really.

as an aside, dollar for dollar, no one commits more crime than white folks. the people who threw the global economy into meltdown and liquidated trillions of dollars? overwhelmingly, they were zanetti-suited white boys. why aren't we profiling their ilk? better still, why aren't we putting them to work doing dishes, laying sod and pouring searing-hot tar on the neighbor's roof?

why aren't rednecks carrying signs demanding we raid high-finance workplaces, fence off lower manhattan, or close large bookstore chains?

perhaps arizona doesn't have an illegal immigrant problem. maybe, and i'm just speculating wildly here, arizona (like the rest of the country) has an illegal employer problem. maybe if employers weren't falling over themselves to hire cheap (and desperate) labor, those laborers would stop risking their lives to come here.

but then employers would have to hire americans, and as everyone knows, americans are lazy and don't want to work. so that's out.

arizona's official unemployment rate in march was 9.4% (which means its actual unemployment rate is significantly higher). that's a lot of people who don't want to work. coincidently, houses in the state's major metropolitan areas are so far underwater it may be years before they see sunlight again.

all of which implies that arizona has a lot of problems that have nothing whatsoever to do with illegal immigrants. and yet somehow the state government thought this was an ideal time to make themselves a laughingstock. and to help tourists decide other states might be better destinations for tourism dollars.

it's early yet. the wedding isn't until the end of may. it's possible cooler heads will prevail, and arizonans will decide their new law isn't such a good idea.

if not, we'll still have time to complete crash courses in "anti-constitutional rhetoric for dummies" and "how not to look all illegal-immigranty in arizona".

up in the air

the missus isn't wild about air travel.

she doesn't care much for crowded commercial flights. she breaks into a cold sweat at the mere suggestion of turbulence. and she white-knuckles take-offs and landings.

so you can imagine how she feels about float planes.

(hint: not good.)

but sometimes a gal's just gotta get up and go places. like victoria, bc, for example. and while she would've preferred a leisurely drive as prelude to a soothing ferry ride, circumstances sometimes call for speed.

a day trip for job interview, fer example.

thinking it might help to be able to see what was going on, the nice people at kenmore air let her sit next to the pilot. that turned out to be a mixed blessing. the takeoff was no big deal, but the landing...

heading in, the plane passed low over an outcropping of rocks. from the copilot seat, the rocks reportedly looked really big and really close. hopefully they won't make her pay for the ten indentations in the dashboard.

despite it all, the interview went well.

so well that the company invited her for another round of interviews in raleigh, nc.

she won't be driving to that one, either.

goal oriented

i skipped yoga today.

i planned to make up for it by by going for a run.

right after i put together the portable basketball goal that's been sitting in a box in our garage for, oh, six years.

big mistake.

put it together for the kids, mrs. spaceneedl said. we want them to spend their time outside getting exercise instead of indoors looking at lcd screens, don't we?

well, of course we do. there's no arguing with the perfectly reasonable.

"sure," i said, cheerfully.

big mistake part deux.

my simple plan, so innocent, so unassuming, was stampled by the assemblage of ill-fitting and unrelated parts coiled in that box.

i spent the next four hours reading instructions written by someone to whom english is at best a third language. wrenching together pieces that were lovingly machined by drunken cave sloths on a three-day tequila binge.

"Our presentation in content to the users instruction's is overall and quickly understood. There is reliable and correct that the information is offered in the instruction's and try hard to avoid the artificial error. The mistake that will be found in printing, if causes some careless mistakes, please forgive it."

of course. thanks for the heads-up.

Warning: may contain small parts, which some assembly required. For indoor and outdoor use only.

shut up. seriously.

"Take careful aim at bolts. To start bolt threads, hold bolt firmly in hole and attach after washed nut."

are. you. kiddingme? i just told the missus that i expect to visit the emergency department today.

"Do not have heavy pressure or big striking to such arm bracket."

okay, the arm brackets don't fit, and the holes therein are too small to accommodate the bolts you've provided. i'm literally drilling out the too-small holes with the largest drill bit available at ace hardware.

“Do not subject bolts to over-twisting.”

fuck you. and your stupid twisted bolts.

i skipped yoga. for this.

and the goal is still unachieved. unrealized. unassembled. we're hours away from shooting hoop one. assuming i dedicate half of next weekend to instruction pages 7-12.

generally i like to finish the projects i start. and i wouldn't mind shooting hoops in the spaceneedl driveway.

but right now, sitting here, i'd almost rather put milk and sugar on the remaining pieces and eat them for breakfast. almost.

another glass of wine, and i'll consider it for dessert.

next week: building a 42-foot yacht with MEMS-based solar propulsion. or a small hadron collider. both, if the weather cooperates.

right after yoga.

things to ponder when you're a pretzel

most of the time at yoga class, i'm in the zone.

which is to say, zoning out. concentrating on staying upright. until someone asks a question or exclaims painfully or tips over.

full disclosure: no one tips over more than moi.

i look forward to these classes every sunday because it's about the only time during the week i'm able to get out of my own head and out of my own way for awhile.

when concentration fails me, and i exit the zone, my mind wanders to some odd and distracting places.

{my knee is numb...i wonder if the feeling will ever come back...i have to pee}

sometimes class runs long. or is particularly arduous, degree-of-difficulty-wise. as noted previously, i'm not particularly pliable. nor am i practiced in the finer, philosophical points of yoga. these factors contribute to additional lapses in focus.

{these women are incredibly flexible...i can totally do this pose...if i dislocate something first}

the instructor, and many of the students, have been practicing a long time. they're annoyingly balanced and limber and strong. me, i'm willing to try really hard. and once in awhile the instructor rewards me with a compliment.

"good, michael...you're less awkward than usual today."

no, she's never really said anything unkind. in fact, she's been nothing but encouraging. she thinks that one day i might reach a state of santi, and get some bhoga from class, if i demonstrate some vidya and don't get all tangled up in granthi.

i think she's right.

{i have no idea what she just said...but she's smiling...quick, nod and smile back}

actually, i am better at this than when i started. i practice some of the poses on the rocker board and the bosu trainer during the week. octogenarians at the ymca regularly compliment me on my balance. i think they must feel sorry for me or something.

{maybe he has some kind of debilitating condition...and at such a young age...poor thing.}

i no longer get as sore in the days following class. i don't fall over quite as often. i stay in the zone a little longer each time. it's a restorative way to start a week that invariably takes a turn for the befeebling.

{that's not a real word...yes but it sounds kinda funny...is there any more champagne?}

* * * * *

semi-serious note: not a class goes by that i don't think of my friend kary, who also enjoys yoga. i bet she's pretty good at it, too. she doesn't know it, but she's an inspiration to me, sunday and every other day.

zombie earl eats tiger's brain

"I want to find out what your thinking was. I want to find out what your feelings are. And did you learn anything." -- earl woods

"i want to find out who the skanks were. i want to find out if you caught any communicable diseases. and i want you to hold still so i can bury this nine iron in your skull." -- elin woods

tiger woods is back! isn't that great? he's a famous golfer, you know, but he's been away from the game for awhile.

now, just in time for the masters, he's back with a new lease on life, a new escalade, and a new tv spot selling nike. that's nike the lifestyle, we have to assume, given that no products are mentioned.

isn't it a great spot?! tiger just stands there, looking sullen, as his long-dead father quizzes him about something very important. we're not sure what...maybe it's that young tiger swiped some rum from his parents' liquor cabinet. or maybe he blew off putting practice to go on the mike douglas show. or maybe it's that he had sex with an assortment of porn stars, escorts, and his neighbor's daughter.

it's a great spot! on so many levels, not the least of which is that earl woods allegedly was a huge womanizer. that's why having zombie earl crawl out of the grave to lecture tiger, like jacob marley hectoring ebeneezer scrooge, is such a brilliant, ironic ploy by team nike.

watching this spot, who could resist embracing the remorseful, misunderstood eldrick, and then rushing out to purchase an assortment of nike balls and, um, other equipment?

who could resist gluing their eyeballs to the tv set during a week of tradition like no other -- the masters? particularly when billy payne, chairman of augusta national golf club, also is lecturing tiger about the great golfer's alleged moral inadequacies.

augusta national, you know, is legendary for its upstanding tradition of excluding women, blacks, and other undesirables from its ranks. so payne knows of what he speaks when he says tiger is "a disappointment and a disgrace as a man and a role model."

the drama is palpable! can you feel it? and we haven't even talked about the golf yet! tiger is a really, really good golfer. did we mention that? that's why everything he says and does is so important, and why this commercial is so profound and really, really good.

yay, tiger! yay, nike! yay drama, and the 24-hour coverage thereof!

important safety note: watch out for zombie earl! he's eating brains. yours could be next!

why the unexpected is perfectly predictable...

a pebble falling into a pool of stillness produces rings that spread throughout the entire pool. a butterfly fluttering its wings here can produce a typhoon far away.

do you suppose that equilibrium really is the steady state of the universe?

that for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction, bringing everything back into balance?

for every good thing that happens, is something bad required?

is existence itself is a zero-sum game? it would explain much...but what would it mean?

around here it means when you finally pay off a car loan, the transmission of said car falls apart.

and every time you update your kitchen, the electrician makes a mess of your new kitchen floor. and the refrigerator door. and the pantry. and the basement.

finally getting your finances in order? unemployment will make a shambles of that.

is one child seeing the light at school, reversing a long indifference to academics? not to worry, the other one (the one identified as "academically gifted") will cheerfully raise the red flag of "not adequate progress."

are you seeing the not-so-subtle trend here? the pendulum swings one way, then it swings the other. the universe sees you surfing ahead of the wave, arches a cosmic eyebrow, gives you a small, not-unkind smile, and suddenly you're eating sand and picking seaweed out of your ears.

it's not personal, probably. it's not that the universe is conspiring against anyone in particular. it's just karma keeping things real.

for every yin there's a yang. for every zig there's a zag. for every bit of matter there's a bit of antimatter busily canceling it out.

if you can see the harmony in these relationships, and can appreciate their elegant dance, it might be easier to accept the little ups and downs life throws at you. in fact, if you were really, really smart, you might even be able to develop an algorithm that successfully predicts such events ahead of time.

if you had at your disposal the fastest, most powerful computer ever conceived, along with a program capable of reconciling an infinite number of variables and an infinite number of permutations, well...you could be very popular in vegas.

actually, you could be god.

and as god, you could tell people, hey! guess what? you can't say you're "pro-life" and then deprive the living of healthcare. you can't say you're christ-like and then molest the most vulnerable members of your flock. you can't enable consumption of more fossil fuels and creation of more greenhouse gasses and call yourself an environmentalist.

well, you can, but there will be consequences you don't foresee or intend. and it's quite possible you won't like them. i'm just sayin' is all...

people would ignore you, of course. they have little patience for a god that doesn't worship the free market. this may contribute to ongoing imbalance in their steady state. or some cognitive dissonance, at the very least.

there's no telling what it would take to bring these folks back into cosmic symmetry. we'll stipulate that it wouldn't include denying care to sick children, or spending some quality time in an l.a. bondage club.

it's possible the entire purpose of their existence is to serve as a bad example, to be counteracted by folks with the opposite aesthetic.

equipoise. on balance, it's an interesting theory.

* * * * *

update: for every ruined transmission, there's and equal and opposite auto repair. today, out of the blue, the missus noted a direct deposit into our checking account. it was a bonus from her former company, promised prior to her departure but not delivered. the amount was slightly more than the cost to fix the transmission.

unexpected...apparently we need to update our algorithm.

i think it's supper time...

king crab legs
sauteed bok choy
fettucini primavera (roma tomatoes, arugula, pine nuts, olive oil, salt)
a bottle of very good prosecco

the girlchild and i made the pasta ourselves, from scratch. cranked through a pasta maker the missus and i received as a wedding gift almost 19 years ago. it was still brand new. never used, until now.

pristine cuisine.

maybe it's a laettner thing

i don't like duke.

this is a logical disconnect, because i like mike krzyzewski, and i respect the program he runs.

in fact, i'd love it if the university of colorado ran its basketball team the same way.

that said, every time duke plays, i pull for them to lose. the further they go in the tournament, the better that loss will feel.

sorry coach k.

all are welcome

"we can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when adults are afraid of the light." -- plato

something very, very good happened in america this week.

it feels like the first time in a long time something this good happened. but then you remember, it was less than 18 months ago that barack obama was elected president.

healthcare reform is a goal that generations of americans worked for, but never achieved -- until this week. the bill that passed was not what progressives were hoping for when obama and a democratic congress were elected in 2008. it's not single-payer, and there's no public option. but that's like saying there's no genie granting wishes inside your tiffany lamp.

providing care for 30 million uninsured people, outlawing discrimination for pre-existing conditions, and reducing the deficit is a "win" for everybody -- even the people who would rather get sick, go bankrupt and die early.

speaking of right-wingnuts, why do they take such great joy in trying to ruin a great thing for everybody? currently i'm patiently tolerant of their infantile temper tantrums and their lashing out at those who helped.

but patience, like the healthcare bill, has its limits.

at some point, say when a wingnut follows through on the threats of violence against those who worked for this day, we may have to kick them off the island.

at some point we may have to say, fine, have it your way. no healthcare for you. similarly, if your house is ablaze due to your substandard wiring -- no fire department will respond. if a home-grown terrorist threatens to blow up your local federal building -- no police protection will be available.

while we're at it, no social security when you're ready to retire. and no national security provided by our armed forces. no taxpayer funded services for you at all.

that's what you want, isn't it? no taxes at all? fine, you got it. oh, and keep your cars off our roads. get your feet off our sidewalks.

and if we see one more of you spitting on a congressperson, or calling them faggot or nigger? an all-expense-paid waterboarding, just because you like that kind of thing so much.

fair enough? excellent. glad we could have this little chat.

by the way, we'll still happily provide public education for your children -- we're hoping they don't turn out like you.

on the other hand, if you can calm down, take a deep breath, and act like civilized adults, maybe we can arrive at some sort of accord. maybe we can allow you to live among us.

we're all americans, after all. no matter how hard you try to prove otherwise.

come into the light.

all are welcome.

a death tax we can live with

the washington state legislature is pondering ways to balance the state budget.

this is not an idle exercise, as the governor is required to propose a balanced budget, state law forbids the state to be in the red at the end of a two-year budget cycle, and borrowing money to fill a gap in the operating budget requires a 60 percent vote in both houses of the legislature.

yes, i looked it up.

so, in a pro forma attempt to be fiscally responsible, along with the usual draconian cuts to education, healthcare and other human services, the legislature proposes to raise the tax on cigarettes by a dollar a pack.

the people affected by the cuts have no recourse, of course. not to worry, they're used to getting screwed. the tobacco industry, however, has the unlimited resources and unmitigated gall to fight anything standing between their products and their victims.

to that end, a front group for the death-by-tobacco industry is running ads in washington, using anti-tax teabagger talking points in an attempt to derail the proposal. their radio spot starts out like a straight right-wing anti-tax screed, but quickly shifts into high tobacco-defense mode.

it's so painfully transparent and obvious that it would be funny...if it weren't coming from people who traffic in disease and death on an epic scale.

there are 440,000 tobacco-related deaths a year in the u.s. i'm no mathematician, but i'm pretty sure that's a lot of lung cancer. and pancreatic cancer. and cervical cancer. and stomach cancer.

it's a lot of pain and suffering and since we don't give proper due to such things, it's also a lot of money. direct costs, loss of productivity, loss of tax revenue. funny, nobody ever points at tobacco companies and says, "you cost the economy $100 billion a year, so we're going to tax you enough to make up the difference. is that okay with you bloodsuckers? 'cause if it isn't, we'll just shut you down."

framed that way, the i bet the bloodsuckers would be okay with it.

healthcare is unaffordable or unavailable to tens of millions of americans -- so who could argue with a tax on the world's leading cause of morbidity and mortality? republicans, of course.

in this case the tax would be paid by the customers, which seems a little unfair, since they're paying extra for the privilege of dying a slow, excruciating death. but, whatever...the customer is always right.

what a strange and wonderful country we live in, where the idea of taxing people to pay for government services is an outrage...but allowing a product that kills 440,000people every year to stay on the market is okie-dokie.

it's funny how death is so easily accepted, but taxes?! positively unamerican. no one tops the u.s. in this particular brand of cognitive dissonance and bizarro non-logic.

the washington state budget ain't the only thing unbalanced around here.

the future, gaining

six years ago we returned to seattle, determined never to leave.

we fell in love with the place the first time around, in the late 80s. as it happened, we left anyway, following jobs that we imagined would become careers that would lead us to security if not prosperity. for the next 15 years, even as we moved between a series of cities that were not seattle, we pined and planned to return.

things change. quick.

for example, it wasn't long ago that a hybrid car from, say, toyota was a technological wonder and a bit of a status symbol. now it's a harbinger of "oh my god, it's behind us...get out of the way!"

it wasn't long ago that the washington huskies basketball team couldn't win a road game and had played itself into last place in the pac-10. tonight the dawgs have won 7 straight away from hec-ed pavilion, and won the pac-10 tournament. they're march-madly dancing.

it wasn't long ago that barack obama was elected president. the result of which would be a restoration of the u.s. to a place among respectable nations and bringing balance to the force. that or the implemention of an al qaida hegemony and the end of america as we know it.

the jury's still out on barry's impact on the future of history.

today another earthquake rocked the pacific rim, this time in indonesia. this evening, the spacedogs are acting nervous and unsettled, for no apparent reason. the boychild said, "they're sensing an earthquake is about to happen here." he laughed. we didn't.

today mrs. spaceneedl and i cleaned out the garage and sent a truckload of stuff to goodwill and the dump. meanwhile, the kitchen that would not live or die continued its journey through perdition. you know when the subcontractors are working on the weekend that things continue to skid sideways.

here's a crazy thought: what if we added another city to our personal history? san diego, say, or wilmington, nc. that'd be unexpected, wouldn't it?

things change. quick.

to misquote a wise man, "don't look over your shoulder...a prius may be gaining on you."

food fight

as a dinner guest in someone else's home, i try never to get in an argument with the host.

over politics.

it's such bad form.

and yet, that's exactly what happened this weekend.

i don't know which was more upsetting, the disagreement, or that i broke my own rule.

my transgression is magnified by the fact that our own kitchen is still useless -- we need all the free cooking we can get.

that particular neighbor's kitchen is pretty well closed, i reckon.

p.s. i was right. he was wrong. not to mention stubbornly proud of his wrongness. wear that pie, em-effer. wear it!

spontaneous combustion

the crazy is contagious.

it's the only explanation.

all around me, smart and capable people are turning into snarling, conniving, beast-things.

it's because someone nearby, someone in a position of authority, is afflicted with a bad case of the jumping-up-and-down crazies.

and whether the crazy is airborne or in the water or transmitted psychically, it's going around like plague.

those of us not yet infected ("i'm not infected! i'm not! look, here's a sample of brain tissue!") are still affected in ways many and profound. we flinch in the face of the lunacy, and unsurprisingly it makes us look nuts.

others, fortuitously positioned at a distance, scurry away wild-eyed at our approach.

they know. they've been warned or somehow they've intuited it...

the crazy is contagious.

this is one of those times

there are times when so many difficulties swirl about us that it feels like the inside of a tornado.

and from your tilt-a-whirl perch you wouldn't be a bit surprised to see almira gulch on her bike, pedaling endlessly, as if it were possible to ride out of the storm and into, oh-i-don't-know-what. freefall, maybe.

perhaps you're familiar with times like these. perhaps, you'd say, this life is solely and entirely composed of times like these. that anything else is illusion.

you'd get no argument from me.

just by way of example: a friend of mine, kary, has leukemia. she's been battling it for months, putting up a hell of a fight. recently a nice doctor told her there was nothing else he could do for her, that he wanted to call in hospice, and that oh-by-the-way, she had a week to live.

way to go, nice doctor.

trouble is, kary wasn't prepared to play out her part in that particular script. she wasn't quite ready to stop living, see, so she basically told the nice doctor to go fuck himself. she got on the phone with a different doctor, who agreed dying could wait. to that end, she told kary to hop in the car and drive from flagstaff, arizona, to phoenix, for a red blood cell transfusion.

so, kary and her mom madly drove to phoenix only to find that, hospital protocols being what they were, she'd have to keep driving. to tucson. everyone must adhere to protocols, mustn't they? even the dying. because protocols and formalities and rule-following should be a top priority for the dying, after all.

kary's mom drove on to tucson, to the university of arizona medical center. kary checked herself into the emergency department and got her transfusion.

it's been more than a week now, and kary still refuses to lay down and die (the nice doctor notwithstanding). apparently the U of A physicians and protocols and treatments are focused on keeping the living alive until such time that they're no longer alive.

if you can imagine such a thing.

according to her sister, kary is scared and "in need of hope--lots of hope." which is what i was thinking about as i ran errands today.

on my way to somewhere, i passed a car with a bunch of bumper stickers on it. most of them were old and faded, but one looked brand new, and that's the one i read in the 1.2 seconds it took me to pass by.

it said, "be kind...be true...be brave."

it was one of those surreal moments that go by in slow motion, to make sure you don't miss it. no, i don't believe in such things, but there it was, and there i was, and the moment vibrated like a cosmic tuning fork.

maybe it was a quiet call for me to send whatever good karma i've accumulated on to kary.

and maybe it was a reminder that the challenges facing the spaceneedl family are really nothing by comparison. that we should acknowledge and embrace our ridiculous good fortune, and stop bitching about our diminutive problems.

and maybe, since i don't believe in such things, it was a coincidence.

probably that's exactly what it was.

but there are times when i'd like to believe otherwise.

this is one of those times.

sensational!

journalism isn't dead.

not at all! it's merely alive in a different form: newszombie! the cool thing about this news is, it eats your brains!

don't take my word for it!

"kill the killer whale?" soul-searchingly asks, "should we kill the intelligent animals we hold captive for our entertainment and profit?"

"seaworld suspending all of its killer whale shows today after after one of the park's star attractions turned on its trainer and killed her in front of a horrified audience...hln news shows are asking viewers if the whale involved in wednesday's incident should be put down."

did you feel it? part of your brain was just consumed! you'll never get it back again!

but wait...there's more!

"what caused killer whale to attack?" wants you to believe that a bloodthirsty animal viciously turned on its trainer.

"Trainer Dawn Brancheau understood the power of SeaWorld's biggest killer whale better than most. She worked with Tilikum for more than 10 years. Yet on Wednesday, as she stood knee deep in water rubbing the massive animal's head as a reward for a good training session, he turned on her."

chompchompchomp...no, that's not the whale having a snack, that's newszombie eating more of your brain!

"gatorade dumps tiger woods" is a lurid tale of a major brand cynically used by another major brand, then callously tossed aside.

"We no longer see a role for Tiger in our marketing efforts and have ended our relationship," a Gatorade spokesman said Friday in a statement. "We wish him all the best."

gatorade contains high-fructose corn syrup which has been linked to obesity, high cholesterol and heart disease. so, the tiger brand got dumped by the brand that contributes to death and disease all over the world. "yes, but our fine beverages have never had sex with porn stars, strippers and escorts," said the spokesperson. "we just can't be associated with that kind of behavior."

slurpslurpslurp...

on an encouraging final note, congressional republicans have finally come up with a substantive proposal for healthcare reform. let's roll the newszombie video on this plan...



are you clear on the plan? "let's start over, from a clean sheet of paper, scrap the bill, go step by step, and start over."

it was not widely reported, but the plan also calls for zombies to eat the brains of anyone with pre-existing conditions, anyone who gets sick, and anyone not covered by dick cheney's health plan.

the 24-hour newszombie. burp...ahhh!

in the history of history...

...has anyone ever celebrated a nice achievement with a little bubbly and a cigar?

or is that kind of thing so unprecedented as to be scandalous?

i ask only because a bunch of canadian women just won the olympic gold medal in ice hockey, and had just such a celebration on the ice afterward.

cut to the horrified faces of the IOC, their collective panties in a pious twist.

A reporter asked the executive director of the Olympic Games, Gilbert Felli, about the incident. He responded, “It is not what we want to see. I don’t think it’s a good promotion of sport values.” He promised an investigation. This occurred the same day the president of the IOC said women’s hockey might be removed from the winter games.

as reported, the celebration occurred a half-hour after the arena had cleared out. it's not like the fans were still in the stands, parents covering the eyes of their innocent children.

maybe the IOC is outraged because they dislike fun. or because the celebrants were women. can't have the girls acting like the guys, after all.

the kitchen pit

this is not going well.

the kitchen remodel that was supposed to be simple and scaled-down and therefore more achievable in a short time is none of the above.

as a result, mama ain't happy. and you know what that means.

everybody hides and/or cowers. if they're smart. and fast.

i'm neither.

* * * * *

the problems are many and varied.

turns out, our wiring is a joke, and will cost much money to fix. myriad electricians and previous inspections failed to reveal this issue. why now? couldn't we have remained blissfully ignorant, burned down the house, and collected the insurance?

no, of course not. we have to be offered the opportunity to do things the right way. as if we weren't hard-wired to do exactly that. it's not even an interesting dilemma. we'll bitch about it a little, then spend the money. while bitching a little more.

* * * * *

the new cabinets on one wall don't work. which is to say, they were mis-measured. so they don't fit properly. replacement cabinets must be ordered, pushing back the install, ergo pushing back the delivery of the countertops. the next available delivery is three weeks out. meaning we won't have cabinet-closure for a month.

while all this is going on, the kitchen is unusable. we can't cook, because the stove is in the middle of the room. we can't do dishes, because the dishwasher is out on the deck.

dinner is a debacle. monday, we got take-out, eaten on paper plates. last night we had pizza delivered, eaten on three paper plates and in one paper bowl -- because we only had three paper plates. tonight was a culinary collage of unsatisfying, disparate quasi-food, eaten in two paper bowls and on two paper towels.

we definitely need to purchase more paper plates.

there are things you just don't do

so the pain begins
as the music fades
and i'm left here with
with more than i can take

if you lift me up
just get me through this night
i know i'll rest tomorrow
and i'll be strong enough to try


there are some things in this life that are just not okay.

it's not okay to torture people.

you don't crash your plane into a building.

and you never shoot the children.


what manner of insanity is afoot when someone will take a high-powered rifle to a school and open fire on children?

why does this scenario play itself out, again and again, in this country?

how have we become so desensitized to the violence that we just shrug it off and pretend nothing happened?

it's one more thing we shouldn't do. but we do it all the time.

and we'll do it again tomorrow.

yes, i do...

yesterday's 30-year retrospective on nbc was maudlin and manipulative.

even so, even all these years later...every time i hear al michaels' call, i get chills.

every. time.

unglorious

geez, that sucked.

there are so many movies available through comcast on-demand, and i picked 'inglourious basterds'?

i want my damn money back, and more importantly i want my damn two and a half hours back.

what's doubly vexing is that the word-of-mouth on this thing was so good. everyone i know was all, "OMG, that was so great! oscars for everyone!"

i mean, i get why so many people liked it. if you like your violence gratuitous and your philosophy morally untethered, it was probably a hoot.

who, after all, could help but cheer wildly for an orgy of scalpings and torture and suicide bombings---a cinematic imitation of justice, or, at least, vengeance over the architects of the thousand-year reich? yay, good guys. if, you know, good guys who adopt the cold-blooded tactics of bad guys can somehow remain good.

but even as a simple revenge fantasy, 'basterds' fails. breaking news: hitler and the nazis were really, really bad. wouldn't it be high-larious if they all died horrifically at the hands of their aggrieved victims?

of course if you can accept the premise that torture and suicide bombings and civilian casualties are "justified," then you've also accepted the premise that terrorism is in the eye of the beholder. that one nation's terrorist is another's avenging angel. that, really, in a world of gray shades, there is nothing that can be categorized as just plain "wrong". in that world, anything goes, including self-indulgent machine-gun masturbation.

or, "the u.s. foreign policy during the bush years" if you will. and even if you won't.

another philosophical problem with this particular fantasy is that the victims' revenge came too late. to justify its rollicking good slaughter, the movie required that millions of people still die needlessly.

i mean, if you want to really torture hitler and his minions, wouldn't it be more fun to deprive them of their millions of victims? to stop their killing before it ever started? as long as we're playing "what if...", what if the basterds came across hitler in the early days of the third reich, discerned that things were heading down a demonic rathole, and killed der crazy furher on the spot?

the ethical trouble with that, obviously, is that at that point the epic crimes had yet to be committed. instead of preventing an historic catastrophe, the good guys would have been guilty of nothing more noble than pre-emptive murder (or "the bush doctrine" if you prefer. and even if you don't).

according to imdb, it took quentin tarantino ten years to come up with the script for this film. really, qt? ten years? for a premise that countless college freshmen have pondered for decades? nice work.

inglourious basterds grossed over $320 million in theaters, and now it's got five bucks from me. i don't begrudge tarantino his hundreds of millions for catering to moral tone-deafness. there'll always be an eager audience for that.

but i want my five bucks back.

daddy's night in

this never happens.

it's friday night, and no one's home but me.

all the other needls are out on the town. the boy child is up skiing in the rain. missus spaceneedl and the girl child are at the ballet.

it's daddy time.

we're starting with a frozen pizza. something from california pizza kitchen. it has chicken on it.

red wine. a rioja i picked up at trader joe's. it's not bad.

salad. something i made from ingredients in the veggie drawer. i know, crazy right?

and finally, the evening's entertainment...something i'd never get to watch with the missus.

inglourious basterds.

this is not on par with a night spent skiing, and certainly cannot compare with the ballet.

but i'll take it.

* * * * *

update: regarding "inglourious basterds"...i chose poorly.

supercilious

super bowl sunday is a threat to america's security.

because while everybody in america is sitting goggle-eyed in front of their televisions, nefarious non-watchers have free rein to run amok.

first off, what kind of people don't watch the super bowl? it's an american institution, watched over by god, who has a big stake in the office pool. if you're not watching, you must be up to no good. unless you're on a beer run, of course. even then, you're guilty of poor planning.

the country is conditioned from birth to participate in this ritual. if you don't participate, others look at you with suspicion.

full disclosure: i didn't watch the game. i saw one uneventful play at the end of the first quarter, then went on a multi-state crime spree.

no one noticed.

because it's there

i dislike running.

i may have mentioned this before, i realize, but it bears repeating.

i do not like running one bit.

but i like being able to run.

to that end, i ventured outdoors at lunch today, and ran two miles.

i realize that a two-mile lunchtime run is not terribly impressive. but to me, it was very exciting---because it was the first time i've run outside in 7 months.

i ripped up my knee on june 24 last year, and the rehab has progressed from the stationary bike to the elliptical to the treadmill.

my first stint running on the treadmill, a couple months ago, lasted 5 minutes. it was not pleasant. by that i mean, it hurt. the surgeon warned me this would be the case, and like everything else related to my recovery, he was right.

still...i wanted to be able to run. so i did. six minutes the next time, then 8, then 12, 15 and 16 minutes at a time.

the thing is, if running generally is tedious, it is moreso on the treadmill. having espn on the tv monitor in front of me reduces the tedium only slightly. by comparison, running outdoors on a springlike day is almost enjoyable.

almost.

today, two miles, twenty minutes. painfully slow, but other than that, not particularly painful at all. i passed several people out walking, a mother pushing a stroller, a high school gym class, and a bunch of ducks.

my return to the parking lot at the Y coincided with the current limit of my endurance. i was totally gassed, but at the same time...

it felt good to run. because i can.

must-see hgtv...

recently i may have said something like "there's nothing worth watching on tv."

that was before we stumbled across home & garden television.

now it's all we watch, all night every night.

we can't tear ourselves away from holmes on homes, house hunters, house hunters international, curb appeal, bang for your buck, and property virgins. every night we watch way past our bedtime, and every morning we wake up with a horrendous hgtv hangover.

part of the reason it's come to this is that there's nothing else on. i mean, really. nothing. our cable package is a wasteland of digital noise. except for the weather channel, of course. but after you've seen your local on the 8s eight or ten times, you've got to change the channel or throw something through the screen.

i suppose our incipient plan to move out of our current home and into something bigger and better may be contributing to this new obsession. through hgtv we can participate vicariously as an endless procession of families and couples wanders through their dream homes (no matter how lacking in taste those dreams might be).

this is enough, for now, since we're not ready to participate any other way. the shows enable us to compile a running list of nice-to-haves, have-to-haves, and would-never-have-under-any-circumstances. they let us practice our high-maintenance demands and our snarky complaints. or maybe they just let us get all that unpleasantness out of our system before our own search begins.

either way, it's very therapeutic.

thanks to hgtv, it's become obvious that we absolutley must have a walk-in master closet the size of a large barn. we should be able to get dressed there and live there, if necessary.

clearly no civilized family can live without a 4-piece master bath with double vanities and a vaulted water feature mistakable for snoqualmie falls.

we must have a man-cave, a place (usually in the basement) where men go to do manly things like watch football games and drink beer and talk wistfully about women.

we've learned that no home is complete without some kind of stone countertops in the gourmet kitchen. complemented by so many stainless steel appliances that the reflection from the custom lighting makes it impossible to see the stone countertops.

and backsplashes. lots of backsplashes.

there are other mandatories, of course, but we have a budget to keep in mind. given the cost expansion factor typical of the seattle area, all this will be affordable just as soon as we win the lottery.

or some future "win your dream home" promo on hgtv.

must-see tv

there isn't much on tv worth watching these days.

come to think of it, you could make a pretty good case that there never has been.

and yet somehow, to a very great degree, television has come to define america and americans (which is a frightening and comical indictment of our little experiment in democracy).

that said...once in a great while tv does offer up something worth seeing. and the fact that it's so rare makes the occasional aberration all the more compelling.

that's what happened yesterday. live. in the middle of the day. almost by accident.

to set the stage, barack obama paid a visit to the house republican caucus friday, exchanged some pleasantries, then engaged in an hour-long Q&A. prior to the event, gop officials at first resisted letting the cameras roll, but relented at the urging of the white house.

the results, above, were riveting.

unlike the latest very special episode of blossom---or whatever now fills that very special time slot---this really is must-see tv.

no matter which side of the aisle you sit on, shirely we can agree that more of this kind of drama would do the country a world of good.

monkey business

in light of recent events, i'd like to share a little gem that i meditate on nearly every day...

"no matter how responsible he seems, never give your gun to a monkey."

i don't know what it means, but it sounds profound. and it applies to so many of life's little adventures.

the people of massachusetts just gave their gun to a monkey.

the supreme court just blew a big hole in our democracy by giving its gun to a bunch of multinational corporate monkeys. the court is now a wholly owned subsidiary of r.j. reynolds and exxon-mobil, and will wear the appropriate logo patches on their robes.

john edwards gave his gun to a loon. and now he has a new daughter to show for it. meanwhile, mrs. edwards is quietly loading her gun.

jesus doesn't endorse guns.

barack obama entrusted healthcare to a bunch of monkeys. they tossed it around like american tourister luggage.

air america broadcasting has been disarmed.

in alaska it's bad form to bring a gun to a food fight. there's a sarah palin joke here somewhere.

children shouldn't play with guns. or commit armed robbery. that's just not funny.

coyotes don't carry guns. which means they'll not fare well in the coming confrontation with humans in our neighborhood. farewell, coyotes.

play it out any way you like, guns and monkeys don't play nicely together. and yet somehow that's the combination we get over and over (and over) again. it's like the adults have left the room and left bonzo in charge. it's like lord of the flies meets jungle book. it's like we hit the evolutionary glass ceiling and now we're headed the other direction.

"no matter how responsible he seems, never give your gun to a monkey."

ommmmm...

mass hysteria

thanks, massachusetts. hope you need healthcare sometime soon and can't get it.

house arrest

our house is like a u.s. marine.

it's been broken down and built back up again.

if you had seen it 6 years ago, you wouldn't recognize it today.

and yet, we're still not done. oh, no. there is much money to be spent before we move.

that's right. all the work, all the hours, all the resources poured into this place...all so we can sell it and move on to the next reclamation project.

it is to weep.

mrs. spaceneedl has never liked the house. since before we moved in, she's been twitching to change it from the inside-out and the outside-in. often at the same time. and no matter how much change that's occurred, no matter how recently, it's never been enough. more is always required, immediately if not yesterday. it's been a breathless race to see how many improvement projects we can line up like dominoes, in an unbroken line from the day we moved in up to right this second.

{for those who like to read between the lines, let's be clear---i'm talking about the house, not me. i'm pretty sure.}

updated bath upstairs. new bath downstairs. new laundry room. new french door walkout from the master bedroom to a new patio area in front. new walkways front and back. new fence(s) front and back. a new staircase to the basement (it goes up AND down---we paid extra for that). built-in cabinetry upstairs and down. and soon...a fully updated kitchen.

these are the biggies, but be advised, there's more. lots more. but it'll all be worth it, because one day we can sit back and enjoy the results of the toil, the turmoil and tumult for years to come. right?

pfft. wrong. someone else will get to do that. as soon as the kitchen is done, we're bailing. as quickly as the market will allow.

some observers might reasonably take a look around and ask "why?" the missus takes a look around and says, "why not?"

to be fair, the house was never supposed to be a 10-year solution. it's too small (particularly with two children and nowhere to hide from them). and, call us crazy, but we want a water view. we live within splashing distance of puget sound, but we can't see it. it's like moving cross-country to live in a forest and not being able to see the trees. what's the point of that?

and yet, somehow, in june we'll have been living in this house for 6 years. my, how time flies when there's sawdust in the air.

so, all the work notwithstanding, we're gearing up to move on.

to the poor house, in all likelihood.

carrion, wayward dogs

this neighborhood ain't safe.

little dogs suddenly find themselves a few rungs low on the food chain -- carried off like canapes at a carnivore cotillion.

hoo boy, that's a lot of alliteration that could've included the word "coyote".

"The coyote that has been living in Magnolia for the past two months attacked and killed a small dog this afternoon. The dog and its owner were waiting for the school bus after school at 23rd AVe West and West Armour. The owner says the dog likes to meet the kids as they get off the bus. While they were waiting, the coyote came down from a hill nearby and grabbed the dog. The dog was in the coyote’s mouth and the coyote took the dog back into nearby brush."

most of the time i'm not too troubled by these wildlife forays into our civilization thought-bubble. and i'm not prepared to get all riled up just because a little dog (or two) ends up on the short end of the evolutionary stick.

the trouble starts when people do dumb things. like letting their teeny-tiny dogs run loose into the woods when there are coyotes in the vicinity. the dogs might as well have "kill and devour me" signs taped to their backs.

next thing you know, people with guns get involved, and the fun is pretty much over. especially for the wildlife. whose lives, let's face it, aren't that much fun to begin with, what with all the unpleasant killing and dying and survival of the fittest business.

despite our place at the top of the food chain (how'd we ever manage that feat?), people are historically not very smart. we look at a wild carnivore in our very midst and say, "omg, loooook how cuuuute!!!" we get all disney-eyed and stay that way right up to the instant that the carnivore does what it was designed to do. then we act all surprised and indignant.

"did you see what that beast did to my darling little foo-foo? that was horrible and totally unexpected! and right here in front of the children! somebody call someone with a gun, there's killing to be done!"

meanwhile the children are thinking, "yeah, well, wild animals have to make a living, too. haven't you people ever watched 'animal planet'?"

bring in the stunt coyote, roll the cameras, cue the gunshots, and we'll wrap this up.

what? there are no stunt coyotes?

oh, well. carrion.

* * * * *

breaking update: walked the dogs tonight with mrs. spaceneedl. we took advantage of a break in the rain, and got in a good 25 minutes of leg-stretching. a block from home we came nose to nose with a coyote.

s/he parked herself right in the middle of the sidewalk, not more than 20 steps in front of us. we slowly walked toward her, expecting her to turn tail, but she stood her ground. that was unexpected.

before things could get really uncomfortable, a car drove by, scaring her off. the rest of the walk home was uneventful.

except for the raptors.

* * * * *

next-day breaking update: we're on a roll. we saw the coyote again tonight. this time from the car, near lawton elementary. two nights in a row? that's a personal coyote record.

shooting off his mouth

george bush to appear at the safari club? yay!

it's a shame we won't all get to share the former president's intellect and humor.

p.s. note the safari club logo...wouldn't cheney be a better guy for this gig? or do club members prefer speakers who haven't shot people in the face?

what a week i'm having...

"i am so happy to have survived the devastating attack on hiroshima. thank goodness i'm back home in nagasaki."

sign of time

from the "estate sale" sign in front of her house, i'm guessing winnifred has died.

there was a time when her twice-daily treks around the neighborhood ranged far and wide. she would walk and stop, observe and inspect, chat and move on. for a long while she was accompanied by her little dachshund, who she always regarded with a look of love in her eyes.

but eventually he got old, and too frail to go along, so she went without him. i remember how sad she was when he died.

her routine continued, never wavering until the day she fell. it was just a misstep off the curb, but of course at her age the ground is far and unforgiving. she broke a couple teeth, and had a black eye, but it was her dignity that seemed the most bruised. she was completely affronted by the notion she could fall -- and be injured! -- on a simple walk.

still, she wasn't deterred. she added a cane to her rounds, and a cell phone, for just-in-case. it wasn't long, though, before the cane was replaced by a walker. it was like her wheeled dais, from which she would tell tales of bootleggers and complicit cops and basement shooting ranges and secret nighttime escapes. all right here in our little neighborhood.

recently her meanderings got shorter, and less frequent. i'm not really sure when they stopped altogether. i knew i hadn't seen her in a while, but that's not surprising given the scarcity of winter daylight. i fully expected to see her come spring, moving slower, maybe, but always forging ahead.

instead, there's an estate sale going on at winnifred's house today. lots of cars are parked along the street, and people scurrying in and out. i don't think she'd like the commotion, nor the thought of perfect strangers pawing over her things.

it makes me sad, so i'm staying far away.

out with the old

"life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well-preserved body--but rather to skid in sideways, champagne bottle in one hand, keyboard in the other. body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, yelling 'wow, what a ride'!"

2009 was a hell of a ride.

and while the tendency to focus on the bad is hardwired into our dna, there was plenty of good in 2009 as well. i'm almost sure of it.

one easy example--george bush was run out of washington, d.c. well, maybe "constitutionally mandated to leave office" is a slightly more accurate description. either way, he's out. that's good for everyone.

the corrolary to the fall of bush was the rise of obama. barry floated everyone's boat higher (even those who, like achors, prefer to sit in the silt at the bottom).

how about the hudson river landing of us air 1549? no matter what else happened in '09, those folks had a good year. i mean, even if they went on to lose jobs, break limbs or have dick cheney himself brush past them, they could say, "woohoo, it's all good!"

alex rodriguez was exposed as a-fraud, when it was revealed he used steroids to inflate his babe stats, er, baseball stats.

at the meeting of the g-20 in london, barack obama continued to rehabilitate the image of the u.s. by not massaging german chancellor angela merkel.

sarah palin resigned as alaska governor, halfway through her term. she told supporters that "she could do more for the state away from the office." no one in the state disagreed.

al franken went to washington. mark sanford went to argentina.

republicans protested the very idea of healthcare, and dubbed themselves "teabaggers." progressives smiled and snickered quietly.

tiger woods' salacious fall from the iconosphere caused a spike in the value of media stocks, and a simultaneous freefall in the value of his sponsors' stocks. woods shrugged and said, "that puts me at even par after 12 holes. given the playing conditions, i can't complain about that."

* * * * *

closer to home, there was plenty of good for the spaceneedls, as well. the missus and i stayed gainfully employed, when others around us were not so fortunate. we even got to take a couple vacations.

unless something goes seriously sideways in the waning hours, we avoided the h1n1 virus in 2009, and most of the family stayed healthy throughout the year. when i say "most of the family" i mean "not me." but that's good, too. better me than them. plus, i learned much from the experiences that will be increasingly valuable as i get increasingly old. if i'm fortunate enough to do so.

we added a canine family member, but lost a rodent family member. on balance, i'd say we came out ahead in that transaction.

there was some bad, reported here, some bad (not reported here); but the long view shows a huge preponderance of good (reported or not).

and so, we welcome 2010 with the same rum-soaked bravado that captain jack sparrow greeted the kraken: "hello, beastie."

"life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."

dreams, redux

when you think of recurring anxiety dreams, what comes to mind?

i've heard lots of people say they're in college, and they've failed to study for the finals that are imminent. they forgot to drop the class, or they forgot to attend the class because it was a tuesday-thursday thing, or some variation thereof.

i've had those, and they're disquieting, in an "i don't know why" kind of way. i mean, i've been out of college far longer than i was in it.

regardless. those dreams don't hold a candle to the disturbing, inexplicable chimera i experienced again just last night. in it, i was (brace yourself...) golfing at pebble beach.

i know. i'm sorry to spring it on you like that. please take a moment and collect yourself. better? okay, let's get this over with.

we'll start with "why this is an anxiety dream." because in it, i haven't played or practiced in forever. i'm at the elysian fields of golf (a place millions of golfers better than i will never see in person), and i have no game whatsoever. i can barely swing the club without fearing i'll whiff completely. (those who've seen me play wonder how this dream differs from reality. to them i say, "ha. ha.")

more, it's getting dark, and the group i'm in is making no forward progress. we're losing daylight, and there are no refunds. i'm wasting my chance at pebble beach!

high-class anxiety dream, huh?

what does it mean?

that my life is pebble beach, and i'm frittering it away, ever ill-prepared? that there are a bunch of holes left to play, and darkness is approaching? that life, like pebble beach, doesn't give rain-checks?

great. couldn't i dream something more literal, like monsters chasing me? and for some reason my legs aren't working properly, and no matter how hard i try i can't get my feet up out of the concrete?

wait, i have those too. what i wouldn't give for the occasional flying dream. soaring around without the benefit of or need for wings. that sounds like fun.

but no. i get golf.

could be worse, i suppose. i could be dreaming about sleeping with tiger woods.

yoga party

"yoga...yoga...yoga..."

i'm as flexible as a steel bar. yes, i can bend, but it takes a long time and much effort.

which makes yoga a very good idea. for me, not for the steel, which is impervious to good ideas.

given my recent medical history, getting more flexible is more of a mandatory than an option. my meager efforts at stretching over the years have proven effective only in demonstrating my capacity for self-delusion. yes, i can touch my toes. no, i can't touch my hands behind my back. not without dislocating something.

the bad news is, i've attended two yoga classes in my life. the good news is, the second one was today. the second step in a long journey, and all that.

i was not specifically cleared by my surgeons to partake in this activity, but then again, they didn't say i shouldn't. what could possibly go wrong? yoga is as wholesome and holistic as exercise gets, isn't it?

i know what some of you are thinking. there's a perception out there that yoga is an unmanly pursuit, unsuitable for manly men. "go lift some weights, eat some steak, and drink some bud," you scoff.

and, you'd be wrong. you try doing some of these moves, without lots of padding. and a spotter. and a paramedic.

yoga is hard work. the entire class i was sweating and shaking and tipping over--often at the same time. good thing i'm not self-conscious about such things, or i might've had to rush out of the studio for an immediate ego-ectomy. i was saved from that by a newfound state of blissful self-unawareness, in which i'm conscious of the pain, but not how ridiculous i look. this has been a necessary adaptation in my rehab, and it has come in handy more often than i would've previously admitted.

the people who are good at this sort of thing are amazing to watch. anyone who can do this without needing emergency surgery must be in pretty good shape. for lots of things. who wouldn't want to emulate that?

and we haven't even mentioned the philosophical and spiritual benefits of the practice, which are many and ancient and ostensibly wise. i could use some more wisdom, ancient or otherwise, if that weren't already painfully obvious. trouble is, i'm not sure if i have time for the philosophical-meditation thing. it might cut into my crazed running about like a headless chicken, after all.

* * * * *

update: two days post-yoga, i'm sore all over. shoulders to hamstrings to feet. which theoretically means i did something right, workout-wise. i'm not sure that assessment synchs up spiritually. in fact, and i'm just guessing here, i'd say it doesn't. probably it means that in typical american haste and taste for excess, i overdid it.

so much to learn. so little aptitude for it. time for some stretching.

standing eight count

"fall seven times, stand up eight."

--japanese proverb

within the past week i've been cleared by two world-class surgeons.

cleared for what, exactly, is not exactly clear. but we'll figure that out later.

first the orthopod gave me permission to resume doing rehab-esque squats and dead lifts.

next, the neurosurgeon said i was fine to get back to my regular activities. "go wild," she said.

obviously she's not familiar with my regular activities. but that's not important right now.

what is important is that i've recovered sufficiently from my various maladies and surgeries to start doing something.

two pertinent points of order:
1. what am i capable of?
2. what do i have the latitude to do?

permissions notwithstanding, there's the little matter of conditioning to consider. i can run on the treadmill for, say, 15 minutes. after that i go all weeble-y. and in the weight room, strength is not a strong suit, currently. it's almost funny how quickly i lost the capacity to help iron resist gravity. the weights are taking a little too much pleasure in pushing me around, i think.

so, it appears i'm capable of remaining upright for brief intervals, if followed by frequent naps. upshot: lots of work must be done to make up for all the work that was undone, post-op.

as to the second variable, the answer is...variable. we'll stipulate the usual bucket list of living in an FLW-designed house, finding amelia earhart, and wiping the smirk off of wall street's face.

more immediately, i have a number of mandatories that require considerable time and energy. children, for two; dogs, cats, a house. and last but never least, mrs. spaceneedl. once their needs are met, there's this blog, and my job at spaceneedl sprockets. not necessarily in that order.

add up those committments, and i'm left with 43 minutes per week, free and clear. that should be more than enough time to get centered, recharge the batteries for the week ahead, and find a cure for picene flu.

or i could set those things aside and focus on the unread books piling up on the coffee table. not to read them, but to make room for more things.

or i could sit and read postsecret, because it really is that good.

what to do, what to do...

"go wild," the doctor said.

good advice. i think i'll take it.

can i be franken with you?

if i haven't mentioned it before, al franken is my favorite senator.

p.s. ten years ago, if you had told me i'd one day type the phrase "my favorite senator," i'd have probably winced and felt a little ill.

see saw

the spaceneedls made great progress on a jigsaw puzzle today.

this unremarkable news is made remarkable by the fact that the puzzle had no electronic elements to it. it did not make noise or evolve or explode.

it's a simple 1,000 piece puzzle.

worked on diligently and quietly by the entire family.

remarkable.

dreamy

i have a bet to make with you.

i'm betting you've never had a dream in which a predator drone featured prominently.

do i win?

who dreams about predator drones? outside the people who make them, use them, and are targeted by them, i mean?

yeah, me. last night. i had forgotten all about it until this morning, when i was sitting here reading frank rich in today's new york times.

the column has nothing to do with war, unless you'd like to make the case that the ongoing destruction of america's middle class is a kind of insidious warfare. which you could, without argument from me.

rich frames this week's observations through the prism and premise of "up in the air," a movie in which the industry of slashing american jobs turns pink slips into gold. not for the newly jobless, of course, but why quibble? where else but in america could we not bat an eyelash at the prospect of supplanting jobs that produce something with those that kill production?

quoth barack obama, “Sometimes it’s hard to break out of the bubble here in Washington and remind ourselves that behind these statistics are people’s lives, their capacity to do right by their families.”

really, barry? that's one hell of an observation. would it be unprogressive of me to observe that it sounds like something george bush would've said? except from bush we expected rhetoric that was equal parts obvious and useless. from you, mr. change we can believe in, we expect more. and better. and smarter.

where was i?

oh, yes. predator drones. what do you suppose dream analysts say about those? particularly when one has no exposure to such things, except through distant, abstract accounts of collateral damage halfway around the world.

strangely, the "free online dream interpretation" sites are unhelpful. they offer nothing specifc about drones, nor anything but vague attack references: "a feeling or fear of persecution, hostility, aggression, etc., by another person; a situation where you feel your boundaries being crossed or your integrity compromised by someone else."

oh. thanks. that's helpful.

so, i'm left to my own interpretation, ephemera-wise: i'm in a strange place, amongst people i don't know, with the certainty of an imminent attack. we all scurry for cover below ground, where we are surrounded by an array of machinery and technology of indeterminate purpose.

there is much anxiety and running about to escape the expected explosions...then the scene shifts to something else, equally bizarre, equally non sequitur.

make of that what you will. i think it might be related to the recent acquisition of spaceneedl sprockets by a multi-billion dollar holding company, and the uncertainty that transaction has spawned. i'm betting it's definitely that.

unless it's something else entirely.

do i win?

cold call

it's cold, and ajax is old.

which is how i came to spend half the afternoon yesterday rearranging the garage for a cat.

ajax was banished to the garage three years ago for peeing all over the house. if you're not familiar with cat-peed things, they're ruined. the smell never goes away.

so when he peed on the recently reupholstered couch, he was out.

if that seems harsh, you should be apprised that we set him up in comfort. he has the entire space to himself. he has multi-level shelves to clamber around on, three beds in sunny spots, and his own litter box. he's away from the kids and the dogs and the other cat, and most of the time he seems very pleased with that arrangement.

over the weekend, however, i went out and found him shivering in his bed, which horrified me. the rotation of two space heaters wasn't doing its job, which meant i wasn't doing mine.

did i mention he's old? ajax is 18, near as we can figure. he's still pretty spry, but he doesn't get out and run around much any more. so, barring some immediate change in the weather, if he's cold, it's not like he's going to warm up without help.

so in a frenzy of cat hair, i pulled everything off the shelves, reconfigured the various beds and cushions and blankets, and repositioned the space heaters for maximum heatage.

now, even as the overnight temps have dipped into the teens at our house, ajax is much warmer.
and i feel much less guilty.

noteworthy

my daughter is walking around singing "ring of fire".

for the record, she's no johnny cash.

why she's singing "ring of fire" is anyone's guess. where she learned it is hard to imagine. it's not like we have old-school country stations teed up in the car. or on the itunes.

johnny cash was big at my parents' house back in the day. they had the albums (along with selections from frankie laine and glen campbell and, inexplicably, jim nabors) and the hi-fi console stereo to play them. so when i walked around singing those songs, one could at least see why. sort of.

* * * * *

the boy, meanwhile, has developed a taste for black sabbath and ac/dc. this is at least partly due to "rock band" on the wii at the neighbors' house. yesterday, driving to christmas festivities on bainbridge island, "highway to hell" came on the radio. the boy asked us to turn it up, and he sang along. he knew all the words.

i just shook my head and blinked, uncomprehendingly.

* * * * *

when did these children turn into real people with musical tastes (not to mention these particular tastes)? i mean, it wasn't that long ago they were singing "rubber duckie" and "C is for cookie" and "baby beluga". how do i reconcile the gap between elmo and ozzy osbourne when i'm just now having a post-headbanger phase of my own?

to recap, my daughter is serenading us with songs i sang when i was her age. my son and i are enjoying the same retro music, at the same time. we're all coming at this from directions and perspectives and generations that could not be more different and still be of the same species on the same planet. my head vibrates alarmingly at the mere thought, and i would not be at all surprised if it spontaneously combusted. poom. like a big ol' safety match.

* * * * *

does it sound like i'm vexed by this karmic confluence of musical musical chairs? i'm not. i'm merely befuddled. and consternation is standard operating procedure for a brow-furrowed parent still in his or her own evolving mode. processing this multiplicity of variables may require more brain cell coordination and metaphysical consciousness than i can muster. so i frown a lot, and people think i'm vexed. it's an easy mistake to make.

* * * * *

if, as some philosopher said, music is the universal language, then maybe it'll facilitate some intergenerational amity in the spaceneedl house. maybe this harmonic cross-current will bond us in a more meaningful way than the time-honored command to "turn that noise down!" it's hard to complain, after all, if i'm the one asking them to turn it up.

it's good not to be too predictable. to defy convention and not be bound to the norm, whatever that might be. especially in this country. in this case, at least, we have that going for us.

as long as the children don't tell me to turn down my music, we'll get along just fine.

we've reached that point

sometimes enough is enough.

thousands of calories at one sitting, for example.

not that we don't appreciate having enough to eat, mind you. we do. in fact, this year we had too much--at a time when too many have too little.

who steals from a food bank? and how incredibly deep will some dig to make sure that shortfall isn't felt by others?

sometimes, "you're kidding, right?" is enough.

tiger woods and sarah palin leap, unwelcome, to mind.

sometimes enough is too much.

a friend of mine in flagstaff, az, is battling leukemia. she is fighting it hard, with very mixed results. her blog is a mosaic of self-deprecating hilarity and heart-rending reversals. the accounts of her physical and emotional pain are impossible to read without feeling the hope, uncertainty, and fear she's coping with every day. she's afraid, she said, that she's not going to make it. at a time when things are at their worst, she just keeps putting it out there.

sometimes enough is still not enough.

another friend has a nephew who recently disappeared in germany. he's been missing, in frankfurt, for days. not a trace, not a word. significant resources--from the state department to the fbi to the german police to u.s. and german tv to the internet--have been brought to bear. with nothing to show for it thus far. the family is keeping the pedal down, because that's what's required.

five seattle-area police officers killed, execution-style, in the past five weeks is ghastly. it's too far beyond "enough" to even get a handle on.

sometimes "you can't be serious" is enough.

barack obama, the "change we can believe in" candidate, seems poised to escalate a war that's been going nowhere for eight years. by all accounts, obama is a brilliant man. i respect this, and still have high hopes for his presidency. but it's hard to reconcile those things with an epically bad idea. afghanistan, as one historian noted, is where empires go to die. the former-soviets would concur, one imagines.

on an unrelated-but-related note, what is wrong with the secret service? do they not take their job seriously, or do they just not like this president?

every day, even a holiday, it's always something. enough, demonstrated time and again, is never enough.

and tomorrow is monday.

so it goes.

hysterical footnote

'bin laden was within our grasp.'

thanks, W. heck of a job! again.

you'd almost think capturing bin laden was never really part of the plan.

because then who would've played the role of boogeyman for the rest of the bush administration? besides the hapless saddam hussein, that is.

the little things

avery got a lesson in life, and death, today.

one of her hamsters, never very healthy, took its last spin on the hamster wheel.

to her credit, she was very pragmatic about arranging a funeral back behind the garage. she even made sure her brother attended the service. we supplied the little tin, wrapped in a pink bow, and dug the hole. she put the tin in the ground, and covered it with dirt. she picked some hydrangeas and carefully put them in place. then she cried.

i was sad, and i didn't even like the little rat.

apparently i'm moved by the rituals of mortality, no matter who they're for.

hard day's night

nov. 21, 2009
seattle, wa
sunrise: 7:24 a.m.
sunset: 4:26 p.m.
* * * * *

we've become nocturnal.

we get up in the dark, go to work in the dark, come home in the dark.

i walk kate in the dark, throw the ball for her in the dark, pick up poop in the dark. (public hygeine note: i take along a flashlight for that.)

around here, when daylight savings time turns into left coast standard time, it's like someone threw a switch. suddenly we're all creatures of the night. (on the upside, this does cut down on UV-related skin damage.)

the change also seems to trigger the return of winter storms. siberian pacific fronts, wave after relentless wave. lowering, ominous events in their own right. which means there are afternoons when you look out the window at 3:30, and darkness is already upon the land.

science is still trying to explain how seattle can remain so green this time of year, given the total absence of light for photosynthesis.

on the first work day following the time change, people instantly forget how to drive. a predictable hour-long commute suddenly takes an hour and 20 minutes. or more. if a snowflake is spotted, anywhere, add another 20 minutes. or more.

sales of vitamin d spike, as folks try to ward off seasonal affective disorder, cardiac events and spontaneous cases of rickets. we're fortunate to have a medic one paramedic just down the block. you never know when you're going to need resuscitation from a spontaneous case of rickets.

ever heard of human hibernation syndrome? yeah, i hadn't either. we've got that here, too. lots of it. people wandering between cubicles, eyes vacant, no purpose evident. then again, maybe they're just zombies at home in their natural environment.

good news note: werewolf attacks go way down, november through march, probably because the impenetrable cloud cover obscures every full moon.

could be worse, you say? yes, we could be living in alaska. that would be darkness on a whole 'nother order of magnitude.

then again, it could be better.