And you can quote me!

 

An idling brain

 I've come to enjoy flying the Baron quite a lot.  I am more relaxed in it than I am in the B18.  Besides being quieter and more comfortable, everything about it is just easier, and, of course, the avionics are helpful in so many ways.  You can certainly fly with a handful of round gauges providing minimal information, but what you can know and do with glass....  No comparison.  And no more tail wheel taxiing, take-offs and landings.  Whew!

*******************

I flew the Baron to take my favorite uncle to his dermatologist a while back for his annual exam.  Two or three years ago I drove him there -- a long drive -- and afterwards he knocked back a few (a few?) at a bar and got a little frisky on the drive home and I let him know he was walking back if he didn't settle down.  Which he did.  I got into it with my mother about him, though, and her advice was to let it go and not let him being a fool wreck our friendship.  I followed that advice, even joking about it with him, and all has been good between us.  

But not of adult men! Grrr...

This time, to tease him, I thought I'd sleaze up my ensemble for the lulz and el jefe, who gets along swell with the guy, approved, but my mother saw me and demanded to know what in the Good Lord's name I was doing dressed like that.  I felt like I was 16 again and getting read the riot act after trying to sneak out of the house to meet my boyfriend.  I kind of liked it.  So nostalgic.  Reminded me of all the fun times evading parental supervision.  But I changed to a burka.  Okay, no I didn't.  I put on some Wrangler cowboy-cut jeans and a Pendleton board shirt.  Driving him from the airport to his appointment, unc commented that I flew better than I drove.  I asked him once again when was the last time he hitchhiked.

After uncle's exam, he came out beaming, with a clean bill of health.  He remarked on both the doctor and her assistant being females and how much he enjoyed his full body exam by them.  That guy....  I told him he was a randy old goat and he said, "You bet I am!"  

But once he remarked on it I did realize that there was not a man, other than patients, in the entire joint: receptionists, physicians assistants, nurses, doctors, every one a female.  Where were the men?

*******************

The other day while checking in at a new dentist -- the old white guy retired and his practice was bought by an Oriental woman -- filling out a bunch of stupid forms that had the same information as the old ones, I put down my husband's name as my emergency contact and when I handed in the forms the receptionist, a girl in her early twenties, looking it over asked if he was my partner.  I said no, he's my husband.  The word "husband" seemed to annoy her and she became rather cool, whereas before she had been quite friendly.  Fortunately, none of the forms asked for the name of the head of household, because I would have put his name down there, too, causing her head to explode.
I wasn't trying to be confrontational or make a statement or anything, I just said what was true.  But, apparently, the word "husband" is triggering, as they say these days.  I guess I should have just said he's the guy I let climb on top of me whenever he wants and make Dagwood sandwiches for.  But if I had she probably would have stabbed me through the gizzard with her selfie stick.
Oh, right, I told her she was very pretty and would have no trouble getting a man if she would drop at least a hundred pounds and lose the beached whale look.  She did not receive this advice well.  What? Me, catty? Perish the thought!
But you know, I think "husband" is one of the nicest words in the English language.  I like having one and I think el jefe likes being one.  Partner?  What is that?  The second fiddle in one of those old western serials from the 1940s? Gabby Hayes to Gene Autry?  Pat Buttram to Roy Rogers? Get out of here! Geez.  El jefe is not comic relief.  Trust me on that.
Well, okay, sometimes. Yeah, pretty often.  All right, not a day goes by that he doesn't make me laugh.
 

*******************

 I was chatting with my friend the vet tech the other day.  She has a boyfriend she wants to rope and hogtie and she asked me what makes for a good, stable marriage.  I reminded her of the old saying that a woman marries a man expecting he will change and he doesn't, and a man marries a woman expecting her to stay the same and she doesn't, so avoid that trap.  What your man is today he will always be, so if you are satisfied with him as he is now, let him be, and you yourself should stay as you are because that's what attracted him to you.  So don't pretend to be what you are not to lure him in and then revert to your real self once you've hobbled him.  Be yourself and if he likes that, you're good to go.  

Also, of course, don't get fat, and stay fit.  And, really important, remember that one of the main reasons a man gets married is because he wants to secure a steady source of sex.  Don't cut that off from him. If you don't like sex, you probably should reconsider getting married. All those bitter jokes about celibate marriages contain a sad and sober truth.  Don't contribute to it. Keep in mind what the Vogue and Glamor writer Mignon McLaughlin said -- "Sex is an appetite for women, but a hunger for men." It's true. You and I may be able to take it or leave it, but he can't. He's gotta have it.

My personal rule is that el jefe can plow me whenever he wants. I
encourage him to do so, not that he needs much encouragement. I will also be his photo and artist's model. He likes wood carving and is now whittling a statue of me out of an old box elder log using a hatchet and a power sander.  It kind of looks like me.  If you squint.

I like him and want to please him, and in my case, even if I am not in the mood for a bit of the old horizontal hula, if he is, the fact that he desires me turns me on; it excites me to excite him. And, I have to admit, I do enjoy the weight of a man.  So we both have a great time.  If he came on to me and I said, not now dear, I'm trying to make a soufflé or I'm changing the baby's diaper or my spinster aunt's NOW chapter is meeting in the next room and you know how thin the walls are, I would miss out on that and make him frustrated and unhappy.  I never want to frustrate him and I always want to make him happy.   And that's not just for his advantage. It's for mine, too.  I like him.  Very much. And I want to keep him.

But beyond all this, I told my friend, beyond being a congenial companion, a hot babe and great lay, a good cook, a good housekeeper and an attentive and sympathetic listener among other things a wife must be, there is one more thing that you should aspire to acquire as soon as you can to ensure tranquility between you and your husband, and that is separate bathrooms.  If the bathrooms lead to separate walk-in closets, even better.  The wife's should have an alcove with a make-up vanity with a tri-fold mirror, and a full-length tri-fold mirror in the walk-in.  The husband should also have a den or man-cave where he can pursue his hobbies, display his professional awards, sports trophies, etc.  

It would also be good to have a rec room with a bar if he is an imbiber, someplace where he can invite his friends over to watch the game or whatever.  You can fix snacks for them, serve drinks, and if they are watching the World Series or the US Open, once in a while ask who has made the latest touchdown or scored a goal.  Ask if the Steelers made the Series and when they say they're football not baseball, say "Foot ball...is that the one where they hit the ball with their head or is that tennis?" That's so they can groan and feel superior to some dumb broad.  Guys always like that. If your husband is not the jealous type (which if he is too much of you shouldn't have married him), you can dress in something sexy, be a home-made Hooters, Twin Peaks or Tilted Kilt girl (and let hubby know he doesn't have to go to those places for eye candy, he has better at home) and have some fun yourself bantering with the boys. Those boys will later say to him that they wished they had a wife like his so you are reinforcing your value.   In addition, if you do dress that way, it will encourage the guys to show off and do stupid stuff, which is always entertaining. I'm always happy to follow them outside and hold their beer. 

 

 

Veteran's Day

 

A Confederate soldier's lament, afraid to go home for fear of what he will find, how it will be.

Windnoon

 On the green hill with the river beyond it
long ago and my father there
and my grandmother standing in her faded clothes
wrinkled high-laced black shoes in the spring grass
among the few gravestones inside their low fence
by the small white wooden church
the clear panes of its windows
letting the scene through from the windows
on the other side of the empty room
and a view of the trees over there
my grandmother hardly turned her head
staring like a cloud at the empty air
not looking at the green glass gravestone
with the name on it of the man to whom
she had been married and who had been
my father’s father she went on saying nothing
her eyes wandering above the trees
that hid the river from where we were
a place where she had stood with him one time
when they were young and the bell kept ringing.

~ “Windnoon” from The Moon Before Morning by W. S. Merwin

 

 

 

 

Weather and Ignorance

This morning it was 17 degrees warmer than yesterday morning.  The night before last and yesterday morning we had a cold north wind blowing.  It was not surprising that it was cold, the kind of cold that goes right through your jacket and tells you winter is coming on hard.  The grass on the ground, frosted and white, crunched underfoot.  It even smelled cold -- a sharp, delicious tang with a hint of wood smoke.  There was a handful of low clouds scudding south, but high above were mare's tails marching northeast.  Otherwise the sky was crystal clear, blue to hurt your eyes.
This morning, it felt like I was in the tropics.  It wasn't actually that warm, but it felt like it in contrast to the day before.  In fact, it felt like spring.  There was a warm, south-southwesterly breeze and it was raining. Not hard with blustering winds, but a gentle, steady rain bending slightly before the wind. The air was thick, on the edge of a fog, and there was fog in the valleys and low clouds shrouding the hills.  The sky was a solid, gray overcast and the day was dark. It was delightful.
Later in the day, someone mentioned how remarkable it was that the weather had changed so much in only one day, and I mentioned the wind shifts, and was thinking about high pressure and low pressure wind patterns and might have pursued the conversation further, but this person responded, rather peevishly, what's the difference which way the wind blows?  Yeah.  Wind is just wind.  It blows this way and that without any reason and has no influence on anything.  Right.  So I just shrugged and ended my participation in the conversation.
It astonishes me how ignorant, and how aggressive people are in their ignorance.  This is most especially true when the subject is the natural world.
One evening when I was in college, I once wandered by an outdoor environmentalist rally, and as I paused to listen, the speaker gestured to the thin crescent moon descending into the sunset and said something blah blah just as the moon we see is rising blah blah and I shook my head and walked away.  People don't know the phases of moon or which way is east and which west, yet talk about saving the planet.
And I think I'm dumb!  I'm a genius compared to these morons.  But they are the ones with the public megaphone, and everyone listens to them, not to people like me.  Not that I have anything to say.  I don't.  

"Come said the wind to
the leaves one day,
Come o'er the meadows
and we will play.
Put on your dresses
scarlet and gold,
For summer is gone
and the days grow cold."
~ A Children's Song of the 1880s