Not Drinking

It's hard to be a non-drinker in Germany. Even though I don't drink, my friendly hosts (by hosts I mean everyone in Germany) expected me to have a full drink of something, anything, in my hand. It can be water, coke, milk, but if I put it down someone will immediately bring me another or ask, "where is your drink?" I can understand why those who drink alcohol want to drink one after another but why would anyone want to drink 6 cokes in a row? Or even six glasses of water? We went to a party early last week and I was offered three beers in less than a minute so I picked up an empty to appear liquidly occupied. It worked like a charm.

Thanksgiving Bear Week

Luke and I are in Cologne for Thanksgiving, an art opening and Bear Week. Luke was here last year at the same time and it was also Bear Week and Thanksgiving. What is it with Luke and Thanksgiving? Yesterday we were in a café when six bears walked in (they were not anything like the bears that messed up my cabin two years in a row) and I suddenly became very aware of my beard. My big beard. My big bushy beard. Not for the first time, I was glad I was not wearing my sleeveless, denim jacket. Come to think of it, where is my sleeveless denim jacket?

Cat

This morning I caught this little animal looking in my window - twice.

Flying

Over the years I have developed flight anxiety. It does not happen every time I fly and it is eased by simply sitting in the front row, preferably in an aisle seat. I am in a plane now and I am so far from my preferred seat that I am surprised that I am still in the plane. 34F in this plane means back row window.


The woman to my left (excuse me if you are reading over my shoulder) smells like cigarettes and a beauty salon. She smells exactly like my poor dead grandmother used to smell on Tuesdays with tobacco mixed in. Tuesdays were the days Nonnie (that’s what we called her) had her hair set.

I do not know why it is that sometimes I feel like freaking out on a plane and other times I do not. But I realized that if I am seated next to someone more helpless than I, I do not feel anxiety. It rarely happens that I am seated next to someone more helpless than I, but recently I was seated next to a newly hatched bird and I think situations like that bring out the protective father in me, if there is one in there. One tends to be a less effective protector when one is freaking out.

Different subject:

Now, I don’t believe that I have the most sensitive nose in the world or even in this airplane, but I can tell when someone has had an unfortunate movement at an unfortunate moment in a small space – an airplane lavatory. At least I hope it was in the lavatory. When the odor hit my nose I made a face to indicate that I was aware of the smell and then attempted to make a face that said, “Wasn’t me.”

Bed Time in Chicago

Sometimes I think there is nothing left to write about and then something like this happens.

The cat threw up on my bed. My bed in Chicago is in a room without a light switch so I went to bed in complete darkness and therefore did not notice the throw up until I had already stepped, sat and knelt in it. And then I wiped some of it off my heel and smelled my finger. "Not poop," I thought to myself with some relief. And then I went to sleep.

Don't Blame Me I Live in a Red State

The reddest state in the world.
I've been wondering; will we ever have another white president?

O'Bama

Political Fun Fact

I thought it interesting that Joe Biden's Grandfather's name was O'biden when he came over from Ireland. Oh, yea. Totally true. It's on the Internet (or at will be in a second).
Obama
O'biden
'O8

Soup

Do you believe in animal magnetism? Well, I disagree with you. Unless you answered yes. My cabin is a bear magnet. When I told Steve G about the third and final (I hope) bear break-in he asked, "Do you rub peanut butter on your door and sprinkle dog food around the cabin?" I said that I used lard instead of peanut butter but that I thought it should work just as well. But of course that was just the facetious banter of a couple of old veterans laughing in the face of tragedy. I don't put food of any variety on the cabin door and I suspect Steve knew it before he posed the question. The bear destroyed almost every food thing in the cabin. He spilled margarita mix and then dipped his paws in it. Then he walked outside and let the dirt cover his sticky paws and re-entered the cabin, climbed onto the sink and stove and inside the refrigerator. The bear did not eat everything, he merely spilled, spoiled and mutilated everything. Somehow he managed to poke a hole in a bottle of mustard without knocking it over (either that or he put back the bottle, upright, on its shelf after poking the hole and knocking it over).

The food items that I will miss the most include a can of Hood River Peaches, Ibarra Mexican chocolate, a couple pounds of sugar and a container of Armor brand lard (for a flaky pie crust). I will not miss the Peter Pan peanut butter. Laurie was upset when she heard of the demise of all but the Folgers coffee. Thanks to Kim and William for bringing sugar (for the delicious cobbler Laurie made) and coffee.

A couple of other things:
The bear left a gift of his excrement behind the cabin. I say "gift" because it was outside the cabin and not inside. Diego the chihuahua did his part to prevent further visits by peeing on the black pile of poo and also peeing all around the area where the bear took the food out to eat at his leisure. We watched from the kitchen window as Diego would sniff, pee, vigorously scratch the ground with his back feet, move a foot or so and repeat. Good dog.

Opening

Luke talking about the work while Nate thinks he's leaning out of the picture.

Fans.

Another fan. I call this one "Kate."

Really important interview.

Chicago

On the way to Chicago I had a stop over in Salt Lake City where the people entering the plane looked like characters in a movie about christian conservatives. The women dressed in clothes that would only look feminine if worn by men. Young couples walked in surrounded by hundreds of kids all under the age of 5 and with names like Hezekiah, Esther and Chastity. Neatly trimmed mustaches boarded the plane followed closely by pale white men. 

And now we are all in Chicago.

If you happen to be in Chicago October 17th, stop by Rhona Hoffman Gallery for our (New Catalogue) opening.

Night Fox

I saw this fox again a couple days ago at 9:30 in the morning walking down a sidewalk in Boise (5th and Bannock). I am pretty sure it is the same fox because this little vixen is pretty big for a fox - about the size of a small coyote. She also has that hunched over, tucked-tail look evident in the above photograph.

For a Free Copy of Your

sticker please send me $15.00 plus shipping and handling.
If he loses I'll change it to say, "I Voted for the Black Guy," or, "Don't Blame Me, I Voted for the Black Guy."

New Coke with Salt

A fellow with a bigger and older beard than mine ( my beard is 1 this week!) is sitting at the counter of a café salting his coke a cola.

And thus my great American novel begins. But where do I go from here? Maybe the above is the beginning of my mediocre American short story.

The first sentence of this post is mostly true and maybe entirely so. I am not sure if his caramel colored drink was actually Coke. His salt and pepper (mostly salt) beard was huge. The teenage waitress, upon seeing him salt his soda, said, "You sure like your salt. I do too, but maybe not as much as you."

One more thing: I was planning a beard day party in honor of my hairy face but as you know, the road to hell is paved with party plans. In other words, just uttering, "Beard Day Party," was enough to satisfy that desire.

Dinner

I am writing this so we wont have to look at the home canned tuna. Not that it doesn't look delicious because it does and last night I ate some for the first time. I am fairly confident that this morning's diarrhea had nothing to do with last nights tuna.



It was really good.

Tuna

I've gotten heavily into canning. So far I have canned almost a pound of tuna. That makes three small jars. I know what you're thinking: Yum. I hope you're right. The tuna I chose was the cheap (15.95lb) albacore variety. I wanted the yellow fin but that was 26.95 per lb. So, this is not a money saving proposition. I suspect it would even be less so if I caught the fish myself - license, fishing gear, charter boat, etc - unless I caught one of those famed million dollar blue fin.

Potatomistake

How can I tell if my potato is ready? This one is soft. Really soft. And it has purple antlers.

You notice something fishy about these herefords? Ok, maybe not fishy but elky?



Here he is standing next to his friends. Someone told me that he moved in with the steers a couple months ago.

Did anybody else happen to catch the chicken staring contest at the fair this year?

Sarah

Did you hear Sarah Palin's comment about hockey moms and pit bulls? She said, "I love hockey moms. 'You know the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick." A gross generalization if you ask me. Not all pit bulls wear lipstick. I had one and she never wore lipstick.
On a related note, if lipstick is one word why is pit bull two words? Or, why are pit bull two words?