It's a dog's world

What do dogs think of people, when we speak to them, or when we look into each others eyes? What is the bond of dog to man?

Although we consider our pets as family members, I don't much go for the "pack" theory. Surely they know we aren't like them. And surely, too, the connection shared is not an anthropomorphic illusion, but a connection of heart & soul at some level.

Last night, I looked into the eyes of my old dog, Bruiser, who is approaching 14 years of age as well as death. He was particularly lame, tripping on falling while trying to step onto his cushioned bed. And in his eyes, cloudy and pale with age, I saw deep weariness.

On the other end of the spectrum, I was eye to eye with young Sadie as I went down the stairs to the woodstove, and again when I climbed back up. And I saw youthful exuberance.

And, in both sets of eyes, I saw love.

Dogs, humble servants, dispensing agape - sounds like they are better Christians than most of their human companions.

Reflections on the VW Bug - Greatest Car Ever

We called them Beetles, or more often, a Bug. I know I really miss the real beetles (greatest car Everrrr!). So many memories. It was one of my first cars, and in the end I drove 3 or 4, although I may have only owned 1 or 2 outright. When I was a tween, my mom drove a '69 Beetle and it had the coolest back bumper. The stock bumper was cooler than anything you might fabricate. It was tubular, man. As a newbie driver (newbie LEGAL driver, since I started sneaking a bug out onto the back roads of Gilmanton NH at 14), I wrapped one around a tree, which moved the passenger front tire back several feet. While I sustained a sprained wrist and bloody nose, it was my parent's car (oops). I custom painted one lime green with long, black "eyes" on front hood (they came with two long indents in hood, for support I guess, seperated by 3 or 4 inch band of metal). My best bud Sheldon had an international orange Carmen Gia, the only thing as cool (maybe cooler, Buddy) as my lime green bug. For whatever reason, most of my beetles were green and two were lime green, including the one I painted myself. My last bug was fuel-injected and I replaced the injectors myself. 

On all the bugs, you had to have a learned touch to route the foil & cardboard pipes inside engine compartment without crushing or destroying ends to get heat. Great in the snow, great on gas, made a wonderfully unmistakeable put-put sort of sound like no other engine on planet (I'd love an mp3 of THAT!).

I taught at least one of my older sisters to drive stick in a bug. Like a Sensei , I worked them through progressively harder steps. They were ready to solo when they could stop on a steep hill, and take off from that position. Made the mistake of putting my gf in drivers seat once - she had never driven stick and she just took right off - at least until she needed to shift into second! Very drunk from Oktober Fest had to direct my designated driver so we could get home and she had never driven stick. My last bug was retired when the under-front got so rusted that no one would fix it for me.

I think I'm going to go out and find me one to fix up.

Free Range Chicken performance

Here is a rough video of me performing Free Range Chicken!

Free Range Chicken

Free Range Chicken
(words & music copyright Michael R. Martin)
I'll record it soon - it only sound like I'm saying dirty words when I sing it

Out in the Road see the free range chickens
Clucking and picking, scratching and scritching
Can't catch a bug then they're out of luck,
but I'd rather be a chicken than a duck

In the tall grass see the buffalo toad
Hopping and blinking and sitting kinda low
Can't catch a worm and she's out of luck
but I'd rather be a toad than a duck

     What in the heck do I have against ducks?
     I'll tell you right now I don't give a cluck
     Snapping turtle gonna snap you right up
     So I'd rather be a snapper than a duck

Down bu the lake see the big bull frog
Resting his legs on a hollow log
Can't catch a fly then he's out of luck
But I'd rather be a frog than a duck

Down on the farm see a horse and cow
I think you know where I'm going by now
Can't eat some grass then they're out of luck
But I'd rather be a grazer than a duck


     What in the heck do I have against ducks?
     I'll tell you right now I don't give a cluck
     Largemouth bass gonna eat you right up
     So I'd rather be a bass than a duck

     What in the heck do I have against ducks?
     I'll tell you right now I don't give a cluck
     Outboard motor gonna chew you right up
     So I'd rather be a motor than a duck

Screw Life

Some days I just want to say f*«screw»* life and love and everything • when the rotten in human nature outweighs the goodness. For most, it seems, rotten is easy, nice is an effort not exercised.

It is painful when friends reveal their true colors, especially when it comes, as it often does, during times of need, low points in life.

So, f*«screw»* life. And if the shoe fits, f*«screw»* you!

Snow Today

On a day like today, Mother Nature can not be said to be spitting snow, for she is floating each white flake like goose down plucked from the softest pillows in heaven.

I remember as a child at my grandmother's house, spying the first tentative flakes and wondering and hoping that it was the start of a big snow storm. We didn't have forecasting and radar with instant access via the internet like we do now. It was always just a guess for us.

And those big snow storms were magical to me. I loved to watch the wind whip snow around the porch and shrubs. The swirling effect at night, around the floodlight on the barn, was hypnotic. It was like being on a great ship at sea as the briny spray whipped up over the bow and crashed down upon the heaving decks. Over and over, the great waves came. Over and over, the great snow swirled.

And when the great storms subsided, we'd be left with mountains of new white snow in which to build fort and fortress. I remember one winter the snows would eventually reach up to the roof, when windows and doors became openings at the end of long tunnels carved through the snow. When was that? Was it the winter of '66, returning from Iran, when the snowbanks in Gilmanton, NH were as deep as I was tall and then some?

Daydreaming again

Daydreaming of a LONG bike ride on a warm and windy road. Wait for the big SMILE at the end!

Outside, looking in

That has been a theme in my life since my youth, days of teen & pre-teen: always on the outside looking in. The main downside to the blessing of having traveled so much as a child.

But now, closing in on a half-centurian (not the half horse-half man thing, the 50 year old thing), I feel it more strongly and in different ways. I feel like the cloud, turned inside out. My silver lining, exposed thus to air, is tarnished, splotchy green, unappetizing if not down-right ugly.

Crap. Crap. Crap. How I feel. Against all I do, it is still how I feel.

The Providence of God

"He saw also that the providence of God is a circle of loving and giving, God serving His poor through the bounty of His rich, and His poor offering up their thanks to Him."

From "My God and My All: The Life of St. Francis of Assisi" by Elizabeth Goudge, P. 56

Mountain Sailors

Brief splash of red along the horizon this morn, as a sliver of sunshine passes between Whiteface Mountain and base of clouds.

Unheeded, the sailors' warning quickly fades in a silver grey rumpled sky; the sky slowly fading into an unbroken pool of mercury.

Yesterday was a picture perfect Adirondack January day - cold, clear and bright. Today returns, low contrast and shadowless.

Winter Pies

Blueberry & warm crust
Buttery olfactory sensation
Summer wafting amid wood smoke
Sixteen degrees outside and two feet of snow
But two blueberry pies cooling on the stove
And mmmmm, it is okay

Early Morning Mystico

Sunday December 20 2009, 3 AM.
Fascinating occasional peripheral aura left and right. It looks a bit like something out of BBCA's Primeval - a colorful yet clear, shimmering curtain-like wave that flows up one or the other outer peripheral vision. Also weird is a tapping & guinea pig-like prrrllrp. I've only had pre-migraine aura once in 20 years of migraines. I believe the aura & sounds to be unrelated, unless BOTH are caused by some spirit - my mother-in-law's ghost, for instance. So, perhaps it is migraineous aura and ghost of old cat Dusty. Or maybe lack of sleep and hours propped up in bed thumb-typing on my BlackBerry as it irradiates my brain.

New developments to visual show are occasional tiny yet bright flashes, also at the outer limits of my peripheral vision; and a bit of occasional energy aura surrounding my thumbs as I type. Also, the peripheral aura now sometimes ripples up and back down, causing wiggly distortion off to the edges.

Then again, it could just be sensory difficulty processing a relatively bright screen in a room that is otherwise quite devoid of light.