Every Day Is An Adventure - Apparently
The Fauxhawk-Adorned Mesomorph
Yesterday, my younger son’s head was enclosed within an Afro of modest amplitude. Today, he is sporting a modified Mohawk.
There must be some significance, but, if so, it escapes me.
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A Lifetime Together Will Not Be Enough - And It Wasn’t
When she died it was as if his car accelerated
off the pier’s end and zoomed upward over death water
for a year without gaining or losing altitude,
then plunged in a honeycomb of steel, still dreaming
awake, as dead as she was but conscious still.
There is nothing so selfish as misery nor as boring.
And depression is devoted only to its own practice.
Mourning resembles melancholia precisely except
that melancholy adds self-loathing to stuporous sorrow
…
He awakened daily to the prospect of nothingness
in the day’s house that like all houses was mortuary.
He slept on the fornicating bed of the last breath.
He closed her eyes in the noon of her middle life;
he no longer cut and pruned for her admiration;
he worked for praise of women and they died.
…
- From “Kill the Day” by Donald Hall
Julie Was Right - As Usual
Midway through one of Julie’s short stories, The Secret Andrew, she limns the changes in the grief experienced by the protagonist, a woman whose husband had died a year earlier, by noting that she is then (at that point in the story) still unable to bear re-reading the letters the two of them had exchanged when they first met but, as the conveniently omniscient narrator points out, sometime in the future
It wasn’t.
Julie was profoundly, terrifyingly on the mark - a lifetime together was not nearly enough.
died in the bed we shared at 7:00 on the morning of December 3, 1999
from cancer diagnosed the week of our wedding nearly 20 years earlier.
I miss her every day.
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Mesomorph Plays The Right Card, Trumps Satellite Access
Mesomorph1 And Verizon Team Up To Attempt Rescue Of Internet Access
Readers may recall that I have, on rare occasions, expressed mild to moderate perturbation over our satellite-mediated Internet access.2 As problems have worsened, I have searched for a better performing alternative but here in the hinterlands we are too far removed from the telephone switching station for DSL and too far past cable’s end to tap into that pathway.
It turns out I was looking for access in all the wrong places. Mesomorph, pictured above, was more resourceful. After multiple efforts, he surmounted my misinformed resistance, persuading me to audition Verizon Broadband, a service marketed primarily to businesses whose employees need broadband access in a variety of locations.3
A Brief Semi-Technical Digression
The idea behind this system is that Verizon (along with a few other services) uses EV-DO4 technology for wireless data transmission via radio signals to provide broadband Internet access. This is not the same sort of Wi-Fi connection you use while sucking down your Starbucks fix or hijack from your neighbor’s wireless network that he never bothered to secure. Verizon EV-DO is available in lots of places, especially cities, but not everywhere. In situations in which EV-DO service isn’t available, Verizon provides Internet access through the regular cellular network, albeit at reduced speeds (still about twice as fast as dial-up). Because Verizon is our mobile phone network, we were able to check in advance that we could receive the EV-DO signal in our home.
The set-up was easy and quick: We installed the Verizon EV-DO Broadband management software program5 from the provided CD, inserted the PC card6 (displayed in the above photo by my son in model mode), booted up, clicked “connect,” and faster than you can say “Evolution-Data Optimized Broadband Access” we were online.
The Verizon Broadband Screen Test Thus Far7
While it is too soon in this experiment to declare Mission Accomplished, I can accurately summarize our experience after 2-3 weeks as So far, so wonderful.
We’ve been able to access Verizon Broadband reliably throughout the house at speeds fast enough to comfortably surf the Net, view graphics, watch videos, etc. I was also able to spend 30 minutes working on the computer yesterday in a medical center parking lot while my elder son saw his doctor. On our Thanksgiving trip from northern Illinois to southwest Missouri, we were routinely able to hook up to the Net while mobile until we entered the deep recesses of the Ozarks near my mother’s home.
This isn’t a solution for everyone. Service is not ubiquitous; we have the good luck to receive a strong signal in our home, but reports of weak or nonexistent connections still populate the wireless forums. The service costs more than the typical cable or DSL Internet access providers but about the same as my satellite set-up. There are also maximum download limits unlike the all you can eat contracts most cable and DSL providers offer. The limits are more generous, however, than those of my satellite provider.
And I’m waiting to make sure that the first month’s billing from Verizon is what I expect it to be before I say good-bye to the satellite in the sky.
Nonetheless we are well-satisfied thus far and I confess to cautious optimism, a condition rarely associated with me - and young master Mesomorph, of all people, is responsible. Go figure.
Thanks, son.
Footnotes
- The Mesomorph is also known as my 18 year old son ~back~
- Just for grins, I went to the Heck of a Guy blog’s WhereTheHeck site search, entered “satellite access,” and came up with three or four online rants about my problems with the satellite service, including one that grouped them in an “Axis of Evil” that precluded publishing posts for a time. Also included in the conspiracy was the selfsame Mesomorph. While my son has lately evidenced tentative signs of repentance and reformation, however, no such signals have been forthcoming from the satellite folks. ~back~
- The other major role in this crusade for access into the Holy Land of the Internet has been played by the magnificent Stubby, Mesomorph’s long-time boon companion and, not so incidentally in this case, the Manager of a local Verizon store, who spent much time and effort explaining the technology and the service options. ~back~
- EV-DO is an acronym for Evolution-Data Optimized or Evolution-Data Only, which is also abbreviated as EVDO and EV ~back~
- The software program can also be used to manage other (non-Verizon) wireless connections. ~back~
- The PC card we are trying out works with Windows 2000, XP, Vista, and Mac OS X. ~back~
- I have neither the expertise in general nor sufficient experience with EV-DO in particular to offer a comprehensive analysis; a recent review of Verizon Broadband, including specific speed and connectivity tests in different areas of Chicago, that is substantive, readable by those without a technical background, and congruent with my observations thus far can be found at Broadband on the go: the ups and downs of Verizon’s EV-DO network ~back~
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Post-Thanksgiving Post
Click on graphic to view larger image
Dateline: The Ozarks
I took the photo atop this post early this morning from the back deck of my mother’s home, perched on a bluff overlooking Table Rock Lake.
Mom’s home is also at least a 45 minute drive from the nearest significant retail district.1 With that geographical circumstance and the tenuous, extraordinarily slow dial-up internet connection here abetting my characterologic reluctance to purchase goods or services within 30 yards of anyone else exhibiting similar behavior, we were well protected from the temptation to indulge in Black Friday’s traditional shopping ruckus.
Instead we spent today lolling about, reading, and, in place of tuning in to any of the three TV channels with signals capable of penetrating the airspace surrounding my mother’s abode,2 watching the DVD versions of the first seasons of MASH and Scrubs, which were the video selections da boyz shrewdly chose to bring along.
We also, however, donned our parkas to walk in the blustery cold to a boat launching area on the lake, pausing along the way to admire the cabin’s green metal roof installed this past year, which not only affords a less permeable barrier between the weather and the home’s interior than did its predecessor but also felicitously denies a perch to the local turkey vultures who had grown fond of using the ridge of the preceding roof as a roost. While turkey vultures appear less aggressively loathsome than some of their close avian brethren and are, as naturalists seem obligated to note, “one of God’s creatures,” a flock of vultures perching on the roof of the home of ones mother is not a vision that evokes comfort and serenity.
We also passed by and beheld the splendor of what is easily the local home most densely decorated with Christmas themed wire-frame, wooden, and blow-up figures, signposts for the North Pole, Candy Cane Lane, and other holiday destinations, huge Christmas cards, lights of all sorts and colors, wooden soldiers guarding the driveway, and, of course, signs supporting the Kansas City Chiefs. There is also a Duck Crossing warning sign that is, naturally, a permanent rather than seasonal installation.
Other Noteworthy Pastimes
While my mother explained to da boyz that her living room TV was inoperative since being struck by lightning and we discussed whether there was any sense in trying to repair it rather than purchasing a replacement, Mesomorph3 wandered behind the fried and frizzled television, pushed the reset button, and then hit the power button to simultaneously bring to an end the electromechanical problem and our now moot conversation about it.
Prodigal4 put a portion of today’s free time to set up the miniature DVD player that was one of our Christmas gifts to Mom last year and that had remained safe and sound in its unopened box since she removed it from its gift wrap 11 months ago. More significantly, he coerced his grandmother into learning how to use the thing, providing not only a tutorial but also a follow-up examination. We’re leaving Surf’s Up, a spectacularly well done animated flick, featuring penguins, the decade’s official #1 cartoon species.
A drive to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, a town once known and visited for the medicinal powers of its waters and which has since become a magnet for ex-hippies, antique-buyers and –purveyors, motorcyclists, coffee shop sorts, admirers of Victorian and pseudo-Victorian homes, genuinely rustic locals, tourists of every ilk, and folks who seem to devote most of their energies to developing way too cute names for their shoppes5 brought the day’s activity agenda to an end.
After tonight’s traditional reprise of our Thanksgiving dinner in leftover mode, all that remains of this visit is packing, garnering a night’s rest, and making our way home.
While I always expect catastrophe to be lurking around every proverbial corner, this Thanksgiving trip to the matriarch of our tiny clan has been has gone so well that it has generated the suspicion that some vital flaw has been overlooked or, worse, that we’ve been doing something wrong all those other times.
It’s a nice kind of problem.
Footnotes
- There are, however, two huge tire wholesalers within three miles of us; had anyone on our Christmas gift list expressed an unfulfilled longing for a set of tires with an impressive warranty, we would have been golden. ~back~
- One of those channels appears to be the broadcast pathway of the all snow all the time station while the other two preferentially display electronically generated pointillist approximations of the programs we view at home ~back~
- My 18 year old son ~back~
- My 21 year old son ~back~
- For example, an establishment of the White Hen/Quick Trip/7-Eleven genre located next to the “Something Or Other Inn” is called the “Inn-Convenience Store. ~back~
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The Picaresque Prodigal’s Pictorial
The Prodigal1 is putting together his photobiography2 to fulfill a requirement of his vocational rehab program.3
Because I was pulling photos for this presentation during a good portion of the time I had planned to spend merrily blogging away and because the project and my son were on my mind, some of the pictures have transmogrified into today’s post.
My personal favorite of the shots occupies the top right corner. The caption (not shown on the collage) is “My father has always stood behind me and supported me”
The Prodigal and I crack ourselves - each other - up
Footnotes
- The Prodigal, for newcomers, is my 21 year old son who is recovering from head trauma caused by an auto accident earlier this year ~back~
- I suppose this compilation would be more correctly or at least more precisely termed a photoautobiography, which also has the advantage of being more fun to say, but that construction looks suspect. ~back~
- While I would not argue against the value of this task, my immediate and automatic response to similar assignments I have received to compose a narrative of my life has been and continues to be the opening line of Salinger’s Cather In The Rye, If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. ~back~
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Remembering Julie On Her Birthday: August 14
I Do Remember This
As Time Goes By is another of those old-fashioned songs Julie1 and I listed in the category of “Our Song.”2 and it seems to fit the occasion of her birthday.
As Time Goes By
Louis ArmstrongYou must remember this
A kiss is still a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh
The fundamental things apply
As time goes by
And when two lovers woo
They still say, “I love you”
On that you can rely
No matter what the future brings
As time goes by
Moonlight and love songs
Never out of date
Hearts full of passion
Jealousy and hate
Woman needs man
And man must have his mate
That no one can deny
it’s still the same old story
A fight for love and glory
A case of do or die
The world will always welcome lovers
As time goes byMoonlight and love songs
Never out of date
Hearts full of passion
Jealousy and hate
Woman needs man
And man must have his mate
That no one can deny
it’s still the same old story
A fight for love and glory
A case of do or die
The world will always welcome lovers
As time goes by
Footnotes
- Julie Showalter was my much-beloved, fiercely smart, extraordinarily sexy wife and prize-winning writer, who died in 1999 from cancer diagnosed the week of our wedding nearly 20 years earlier. There are many other posts about her and her writing in this blog. For information, see Julie Showalter FAQ ~back~
- See With Julie In Mind On Our Wedding Anniversary for more about “Our Song(s).” ~back~
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With Julie In Mind On Our Wedding Anniversary
Married July 20, 1980
Another Of Julie’s1 Ideas
It seems as though it should have been more complicated.
After we had lived together for a couple of years, Julie thought we should be married. I was not convinced that being legally wed was a necessary step for us, and Julie made it clear that she was not issuing an ultimatum.
But, I never told Julie “No.”
And once again, it turned out that Julie was right.
They’re Playing From Our Jukebox
Shortly after Julie and I were together, I complained to her that, unlike most couples we knew, we did not have an “Our Song,” and, further, that she was the cause of the problem because no one song could sufficiently represent a relationship with her.
From then on, Julie would periodically inform me that “They’re playing one of Our Top Ten Songs.” Other variations on this theme included “Oh, that’s a newcomer rising fast on Our Playlist,” “From the Country & Western Our Songs charts, we’re listening to …,” and, perhaps her favorite, “Dance with me - that’s a song from Our Jukebox.”
They Can’t Take That Away From Me was a frequently played selection in Our Jukebox. While Julie usually preferred the rendition by Sinatra or, most frequently, Billie Holiday, I’ve lately found myself drawn to Stacey Kent’s more measured and elegant version of the ballad.
They Can’t Take That Away From Me Sung by Stacey Kent
They Can’t Take That Away From Me
By George and Ira GershwinThere are many many crazy things
That will keep me loving you
And with your permission
May I list a fewThe way you wear your hat
The way you sip your tea
The memory of all that
No they can’t take that away from meThe way your smile just beams
The way you sing off key
The way you haunt my dreams
No they can’t take that away from meWe may never never meet again, on that bumpy road to love
But Ill always, always keep the memory ofThe way you hold your knife
The way we danced till three
The way you changed my life
No they can’t take that away from me
The Photo: The photo at the top left of the montage atop this post was taken at our wedding; in it, from left to right, are Julie’s mother, Julie’s father, Julie, me, my mother, and my father. In the photo at the bottom left, the cats, from left to right, are Guido and Diego.
Footnotes
- Julie Showalter was my much-beloved, fiercely smart, extraordinarily sexy wife and prize-winning writer, who died in 1999 from cancer diagnosed the week of our wedding nearly 20 years earlier. There are many other posts about her and her writing in this blog. For information, see Julie Showalter FAQ ~back~
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The Contribution of Da Boyz To The Heck of a House Design
Corrections To Credits For Heck of a House Design
In Heck of a House: A Manor In The Jacobsenian Manner, I listed Builder-Buddy,1 Julie, and me as the primary designers of Heck of a House. I am remiss in not crediting the Mesomorph and the Prodigal for their efforts.
At the outset of planning the house, Julie and I explained that we would work out a design for our new home before starting construction, adding that if they had any ideas, they should let us know.
Although we thought they might express preferences about where their rooms would be located, how big they should be, etc., they chose instead to focus on the area of home security. Despite the imagination displayed in numerous detailed sketches, we were, unfortunately, unable to incorporate their contributions into the actual residence, primarily because Builder-Buddy was unable to find room in the budget to purchase the guard dinosaurs and saber-toothed tigers. And then there was the problem of obtaining approval from the local authorities for the moat. Julie also had philosophical as well as aesthetic issues about placing the machine gun-equipped pillboxes and minefield in a defensive perimeter around the house - even if we posted warning signs.
Of course, if we are ever, as Da Boyz warned we might be, overrun by battalions of Nazi soldiers, we will, no doubt, regret having chosen to forgo those protections.
Footnotes
- ”Builder-Buddy,” I have belatedly discovered, is a fairly frequently used appellation; consequently, I should make clear that unless otherwise noted, the use of “Builder-Buddy” in this blog exclusively refers to my home builder and buddy, who is not, to my knowledge, associated with other “Builder-Buddy” named entities, including but not limited to corporate divisions, accounting software, construction tools, and icons ~back~