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Friday, May 23, 2008
Thursday, May 22, 2008
11232253.1 Sorry to do this to you.  We had a 90° day recently, and Seattle Times photographer Alan Berner captured these people. I would have to agree that the picture is a 100% accurate portrayal of a group of typical Seattleites. See what I've been telling you? What's more, we're so cool now that one would pass a group like this and not register any reaction at all, no matter how tempted one might be. Incidentally, the lovely day coincided with the annual Norwegian Constitution Day parade in Ballard, one of our Whiter events. Two of our local high school jazz bands from Seattle took home the top honors in Jazz at Lincoln Center's 13th Annual Essentially Ellington competition. And it wasn't the first time. I'll admit right up front that I do not "get" jazz, never have and never will, though I can appreciate why Seattle could nurture it. Isn't it basically just the noise of pre-suicidal depression? Back in the fifties, my parents would drive over to San Francisco to enjoy evenings of smoky clubbing (and who knows what else.) We'd find matchbooks in the car afterward; fortunately we were too young at the time to realize how seedy it was. It's always a surprise to me when some group from Seattle goes out of town, especially New York, and wins something. Looking at our city from elsewhere, I'd imagine we come across as monumentally obnoxious. Besides that, more money has fallen on more people around here in the last twenty years that in all of the history of world civilization before, and we fairly wallow in it. Tastefully, of course. Rick Macherat
Thursday, May 15, 2008
11232252.1further, farther, futher, yonder .. Oh, as a public service before I get into this - if your search for a legitimate discussion of further/farther accidentally brought you here to my site, where nothing but nonsense abounds, try this one instead. She will fix you right up. Did you notice that #80 on the May 15th Google Zeitgeist list is "appeasement?" Just about every other search, at least 1-79, was for something on television or song lyrics. By the way, that list is very suspect; "tits" isn't even on it. Anyway, to the subjectRick Macherat
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
11232251.1Small pleasures. (Very small) Sort of like getting a lady's phone number, theoretical example, you all know what that's like. Exciting, cool. For me, not that cool .. do you really want somebody's chubby grandmother's phone number? Me either. So, you live on smaller things .. like clean laundry. Except when there's something wrong with the hot water out in the laundry room. It could be anything: rats, earthquake damage finally giving way, sabotage (bad neighborhood these days.) If Brother and I were more agile and energetic we would have been out there, wrestling the washer away from the wall and inspecting all those tubes and cords installed so many decades ago. But we're not. So, I waited until I had one more plumbing issue (plugged up sink in a bathroom, didn't take that long) and called the plumber. Excellent company, by the way, we've used them for a long time. Long-short, one of their likable young guys comes out and fixes us up in no time. A crimp in the hose? A fracking four-hundred and sixty-two dollar fracking crimp in the fracking hose? (They also put up with my getting bent outta shape because I always eventually calm down and pay.) Besides, a short time after he left we were having a great time (re: small pleasures) stuffing whites, towels and washcloths, into a carefully measured steaming broth of Tide, bleach and 140° HOT water. Smelled clean in there already. Yeah, I keep the water heater thermostat way up. I know, isn't that awfully expensive, electricity-wise? Sure it is, but I'm old and don't give a shit anymore about the electric bill. Really, you do get there eventually. From this point on, the job would be Brother's; all he had to do was wait for it to finish, put everything in the dryer and set it for 60 minutes. Hours pass, and he comes up to say goodnight. You got that laundry all squared away? I asked. Sure did, Brother replied, obviously pleased with himself. And it was all warm and clean smelling and all, and completely dry? Yep. And almost. Almost ...? Well, there's no need to go all into the rest .. about how somebody thought somebody else said FIFTY MINUTES and slightly damp and oh yeah well we're about to gain a valuable lesson in mildew and stink aren't we and how a potentially wonderful bath evening with a giant warm clean-smelling towel will have to wait until tomorrow and a complete laundry redo and on and on. No need for that at all because the new me is civilized, much calmer than before in the olden days and I only spoke it mildly instead of in my former slightly loud and insane way. And don't worry, Brother is completely inured so neither way fazes him in the least. Rick Macherat
Thursday, May 01, 2008
11232250.1I'm probably going to hell. I received the same cutesy forwarded e-mail from both of the people that I have designated as my successor guardians/caregivers for Brother should I croak early. The message involved a "re-tard" who gets to play in a baseball game and he happens to score the winning run with a lot of help and encouragement from the opposing team and everyone is all warm and fuzzy and all and then he dies but we still feel good because it was so special and crap. Okay, that's just not where I'm at or have ever been at, and neither of them will ever understand me, or Brother, or both of us. After sixty-one years anyway. I treat Brother like a Regular Person as much as I can, and sometimes it's rough. And I'm certain he would not have it any other way. More and more as he's gotten older he says, "I can do it," or "I want to do it," and that makes it all worthwhile for me. I just hope to god that if I die first they don't steal all the money and slap him in a Home with the eager help of the damned lawyers. Incidentally, people freeze and get real uncomfortable when I say "re-tard," which I do fairly regularly. Good. I just wanted to get that string of thought down and done. I'll probably come back and delete it before very many hair-freaks come by. Hair freaks? Yeah. Ever since I wrote the posts about that particular fetish I've been getting about fifty hits per day from searches. Now I'm kind of wishing we had an "un-search" feature so I could purge it all. Those guys are pretty doggone creepy, as creepy fetishes go anyway. Rick Macherat
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