Trippin' to Glass/Gloss Mountain

Yesterday, we took advantage of the 60 degree/sunny day to get some vitamin D and adventure on a genuine family outing.

After a quick study of our Oklahoma map, we decided a road trip up to the wilds of Fairview and the Glass/Gloss Mountains was in order.

Jackets were stowed, dog was pee'd and strapped, road food was packed, and laces were tied. We were off.

First stop, the ghost town of Lacey, Oklahoma. Population 0 (maybe a few spirits left wandering the old high school gym and roadside store, but that's about all that's left of this once thriving Highway 51 community).

Cut north at Okeene and trucked into Fairview (pop. 2700), home of the National John Deere Two Cylinder Show, touted as "the largest working John Deere show you'll find anywhere."

A quick jaunt down the main street (we always look for a main drag in small towns -- gives us a gauge as to how the town is thriving..or not). We did find an interesting looking funky little joint in a newly restored older building that would have been a nice place to whet our whistles and make a potty stop -- The Tin Lion Coffee Shop.

Sadly, they were following the popular trend in Oklahoma of shuttering it's business sign on days of worship.
And such good prices too.

Dejected, yet still in need of a pit stop, we instead answered the spontaneous chants of "chips and cheese, chips and cheese" from the car-seated passengers in the back. S mentioned a potty break for the nth time and relayed a message from our four-legged family member of a pressing bladder relief need as well, so into the Taco Mayo fast-food lot we pulled.

While dipping chips into an exotic mixture of a melted-velveeta-ish concoction of cheese-like product and taking turns flicking on the light switches in the restrooms, we noticed that our little family unit were the only ones dining that weren't adorened in our Sunday best outfits. Apparently, Taco Mayo, the PIzza Hut next door, and the Sonic down the road were big attractions for Fairview's post-church nourishment consumption crowd.

Adequately relieved and nourished, we got back on the road and soon found ourselves heading west through the town of Orienta - not on any map, yet obviously deriving it's name from the strangely named Oriental Railway that once steamed through town, and not for the massive population of Asian immigrants that never made it to this area.

Suddently, there in front of us, loomed one of Oklahoma's geologic wonders... The Mesas of the GLASS / GLOSS MOUNTAINS.

Insert dramatic music here..


Okay, so they're not the Rockies or the High Sierra's for cripes sake. Remember, we're in Oklahoma.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of...Trippin' to Glass/Gloss Mountain.

Forking of the fondue

My wife has spent the last several years of our marriage establishing some new "family traditions" to pass onto our kids, one of which being a Valentine's Day fondue.

We have a wide variety of cookbooks dating back to when fondue was in it's culinary party-loving heyday (the 70's) that we've picked up at various auctions and yard sales. We have two electric fondue pots, but I'm hoping to pick up one of these babies for our next year's party

For those unfamiliar with the traditionally Swiss Miss dipping of meat, bread, fruit and veggies into assorted melted cheeses and hot oils, do yourself a favor and partake of the Gourmet Sleuth website.

It's a big too-do in terms of shopping and consumable prep time, but my wife seems to dig it, the girls get into it (literally), and my In-law's keep coming back year-after-year. However, due to my In-laws peculiar (or not) avoidance of even the most remotest possiblity of a food swapping occurance in any way, shape, form, we have to forgo the traditional sharing of the fondue dipping pots - lest a stray micro spec of saliva travel from one person's dipping fork, into the bubbling cheese dip, and onto another persons dipping fork.

Even though we put the fondue pots on the table, instead of fondueing your bits of eatums into a common pot, we spoon out the cheese onto individual plates -- whereupon is instantly cools, losing it's required gooeyness by a factor of 100, rendering it virtually impotent as a dipping, scooping, or glopping substance of any kind.

My In-laws claim to have once shared a banana split with each other on a vacation retreat several years ago, but I have my doubts. There is no photographic proof, nor are there any eyewitnesses to the possibly exchanging of salivary fluids via plastic spoons, ice cream, bananas, whipped cream and nuts.

I have seen them kiss each other on holidays and such. But somewhere they must have drawn a line between food intake, and affection giving.

My wife has no such proclivities. When I said "I do," every food item on my plate became as one. As it should be.

Floral delivery, not a recommended career move

I spent the entire morning and part of the afternoon on Valentine's Wednesday making flower, candy, gift, and balloon bouquet deliveries.

No, I'm not moonlighting for the kid's college funds. No, I'm not studying to be a wingfooted messenger of the FTD variety, and no I'm not finally fulfilling my lifelong dream of a career in the floral arts.

I was volunteering my semi-valuable time, my semi-tired body, and semi-black car (gonna finish painting it someday...soon) to our school's Parent/Teacher Group's latest fundraiser -- we got a buck for every item we delivered from the local florist/gift/balloon bouquet dealer in town.

I didn't know what I would be getting into when I agreed with a grin on my face and twinkle in my eye to help with the deliveries. I mean, c'mon, in a town of roughlly 4380 people (add a few hundred more for the outlying communities), how many valentine's day deliveries could the main florist in town possibly have.

Tons.

We sorted, scattered, carried, packed, drove, searched, ran, and sweated (not an easy task when it's 19 degress out) from 8:30 a.m. to just after 1:30 p.m.

By then, we had made a significant dent in the business and school bound deliveries, but hadn't touched the dozens upon dozens of v-day floral and helium filled tangible love thoughts headed for private residences and homes.

Without our "volunteering" efforts, I'm not sure how this business would have or could have done it all.

Perhaps the delivery mayhem is this way in every florist shop, in every town, in every state of the country on Valentine's Day. I'll have to ask my Brother, as I'm now recalling that he had some pretty good war stories about his days driving a huge, white van around town during a part time stint with a local florist back in his college days.

Big brother...recognize and props for your service.

Between the 8 or so other PTO volunteers making deliveries that day, I estimate we made just over a few hundred bucks for our kiddies school. Granted, there are easier ways to raise some volunteer dollars (trench digging, avalanche rescue, bull sperm collection...), but none of them offer the wonderful experience of seeing the energetic and near tearful faces of ladies (mostly) accepting from you that hand-delivered token of their loved one's massive affection for them.

Nor does it offer the disappointed sideways glances and expressions on the faces of those other women who aren't receiving the few bucks worth of foilage, glass, ribbon, and water from no one in particular. Truth be told, those are the faces that stay with you longer.

Of all the Hallmark Holidays, V-day wears the cruelest shoes.

That's not an underbite...

My 7-year old has a favorite friend (we'll call her Z) whose father and I got to know each other while watching our daughters play softball last summer.

It's a small town, so Z's Dad and I bump into each other now and then around town, dropping or picking up our kids from school, birthday parties, etc.

He's a terrific guy and even though we have almost nothing in common that doesn't involve our daughters, we somehow manage to converse on a wide variety of subjects.

The other day while watching her Cars dvd, C commented about the tow truck named Tow Mater, and how his two front teeth stuck out so. We discussed the differences between overbites and underbites, why they call them buck teeth and other toothy abnormalities that are commonly fixed by braces, oral surgery, and regular visits to the dentist. Hey, when you're a parent, you take any opportunity that presents itself to breech the important subject of personal hygiene.

C seemed to grok the engrossing enamel topic when she suddently blurted out that Z's daddy has an underbite.

To which I then explained that what appeared to be an issue of unfortunate maxillofacial circumstances, was actually a small pouch of a sputum producing dried Nicotiana tabacum plant, wedged tightly between Z's Daddy's lower gum and bottom lip.

Now, I'm not a big fan of tobacco products in any way, shape or form, and I don't profess to understand the addictive properties of the plant, or what drives people to pursue the ingestion, suckage, inhalation, or chewage of those little brown moistened smokeless tobacco wonders, but it is apparently a billion dollar industry -- so who am I to judge.

C just thought it made him look kinda "Mater-like."

A town buries it's mayor

My small town's mayor died last Friday.

He was 68 and just beginning his second year in his first term as mayor.

I knew Mr. Mayor through his wife, who is a fellow board member on the non-profit org we belong to.

Last weeks local newspaper headline touted his wife's accomplishments as being the Chamber of Commerce's Citizen of the Year. This weeks headline announces his death.

I'll not ramble on about the goodness of this man, or the positive impact he had on so many lives. But since "a man’s death makes everything certain about him," I'm instead going to focus my farewell to our fair Mayor on a more personal level.

Mr. Mayor and his wife were avid collectors of all things -- big and small -- that happened to pop up on eBay which dealt with our small town. Ashtrays from banks, postcards of buildings on Main Street, bottles from the old bottling plant, scarves, diner menus, bags, button, pens, paperweights. You name it, and if it mentioned our small town and was on eBay, he and/or his wife would probably be bidding on it.

And we'd be doing our best to out maneuver his considerable auction handling prowess.

There are several other resident collectors of my town's historical merchandise that have a regualr eBay presence. We're more-or-less aware of each other and have even enjoyed some good natured ribbing and lively ebay-geek discussions while standing in line at the market.

Like a war scarred warrior who is saddened to learn that his most worthy antagonist has fallen and the dream of facing his foe with respect and honor on the field of battle has faded to oblivion, we too shall miss our swashbuckling adversary of online auctions.

While I'm certain that his wife will continue her quest for the ultimate online auction item pertaining to our town's history, it's saddens me to think that she won't have her beloved partner in collecting crime to share her high bid booty with.

Floodstuff will be missed.

Capturing dogs

One of the walking routes I take the pooch on takes us by the backyard occupied by two scottie/labrador mix breeds. One is light brown, the other is black and white -- resembling a larger version of our puphound.

Franny seems to be fond of these two boys, as she jumps and rubs and bounds and whinnies against the fence whenever we walk by. They are not aggressive and enjoy the semi-regular visits from this new little girl in the neighborhood.

Yesterday, we (Franny and I) found them out of their yard, wandering the alleyway behind our house. They were happy to see Franny and frolicked playfully, as I attempted to get a leash on the one with a collar -- only one had a collar on.

I surmised that they had escaped the confines of their backyard and were out doing the doggy free-at-last trail for the day. Figuring that if I could wrangle the one with a collar and get it back to it's owner, the other one would follow it's backyard buddy and go along.

Problem was, I couldn't get a hold of the collared pooch long enough to get a leash attached. I'm not a cowboy and didn't happen to have a lariat handy, so I did the next best thing...I used my dog to lure them back to their house.

It worked pretty well, and I managed to lead my "pack" the block and a half distance to their backyard digs. Upon arrival I knocked and knocked and knocked to no avail - the owners weren't home.

Intrepid to the end, I made my way around the house, examining the easiest way to get the dogs back into their domestic domain, when I discovered that the heavy front gate was unlatched -- this must have been the poochy pairs original avenue for their great escape.

Franny and I casually strolled into the backyard, bringing the panting pair of boys behind her. Once in the back, I found a ball on the ground, tossed it across the yard and darted out the front gate while they gave chase to the bounding rubbery orb.

Having a frontal lobe comes in handy sometimes.

Back home I strolled, feeling pretty good about myself in that all my human experience and higher education had paid off in spades during this canine catch-and-release episode.

No sooner had I arrived back home and was finishing rubbing my sore arm which got that way from patting myself on the back so vigorously, did the duo of fugitive hounds come scampering back into my life and onto my back porch.

So much for my higher station on the brain scale size.

Discouraged, but not entirely daunted, I reached into my pocket and produced a few doggie treats that I use to train Franny on our walks, and offered them to the pair of wandering woofers. They took them.

Ahh, the downfall of man and animal, will be our desire to consume that which is offered to us by a kindly hand.

I managed to lure them into my garage with kibble from my pocket and locked them in, safe and secure.

On the way back from picking the girls up from school, I drove by the now captured dogs owner's house to find a teenage girl and her little sister on the front porch, themselves returning from a full day of reading-writing-and 'rithmatic.

"I have your dogs" I shouted from my rolled down car window. The conversation continued until were able to negotiate the return of the pooches to their righful owner.

So, here's where the story begins...no really, this is it.

While walking the brown dog back to his home on a leash, it was obvious that he was not used to being walked. He fought me every step of the way, tugging at the leash, biting at his collar, spinning and running in circles to escape the confines of his nylon strap bondage.

Finally, he just plopped himself down in the middle of the sidewalk, within eyesight of his own domicile.

I could have picked him up and carried him. I could have dragged his stubborn butt down the sidewalk. I could have bribed him further with the remaining treats in my pocket. But this wasn't my dog, so I tried something different.

Regular YASTM readers may recall my reading selection from a few weeks ago...Cesar's Way - The Natural, Everyday Guide to Understanding and Correcting Common Dog Problems" by Cesar "The Dog Whisperer" Millan.

Anyhow, what I did do was access the database in my brain under the heading "The Dog Whisperer" and channeled my inner calm/assertive persona (I use Toshiro Mifune, but Cesar Millan suggest John Wayne, or Clint Eastwood as examples). I stopped pulling on the leash and relaxed my arm, stood straight and erect, looked off into the distance to where I wanted to walk and assumed the mentality of a wolf pack leader.

Then I gave a little tug on the leash, a quick "tsk" uttered from my larynx, and we were off.

Just like that.

Logically, I'm thinking that the dog just decided at that very moment that he wanted to walk.
Emotionally, my brain is hopping around excitedly to think that maybe there is something to all this "dog psychology'' hooey.
Physically, I just need a nap.

Park-o-meters

I imagine this may be general information to all those who grew up Okie, but as it turns out the venerable parking meter was invented (1932) and first used here (1935) in Oklahoma.

Don't know if that can be considered an honor or not, but there it is.

One day last week I found myself in downtown OKC, scrambling for some quarters to feed the one-eyed, one-legged, standing silver meter eaters for an hour of Honda parking rental and wouldn't you know it, I was plumb out of 1/4 dollar coins. Too many darn gumballs for the girls at the supermarket.

I being of the masculine gender, didn't think to actually look at the actual parking meter until turning the interior of my car inside out and upside down looking for that single solitary George Washingto quarter dollar that I knew was hiding beneath the decade old french fries, printed out mapquest maps to points unknown and other nameless pieces of car floor trash.

Had I tapped into my inner female and read the darn thing, I would have discovered that these particular meters in downtown OKC took nickels and dimes as well as quarters.

Needless to say (but I will), parking meters that take coinage other than the quarter dollar variety were virtually non-existent in my driving and parking experiences of So Cal. They're out there, but so rare that any Location Manager worth a darn knows to carry nothing but several rolls of quarters in his car for sudden production parking emergencies.

8 dimes and 2 nickels later, my meter was full, my car alarm chirpped, and I had 60 glorious minutes of worry free time to stroll the wind blown avenues of our capital city.

How much has changed in 80 years?

The other night S and I put on our fancy "going to town" duds and made the 2 minute drive over to the multi-purpose room at the local fairgrounds for our small town's annual Chamber of Commerce Banquet...the Chamber's 80th, our 2nd.

This year we arrived WAY early and found a nice pair of unoccupied seats by our neighbor Aunt Helen's niece and her husband.

Wifey and I were the only members of the X-generation at our table, but that's fine with me, since eating with people older than myself normally makes me slow down my dinner consumption rate to a semi-normal pace (Mom always said to eat slowly since it takes your brain 10 minutes to catch up with your stomach).

The dining was decent, the speaker was sportive, my tie went unstained, and I managed to feel full well before my plate was empty, leaving a few bitefuls of spuds, cheesecake, and smoked ham for Ms. Manners.

I spotted many more familiar and friendly faces in the crowd this year which was gratifying and meaningful -- representing the fact that I was starting to develop relationships of substance with people who were total strangers just a very short time ago. Surprisingly, it also put me in a pensive frame of mind, summoning flashes of insecure moments when I realize how far away I am from all that was so familiar to me for so long.

I'm brought out of my faraway funk by my wifely dining companion who pointed out that the 8-page printed program for the evening contains the recorded Minutes from the first Chamber of Commerce Board meeting back in 1927. As I read with deepening interest, familiar names, locations, buildings, and activities started popping out of the 12-point helvetica laser print and into my mind.

I knew these names. I knew these places. I knew these buildings. Some of the issues, however, were fun to ponder.
80 some years ago..
• Mr. Bracken made a progress report on securing a landing place near town for Airships.
• Mr. Martin made a motion that a carnival be obtained for the fair.
• Mr. Angleman moved that we celebrate the 4th of July.
• Mr. Gooden was instructed to order some sugar beet seeds for experiments.
• Letters were read concerning efforts along the main highway corridor to attract more tourists from Canada and Mexico.
• The Chamber, the Board of County Commissioners and Excise Board were urged to appropriate funds to equip peace officers with machine guns and bullet proof vests.
What really struck me was that by looking around the room (with considerable assistance from my elderly dining companions) we were able to identify many 3rd and 4th generation descendents of the very people mentioned in the 80 year old Chamber of Commerce meeting minutes.

Now, 80 years may not seem all that long in the scope of a single families generational flowchart, but it made me think about whether there'll be any of my familial relations breaking bread at the 160th Chamber of Commerce banquet in the year 2087.

If there are, I just hope they have enough sense to eat slowly, and let their brains catch up to their stomachs.



Currently reading: "First into Nagasaki:The Censored Eyewitness Dispatches on Post-Atomic Japan and Its Prisoners of War by George and Anthony Weller.

Can't wait to go to sleep tonight

Do you remember what your high school locker combination was?

This obscure tidbit of information was lost to my gray matter decades (oh god...decades) ago -- until last night when it came pouring into my subconscious mind via a wacky dream, a chance encounter with a '58 Chevy Bel Air and my varsity letterman's jacket.

Let's break this down.Wacky dreams -- we all have them. I look forward to them. The wackier the better.

The 1958 Chevrolet Bel Air -- while taking the girls (Franny is now included in "the girls") for a bright, brisk Oklahoma February walk the other day my eye caught the glint of chrome on a nicely restored grey and black 1958 Chevrolet Bel Air 2-door that was parked on the street.

I steered the girls in that direction and commenced in my loving examination of the 49-year old Detroit work of rolling steel, cloth and rubber art.
Keep the tri-5's -- I'm a '58 man.
The owner came out of his house and we had a nice, car-guy conversation filled with gearhead shorthand, automotive an-acronyms, and obscure drivetrain facts and figures. Small town old-timer and middle-aged city boy, speaking the common language of car and bonding over an internal combustion engine and a simple mode of transportation. I had a great time.

My varsity letterman's jacket - the other day, I dug out my old varsity letterman's jacket from an unpacked box (2-years and we still have unpacked boxes) and hung it on the back of my office chair.

I knew better than to try it on.

The "closing on 30-year old" jacket fit a much slender, fit and younger whippersnapper who wrestled in the 168 lb. weight class even though he was a good 15 lbs. below the maximum allowed (didn't stop me from going 14-2 my junior year...and I was a mediocre wrestler at best).
There you have it. All the pieces to my wacky nocturnal puzzle.

Only my dream state alpha level brain waves (and maybe that cold slice of veggie pizza before bedtime) could tell you how all those pieces could possibly fit together, but it somehow decided that I should have been driving that same '58 Bel Air to wrestling practice, whereupon I had to open my locker to retrieve my letterman's jacket.

In my dream I was, of course, MY 16-year old self, so MY jacket fit fine, MY '58 Chevy drove like a well oiled machine, and MY locker combination flowed from my fingertips as if it were the most common of activities.

Right 16
Left 2x 149
Right 22

Those numbers probably won't open my old locker anymore, but they did open up some interesting avenues of crosscurrent thought between my past and my present streams of consciousness.

Men carrying knives

I've noticed that most of the men in my small town carry knives of varying size, shape, origin, and purpose.

Some have neat little holsters on their belt.
Some just pull them out of their pockets when something needs cutting, slicing, dicing, hacking or opening.
My Father-in-law carries a 3" long single-bladed pocket knife that was his Daddy's from way back. It's old as dirt and looks like it's been sharpened by a dry, dull stone a few hundred times too many.

The attorney, the accountant, the banker, the hardware store owner, the artist and the Pastor -- all upstanding town citizens and members of the non-profit Board I sit on -- all toters of finely sharpened blades.

In fact, the only two members present at the recent Board meeting that weren't carrying mini-samurai swords were the OSBI Special Agent and the Oklahoma Highway Patrol chopper pilot -- but they were packing heat -- tools of a different caliber, so to speak.

I guess I need to accept the notion that knives are just another tool to carry around...like a hammer, or crescent wrench...or sickle.

Now where did I put that switchblade I picked up in Tijuana a fews years ago...

The Postage Stamp Sticker Conspiracy

I'm not entirely unconvinced that the convenience and ease of use resulting from the self-adhesive/non-lick-em postage stamps is not a conspiracy of the US Postal System to get parents of small, sticker-addicted children to buy more stamps.

If you haven't already developed the filmstrip in your mind of why I'm complaining about this non-issue today, the following line that I uttered a few minutes ago should provide some persistence of vision...
"I know those are stickers sweetie, but those are Mommy and Daddy's stickers, not for you to decorate Franny's doggie crate with."We paid about $22 for her crate. With the first class stamps that now decorate it, it's worth about double that.

Back to the post office...although I probably won't buy another roll of stamps again. Been there, done that, got a tee-shirt.

Official delegate of the "Fled California" Contingent

Just met another family that migrated eastward away from the Golden State to the Land of the Red Man.

Actually I was introduced to them.

Singled out, more like it.

At a recent PTO meeting I was pulled aside by a Kindergarden teacher and thrust upon the welcome wagon as the conductor of the "Moved here from California" stage line.

After the customary name/rank/serial number niceties were out of the way, we just stared at each other for a second, our LA-bred survival instincts and learned wariness of strangers taking behavioral hold of our actions.

Then I remembered that I was an Okie now (well, at least more of an Okie than these recent transplants were), and had an opportunity to make a welcoming first impression on these newcomers to my/our small town.

What followed was a pleasant conversation of smiles, laughter, anecdotes of familiar moving experiences, and the quick formation of a new friendship.

And even though they're from Lancaster (originally from Brea), I'm hoping they're find this small town as much to their liking, as I have.

Sanity Check weekend...still safe and sane

Just back from a whirlwind 4-day weekend trip to SoCal to unleash the girls on my Mom's deservedly quiet world. S came with us this time -- her first trip back since we made the move over 2 years ago.

What follows is my favorite method of reminiscing about my trip -- a series of disjointed images, memories, sensoric flashes and a few digital pictures for emphasis. If you're not totally confused and out of sorts by the end of it all, please seek therapy at once.So this is what it's like to go an entire weekend without seeing a single OU shirt, hat, bumper sticker, or tattoo...

The danger that a 10 oz. bottle of contact lens solution presented to our friendly and helpful TSA officer, and the salvation that a few free ziploc baggies has brought to all air travelers.

A wonderous ukelele musical concerto while dining on saimin, laulau, spam musubi, poke, and oxtail soup at Bob's Okazu-ya in Gardena.

Sitting among the multitudes of bohemian family units at a Bob Baker Marionette show (celebrating it's 45th anniversary).

How LA OVERreacts to a little rain shower (.10 of an inch downtown). But God, how I love LA when it rains.


The genius of Edsel Ford (in at least 2 instances) and the artform that is the 1932 "Deuce" model Ford.

The pushy (physically), rude (line, what line...I don't have to stand in line), and uncooth (if you're going to flatulate repeatedly in my presence, at least have the decency to squelch your sphincter a bit) methods that certain Asian immigrants display as they manage to continually offend my extremely patient and tolerant wife.

Giving up on seeing my B-i-L's apartment because we couldn't find parking in his Culver City neighborhood closer than 7 city blocks away.

The overwhelming level at which I love and respect my Mom. Admit it fellas...we're all momma's boys inside.

PK rediscovering that camellias are her favorite flowers - they were blooming all over our old house.


The true form and purity of a pastrami sandwich from The Hat - now you know what I'm talking about whenever I mention a pastrami sandwich.

Upon our arrival back at Will Rogers, the news that a Miss Oklahoma had won the Miss America title for a second year in a row, sending my wife into an emotional whirlwind with an overwhelming need to discuss this news with her family at once.
Like any trip home or away from the security of my home base, I'm reminded how terrific my life is, how wonderful my children are, and how fortunate I am to have found my wife to share my life with.

Mystery thermos from beyond

There's no easy way to say this, so I'm just going to come right out and say it.

My wife collects old Thermos'.

She started picking them up at thrift stores and swap meets for a buck or two whenever she saw them and has now amassed a collection that severely outnumbers my vibrating pager collection -- okay, I don't really collect pagers, but it was fun to remember those ancient bits of one-way telecommunication technology from the not so ancient past, wasn't it?

Our upstairs office is decorated in a camping/picnic motif (can I use that word and not be disbarred from the man club?) with the paint scheme reflecting the greens, reds and blacks that are the predominating colors found on all of her thermos'.

Yes, vintage thermos' come in blues, and yellows, and orange hues as well. But my wife has, for reasons known only to the designer elf that lives in her psyche, made the conscious decision to stick with only the red/green/black color palate in her thermos collection selection.

She even has a few displayed in the window of our office that can be seen from the street.

Awhile back we found this lone soldier sitting by the front door.



Not a post-it note or slip of paper with a message on it in sight. Near as we can figure, someone (neighbor, stranger, distant relative...) must have spotted the few thermos' sitting in the upstairs window and decided that we needed that thermos more than they did.

Our first drive-by thermosing.

Weeks later, the mystery still remains as to who left this hot/cold liquid container gift from beyond. And even though my wife is too nice and much to refined a lady to say it out loud, I am none of those things and will blurt out exactly what she was thinking...

Why couldn't they have left a red one instead?

Snowplow Roadkill

The snowplowers in my small town do a great job of clearing the main highway that runs across my front lawn and through the downtown area. I count these fellows and the diesel powered shovers of snow they operate as unsung heroes of road culture geeks everywhere.

A friend of a friend told my friend that they "saw a fella that looked like me out late one night during our last storm, standing on his front porch watching and waving to the snowplows."

Busted.

That was indeed me leading the cheer and shouting "go-fight-win!" to the triple-team of 3-ton trucks with their plow attachments harvesting the "precipt accumulation" off the roadway. Least I wasn't wearing a tee-shirt, scratching my belly and drinking a Coors.

As much pleasure as I derived from this overlooked form of cold weather entertainment, the resulting clearing of the roads by the intrepid plowers of the fluffy white stuff, always leave a dozen or so fewer available parking spots downtown.

These heaps of snow, ice, sand, dirt, and assorted debris and detritus are placed here by snowplowers on their hurried mission to ensure the safe passage of the road's travelers. Unfortunately, this snowplow roadkill humps can hang around for weeks on end, depending on how directly the sun contacts them on it's 12-hour trip across the sky and ambient air temps following a snow or ice event.

Night after night of partial thaws and overnight freezes can make these disgusting globs into rock hard monuments worthy of the Annual Siberian Ice Sculpting Contests.


The rear parking lots of the businesses don't escape the impromptu ice/snow mountain range upheaval either.


I imagine in colder climates that have larger numbers and more frequent snow events, these snowploy pike's peaks can grow larger than your typical abominable condominium.

Walking in another man's shoes (footprints) in the snow

Now that the pre-Superbowl thaw has begun (did the Dodgers make it to the Superbowl this year...yes, I'm that into it...), I'm starting to see more footprints that aren't mine or Franny's in the snowy/icy sidewalks on one of our three different doggy-walking routes (The Dog Whisperer says to vary your walking routes to provide interesting smells for the pooch).

As my mind drifts to childhood memories of sweltering hot SoCal heatwave nights spent mopping sweat from my brow as I attempt to get some un-airconditioned shut-eye (I love this cold weather), I notice the other footprints in the snow laden ground.

First up is a guy who is both girthy and non-height challenged, as I have to leap forward and sideways to try to walk in his shoes. His snowy indentations literally swallow up my childlike-in-comparison feet -- and I'm wearing my big boots to boot. If Sasquatch lives in my small town, I'm keeping him for myself. Think of the ease he'd have in putting up sheetrock on the ceiling...

Then there's the footprints of someone I've tagged "pidgeon-toe'd Paul," who is in serious need of some corrective footwear, a chiropractic twist of his ankle bones, or a better fitting pair of clown shoes.

Finally there's the "wandering jumper," who's footprints resemble those of a frightened deer that can't decide where to hide behind, so it checks out every shrub, bush, or tree in it's path, before finally deciding to cross the road, only to be wiped out by a couple in a Explorer on their way to dinner at Earl's Rib Palace.

As I turn to look back on the remnants of tracks Franny and I have left behind, my first glimpse at the pooch's pawprints tickles a primal instinct from my cave-dwelling forefathers whose very existence may have depended on their ability to tell the difference between a bear track (yikes) and a deer track (yum.)

While it's somewhat entertainining to judge another man's path when following their footprints, the realities of one's own life should also be examined -- it's all about balance.

My own footprints could be of less depth (15 lbs. or so less would do wonders for my midline), and still show the slightest signs of the big, black, heavy corrective footwear I was forced to wear as a kid when my right foot turned toward my left foot at a 45 degree angle. I don't recall how long I had to wear those corrective clodhoppers, but it was long enough to show up in several family vacation photographs of my brother and I.

Perhaps my prints really don't show this correction at all and it's all in my mind's eye -- but I know it was there in the past, so perhaps I'm projecting that flaw in my current feet laden trackings.

Goofy foot on the ice

As I kid my natural tendency was to be a goofy footed skateboarder.

I broke myself of the habit and learn to lead with my left foot and push off with my right. Although now it turns out that some of the best skateboarders in the sport are indeed goofy foot. Lesson learned...always go with what feels natural in terms of board sports.

Anyhow, due to the 6 inches of recent sleet that turned every road, sidewalk and driveway in our small town into the Ice Capades, I've been forced to slip'n slide my way around the hood during my daily doggy walks without the benefit of studded snow shoes, spiked heels, or the Mach 5's Control B that "sprouts special grip tires for traction over any kind of terrain, at the same time, 5,000 horsepower (yikes!) is distributed equally to each wheel by auxiliary engines.”

What I have discovered is that going goofy foot works for me here.

No, not on a skateboard (of which I don't even own one anymore), but on my shoe clad feet.

Whenever I came to a slight downward incline in the street, sidewalk, or alleyway, I would hold the pooch's leash tight in my left hand, stick my right foot forward, push off with my left, and just glide down the slight hill as if I was on my old clay-wheeled skateboard from the 70's.

Normally, the pooch would retain more traction on the ice than I would (4 feet, low center of gravity, claws, survival instinct, etc.) and would actually aid in my downward acceleration...once she got over the shock of seeing her pack leader shoe skating goofy footed.

Temps hit the 40's yesterday and the sun came out long enough to turn a lot of the ice to slush. Therefore shoe stating wasn't as "totally righteous, dude."

But the ultimate incline is out there, just waiting for the overnight freeze and my smooth souled shoes to go mano-a-mano on the icy sidewalks of my small town.

MLK through the eyes of a 7-year old

Thought I'd share a "masterpiece" that C brought home from school the other day.


At first, I wasn't exactly sure who she was attempting to represent in her artwork. Then I remembered why they were out of school on Monday (other than the ice sheets covering the asphalt), and it all became crystal clear.

Makes one ponder what the good doctor would have thought of joining the honored ranks of Honest Abe, Johnny Appleseed, George Washington, and Jesse Chisholm as a cutout and crayoned work of art done by oodles of 1st graders.

I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure his "dream" would have included such an honor as this.

How we spent the Oklahoma Ice Storm of 2007

Once upon a time, we had a vast wall of shelves filled with books, which was packed up, moved, and relegated to the furthest reaches of our garage, since a library was low man on the totem pole as far as our Oklahoma living quarters went.

Fast Forward to last weekend.

Once we finally progressed far enough on the restoration and painting of the library in our house, we were able to retrieve our disassembled beech veneer Billy shelves (Ikea, circa 2002) from the bowels of the south wall of our garage, and proudly erect each of every one of them...

Once S found the box where I had safely hid the bag of hardware needed to construct the shelves, that is.

Fast Forward to this weekend.

Once the shelves were up, out came the 22 boxes of novels, periodicals, children books, textbooks, Time Life Supernatural Series (we only have 7 volumes), my wife's Nancy Drew collection, my Spenser mysteries collection, photo albums, photo albums, photo albums (repeat a dozen additional times), scrapbooks, first editions (one), paperback editions (dozens), autographed editions (couple), atlases, travel guides, dictionaries, some manga, a few foreign language novelas, and a few hundred more things that can be read, fondled, cherised, and used to collect dust and store dollar bills in.

Once the shelves were filled and our library was once again complete, we felt that tinge of joy that comes with surrounding yourself with your own stuff.

Once we've completed a room in our "new-to-us" but "old-to-the-world" home, and fill it with our "old-to-us" but "new-to-the-room" belongings, we can't help but feel just that much more grounded in our surroundings.

Once upon a time I was a single guy, S was a single gal, our daughters were distant dreams, and Oklahoma was a far off land of wild weather, relentless car and furniture tv commercials, and lovely small towns waiting for California transplants. Yep, there's a lot of history on those cheaply made but decent looking Swedish book shelves. Seeing them once again becoming part of the environmental backdrop of our humble abode, warmed us inside, as the mercury dropped and the sleet fell outside.

Bonus - I get a wall back in my garage which will become my welding/metalwork station. Grunt.

Weather mood swings

Last night, as I layered up to take Franny out for her last relief stroll of the day, S commented that the overnight low for that night was going to be around 4 degrees.

She then stated with all the authority of the Weather Person (don't ever call her a Weathergirl...) she once was in a previous life, that tonight's low mercury reading would make for an entire 100+ degree variation in temperature in 4 months.

That's right. Four short months ago, we were sweltering in a heat spell that racked up 32 days of 100+ degree weather for Oklahoma's '06 summer season.

So ask me if I'm complaining about this little cold spell we've got going on here. Go ahead, ask me.
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Put down your hearing horns and turn down your WonderEars(tm), because you won't hear a single peep out of me.

Cold I can deal with. Even this kind of cold.

At least there aren't any skeeters buzzing around and itching my non-deeted up legs.

We did get word last night that all the trees around my in-law's lake house in the eastern part of the state were down. As in frozen, cracked off and brought to the ground. What a mess.

Always the chipper one, my M-i-L simply stated, "at least we'll have a nice view of the lake for awhile."

These Okie's are hearty people.

Currently boning up on my WW2 history (sorta) by reading The Rising Tide A Novel of the Second World War by Jeff Shaara

Sunday Funnies

From this weekend's edition of my small town's newspaper...

A local law enforcement officer figures out a way to get his deadbeat brother off his couch and out of his house, and Ms. Clark suddenly finds herself desperately and unexpectedly short of workout bottoms.




Forget the bar scene, singles clubs, or online dating services. It's good to know that finding a wife can still be as easy as placing a $15 ad in the local paper.

The iceman cometh

The last time we had an icestorm here in my small town, power was knocked out for quite some time - weeks to months, depending on where on the grid your house or business resided. Ice accumulation on powerlines and tree branches that are situated too close to power lines are major power robbers out here.

My family and I were not here for that one back in '02 (we arrived months afterward) but the memory of it's effects and the inconveniences of the havoc it wrought linger on.

While standing in line at the local market, picking up some "just-in-case" essentials (water, milk, eggs, oreos...), Ali, the pixyish waif of a checker commented that she thought everyone in the county was in the store last night -- checkout wait times were in the double digits. I joked that maybe everyone must have needed some last minute ice for the weekend.

She didn't get it. It's all in the timing, which in my case, was bad.

If no further posts to yastm are made in next few weekdays (I usually take weekends off), it may be attributed to a lack of power flowing through the new 12-3 romex in my home.

Time to go to the cellar and check on our emergency stores and suppliles. I think the plastic bin full of goodies I set aside for the Y2K crossover is still down there. What is the shelf life (if any) for Spam, vienna sausages, Power bars, and Jolly Rancher candies?

Living with the lie

A cold spell is heading our way with some freezing rain, sleet, high winds and extended periods of below freezing temps.

I expressed concern to my 7-year old about our new canine companion freezing her heiny off on our daily/nightly exercise/pee/poop walks, to which the following conversation ensued...C-"She'll be find Daddy, in fact, she'll probably enjoy the snow and will feel right at home."

Me-"Maybe we should get her some booties to walk in the snow and ice with?"

C-"She'll just think she's back in the North Pole and will probably be wondering where all the reindeer are at."
You may recall that jolly old Saint Nick brought the poochy to our family, so naturally, my daughters assume that she'll probably dig the fur coat piercing winter weather.

I, on the other hand, will be layered up.

The things we do to perpetuate our daughter's childhood fantasy.

I use rail ties in all of my decorating...

My wife decided that enough was enough and the "cowboy fences" and the twenty or so railroad ties that one of our 100-year old house's previous owners used to border every flower bed with, had to go.

So we spent last weekend days pulling out the weathered pseudo-buckaroo fence rails and posts, and 16 or so railroad tie garden border. The weekend nights were filled with broadband web slinging, formulating ideas of what type of white picket fence we want to install.

Why W-P-F? We are the All-American family, after all.

That and my wife has a thing against chain link fencing.

It may have something to do with her pre-teen thigh getting caught on a piece of psychopathic chain link, then watching her Dad nearly pass out when she showed him the result of the accidental piercing -- guess he was pretty squeamish as a young father.

Now, I have nothing personal against either railroad ties in garden landscaping, nor in chain link fencing for property border protection.

But I also will live in the same pair of jeans for a week or so (given the occasional shake for dust and sniff for freshness tests), and think that hot rod flat black primer is a valid color for a cars finish.

BTW, railroad ties are heavy, awkward suckers to man handle around a bumpy backyard. I have much more appreciation for the fellas who came up the lyrics for "I've been working the railroad..."

Hefting a dozen of these things out of the flower beds and around my back fence on the alley for a few hours sure made it a "live long day," for this middle-aged buck.

What did she keep her sales samples in?

One of my duties as the elected Secretary of my small town's elementary school's Parent / Teacher Organization (PTO), is to write and publish a monthly newsletter outlining any factoids and tidbits of fundraising jocularity that happen to be currently relevant.

I took it upon myself to put my own spin on the monthly rag, so now it includes photos, the minutes from previous meetings, educational trivia, and beat-you-over-the-head reminders of our fundraising efforts on the school's behalf. Since this newsletter goes home in the backpacks of every kid at school, I also try to include at least a few lines of guilt-tripping pleasure for those parents who feel a 1-hour meeting a month is too much to spend to better their kid's school.

All with a sense of humor, of course.

One added feature that's turning out to be popular is my profile column titled, "Meet your PTO Members," where I include a headshot and three paragraph blurb about randomly selected PTO participants. Kind of my way of putting names with familiar faces and hopefully breaking down some of those awkward walls of shyness amongst the parents.

This column has turned out to be quite an education for myself as well.

To my surprise, through my interviews for this column, I've discovered that the Principal and I are both So Cal natives (dude), the PTO President is an accomplished dramatist and educator of championship forensics competitors, the VP worked for a Fortune 500 company as a Network Operations Specialist, and a fellow member owns and operates a local vineyard and winery.

Then there's this charming and lovely lady who works as a secretary in the school office and has a 2nd grader attending the school.


Of which I would insist that you contemplate the following....would you buy frozen Bull Semen from this woman?

Lessons learned here...don't judge, just be, and, an advanced degree in Animal Science from a major 4-year university may put you on the fast track for a career in preserved bovine reproductive specimen sales.

Presently slashing through The Samurai: The Philosophy of Victory by Robert T. Samuel

What shocks a 3-year old

A few evenings ago, we were all getting gussied up for the nighttime wedding of an ex-Intern at my wife's office.

The kid's were actually invited.

So, out of my normal jeans and a teeshirt Stay-at-home-Dad costume went I, and into the old slacks, shirt, and sport coat that I recently had freshened up at the local dry cleaners (still open, but they send all their cleaning out now).

I selected my tie, and was in the process of making my dull old windsor knot when my 3-year old bounded into the bedroom to show off her "wedding outfit."

It was at this point where she completely forgot about her own glamorous self and fixated her pre-K stare on the flipping and flopping of brightly colored silkened material around my neckly regions....to which she muttered...

Daddy, what are you tying a dishrag around you for?"

You can tell how extremely proud I am to announce that my 3-year old had never, until that moment in time, seen her Daddy put on a tie before.

Life is good.

And so was the wedding, but more on that in a future post.

This is a job for a Dozer Man!

Back when we were thinking that we wanted to own some land and build a house in the middle of nowhere (what were we thinking), I had asked several real estate agents who were trekking us across raw, undeveloped land how we would go about clearing enough of the trees to make roads and an area to build a house.

"Just call a fella with a dozer. They'd come out and do it for an hourly rate."
I was further informed that a good dozer man with a solid rig could clear a 40 acre lot (flat, no mountains, gulleys and whatnot) in a day...more or less.

The plot we were seriously looking at was in the eastern part of the state, and had some serious trees growing on it -- the largest trunks had to be at least 10-12 inches in diameter.

"A big dozer don't care much. It'll clear anything."
I have to admit that a part of me was aghast at the thought of letting a hulking mass of greasy machinery (the dozer, not the driver) violently uproot and destroy pristine forest ecosystems and wildlife habitat. But then I pictured Ma and Pa Ingalls chopping down trees one at a time, then pulling the stumps loose with a team of oxen to clear their land for farming, and I calmed down a bit.

"Then, what does one do with the stuff that's been cleared?" I asked innocently enough.

"The dozerman will push it into piles, where you can burn 'em or just let 'em sit."
I think I caught a glimpse of what it looks like when such a process is done.



Kinda reminds me of the scene in Dances with Wolves, where LeuTenTen Dunbar and the Tribe come upon the slaughtered and skinned carcasses of bison left rotting in the prairie sun.

Currently housebreaking, Cesar's Way - The Natural, Everyday Guide to Understanding and Correcting Common Dog Problems" by Cesar "The Dog Whisperer" Millan.

Cars DVD - so right in so many ways

We gave the girls the Cars DVD (widescreen edition, of course) for Christmas and I finally had time to sit down with them to watch it.

I had seen it once in the theater, but PK fell asleep and had an accident on me during the movie, somewhat ruining my experience (we've since learned to make her go peepee before taking her into darkened places where she may fall asleep).

Pixar hit a home run with me with The Incredibles with the amazing animation, character development, action, and comedy. But what really sold the tale of the retired superhero's to me was the family interaction and virtually all too realistic portrayal of a Dad dealing with his wife and kids. I'm no super hero, but it struck this family man's testosteral chord.

Cars illicited a similar low and rumbly, carbureted reaction from me, and it did it on many personal levels.

I'm a car guy.
I'm a road trip guy.
I'm a closet animation otaku fanboy.
I'm a NASCAR nut...okay, not really, but I do know what the 6-letter acronym stands for, and unlike many hardcore beer-swilling, confederate flag-waving, winnebago driving NASCAR fans, I know and appreciate the bootlegging history, the importance of the names Parks, Byron, and Vogt, and the role that the '38 Ford and the flathead V-8 played in stock car racing's past.

All that aside, the filmmakers managed to squeeze a message out of the modified fish-out-of-water plotline, and it's a message very near and dear to my heart.

I don't live on Route 66, nor do I have a business on Route 66. However, I have invested my life and the lives of my family in a small town on a 4-lane highway, that could easily be swallowed up by urban sprawl and commercial progress.

I know the "paving of Paradise and putting up of parking lots" is occuring all over the planet, however it'll be a sad, tragic day when my little town's historic downtown business district is run into obsolescence by a soon to be built nearby Supercenter, or the town itself is relegated to a slow death by apathetic community members,

Okie Lawn Ornaments

Keep your pink flamingos, garden gnomes, stone lanterns, and reflecting balls -- these are the ultimate lawn decorations.

Rose parade security

Watching the Rose Parade yesterday from 1300 miles away has a different vibe than watching from our old digs only 7 miles away.

It brought up floppy diskettes full of memories related to my youthful days spent as a Rose Parade Rat both at the parade, as a volunteer working on the floats, sleeping out on the street the night before with a bunch of buds, or tripping over hundreds of lookeeloos at Victory Park in the days following the rolling floral displays New Year's Day jaunt down Colorado Blvd.

My wife reminded me of a particular memory from our trip up to the bleachers on the Orange Grove / Colorado Blvd. corner (that first big right hand turn that has put the kaibash on so many floats in the past) for the 2003 parade.

Security had been heightened since 9/11 a few years back, so purses, bags, bundles, and backpacks were all thoroughly screened before we were allowed to ascend the metal steps to our hemorrhoid inducing cold metal seats on the bleachers.

I got through fine, as did C, our then 3-year old, followed closely by my visiting In-Laws, in town from Oklahoma for the big parade.

My wife, however, was stopped in her tracks.

I wasn't allowed to leave the bleachers once I had entered the secure area, so I couldn't go back down to help her, or vouch for her, or plead with the Security Goombas to let her through in the name of humanity and all that is decent.

What I could do was watch helplessly as my lovely bride of 5-years (at the time) patiently underwent the scrutiny of what was now a collection of Rose Parade Rent-a-Cops.

After they released her, she exuberantly joined us and verbally regurgitated the details of the brief interrogation that went something like this...
Concerned, clenched, and conflicting, Cop-"Maam, may I ask what it is that you're carrying under your coat?"

Cool, calm, and collected Wife - "My baby."
S was 7 months preggers with PK at the time.

Butterick patterns and the missing jacket button

I have a favorite jacket that my Mom bought for me some time ago. It's soft and warm and brown. I call it my comfort jacket. It's not a fancy name brand, nor would it pass for something a GQ model would wear for a photo shoot, but it fits my life and style to a T and I like how it looks on me.

What more could a man ask for in a jacket.

Then I popped a button. It was torn asunder by a drive-by door frame.

I was home visiting for a spell and my Mom tried to find a matching one. She succeeded in finding something similar and got it attached as well as she could, considering the gaping hole left by the violent exit of the previous button dweller.

These aren't normal buttons. They are more like ogre-sized rivets, which aren't sewn onto the material, but punched through a pre-sewn hole. This hole now closely resembled the 1st Street Tunnel.

The new button/rivet worked for awhile, but one day I looked down and found it was missing as well, gone to the place where all failed buttons and dryer socks end up.

Unable to locate a matching button at the local craft/sewing center at Wal Mart, I trekked into the city (while running other errands of course...what am I, a gas hogging/time guzzling no goodnick?) to where I thought my best chances of finding a matching button/rivet would be found.

A sewing/fabric store.

A quick look around determined this was not the domain of man.

Intrepid consumer that I am, I proceeded past the bolts of brightly colored fabric, touching the velvety looking ones as I sauntered past (kids and men are allowed to do this), bypassing the highly coiffed and bespeckled cutting table ladies with their fiskars at the ready, and onto the button section.

Egads! I found myself suddenly surrounded by the printed smiling faces of thousands upon thousands of models sporting fluoride whitened smiles and snazzy outfits that "could be made at home," but were obviously made by professional seamstresses with major seat time at their Bernina's.

I flashed back to the last time I sat perusing dress and clothing patterns made by the likes of Butterick, McCalls, and Vogue.

(Begin flashback music here...)

I was with my then girlfriend and her mother, watching them flip through dress patterns that they were going to make for our upcoming High School Sr. Prom. I was feigning as much interest as my 17-year old mind could muster under the circumstances, nodding appropriately and speaking when spoken to.

They found one they liked. I of course concurred enthusiastically, already thinking about the sushi lunch her Mom was going to treat us to, when they then announced that all they needed to find was the perfect material of which to make dress out of.

I got to carry the selected packaged dress pattern around as we made our way through the rows upon rows of bolts of fabric -- remember The Matrix scene when Tank asks Neo what he needs besides a miracle, to which he replies, "Guns, lots of guns." and out of the distance materializes more gun racks than all the Bass Pro Shops retail chains combined could muster?

That's how many bolts of fabric we faced. Least, that's the way I remember it.

Finally, a material was selected and they both turned to me to decipher how much fabric we'd need to cover my girlfriend's body, modestly of course.

Palms sweating, I scanned the back of the pattern package for the correct sizing chart, ran my fingers along the corresponding x and y coordinates, and thought I came up with the correct yardage amount for her dress size -- of course I knew my girlfriends bust-waist-hip measurements...I was only 17 but not without some sense of what was important to the female psyche...and that damn line in The Commodores song, Brick House, didn't help much, I must say ("36-24-36, ow, what a winning hand...")

I blurted out the magic number.

Taking this number, my girlfriend's Mother quickly calculated in her head and decided it was wrong. I could see it in her face as she turned to her daughter for corroboration.

Knowing better, I relenquished control of the pattern package over to my girlfriend, who found the same magic number. I was validated.

First, my girlfriend pointed out her waist measurement on the chart, then her hips, and finally her bust size.

To which her Mother replied, "is that it?

It was a quiet lunch at the sushi bar, and I've never mentioned this anecdote to anyone. I'm pretty sure my old girlfriend isn't a YASTM blog reader as well.

Funny what pops into your temporal lobe while stalking a matching button/rivet for your favorite winter coat.

I never did find a matching button. The results are below. It's not pretty, but it's functional. Like me.




Firing up: "Driving with the Devil: Southern Moonshine, Detroit Wheels and the Birth of NASCAR, " by Neal Thompson

New Post-Christmas tradition

After one too many "have you seen that gift card from Aunt Josephine?" post-Christmas present unwrapping carnage, I've begun a new tradition this year called...


"The saving of the Christmas leavin's in the back of the Elky until all items are located and accounted for."
Our hectic family schedule being what it is, who knows when I'll be able to fire up the elky and drive the remnants of our under tree wrappings, bubble pack packaging, ribbons, gift trim, bippity-boppity buttons and bows to the dump.

It may be weeks.

They don't make jackstands or cinder blocks this tall

Wife says...
"You're not putting my Taurus in the driveway to put that THING in the garage, no sirree bub, no how, no way!"


Just finished being thoroughly cannibalized by: "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy

Santa brought a new family member

Introducing Franny

In reality (or as real as our lives can get), she was named after the supposed spirit that may (or may not) be inhabiting our house on another plane of existence.

In the realm of our sweet daughter's childhood imaginations of all things possible, here is how Santa came up with her name, as explained in this letter that Santa left with the girl's new pooch...


This is a huge step for our little family, and one which I'm domestically prepared for, but totally stressing out on a purely emotional basis. Strange how parenting two homo sapiens feels more natural to me now, than training a dog to pee in a certain spot is.

One step forward, two steps back.

Stay tuned on Franny's (and my own) progress.

BTW, she's an 11-week old schnoodle.

The world's ugliest bundt cake

The PTO I belong to hosts a crock pot soup / salad / dessert lunch for the teachers and staff at C's school as a holiday treat.

I volunteered to bring a dessert.

What I took instead was this monstrosity of baked futility.


I used one of those new silicone baking pan gizmos, thinking I could avoid all that "greasing and flouring" the pan before pouring in the mixed ingredients.

The directions say otherwise.

I didn't bother to read the directions. I figured, "hey silicone...nothing sticks to silicone, right?"

So much for better baking through technology and it's ability to make up for ignorant mistakes made by arrogant kitchen amateurs.

A friend once told me that there's no baking accident that a jar of frosting can't hide from the consuming public.

Maybe that only applies to those who are skilled in the art of frosting application. As I am not in possession of such skills, my frosting job only seemed to exaggerate the grotesque shape of my slowly cooling baked accident.

Next time, I'm bringing a salad.

Diggin' the scene with a gangsta lean

Took a road trip the other day to go and accumulate some holiday debt and saw these power poles along the highway, doing the sway back stationary hustle.


I'm not nearly as concerned about my pole now.

How often do you get to hear a man state that with any sense of confidence?

Counting licks

Remember back to the days when you had the time, patience, physical and mental fortitude to be able to pursue an endeavor of this scope and scale...


"C's Counting Chart for the number of Licks it takes her to get to the chewy, chocolatey center of her Tootsie Pop."

The world may never know...

Musicians don't smile

Last week my in-laws treated the family and I to an evening of holiday music courtesy of a live performance by the Oklahoma City Philharmonic Orchestra.

It was fun filled night of both classical and poppy renditions of all our favorite seasonal medleys, complete with a quirky host telling bad puns and a chorus of attractive and spiffily dressed warblers singing and stepping their way around the stage with elegance and grace.

The only stumble bumble of the evening occured when the leading vocalette gracefully stepped off stage and tucked herself behind the curtain,only to belt out a few resounding phelgmy coughs and crouppy hacks before she realized her wireless mic was still on.

The girls dug the live "band." C was transfixed by the "tiny lady playing the huge harp," and PK kept reminding us that her time on stage was quickly approaching as we were only days away fom the Christmas Musical Program at her local school.

My only comment is this. Why don't orchestral musicians smile when they play like rock 'n roll music makers do.

The wind players not smiling, that I can understand -- their mouths are busy.

But you never see a chellist break out his pearly whites while doing some long horizonal strokes.
Nor do you see a violinist grin like a hungry bobcat as they rosin up their bow.
You'd think even a harpist would crack a happy expression as they plink/plank/plunk away on their totally impractical string instrument.

But not smirk in the bunch.

Except for the maestro. He was all personality and a joy to watch.

Don't kid yourself, size does matter...

...on the roads in my small town and just about everywhere else.



$5,000 worth of damage vs. $500.

File this under "Deathrace 2006 - Peterbilt vs. Impala"

I sew, I sew, the badges on they go...

My eldest daughter belongs to one of those youth organizations where they earn merit badges for learning to do things that will make them better citizens of the world and beyond...

Meanwhile, back on earth, I'm the lucky parent who gets to sew each and every one of these earned badges onto the required organizational uniform (vest).


My sausage fingers came back to haunt me yet again when dealing with the whole "needle-threading-&-tying-miniscule-knots-in-barely-visible-to-the-human-eye-thread."

I had to stop my "moving at the speed of pouring molasses" progress several minutes and a dozen or so finger pricks later, to find a thimble -- or something that would protect my now bleeding phalanges from any additional sub-cutaneous invasions of the needles vicious head.

It was tedious, painful, and tense work, but I managed to get a new merit patch sewed on, move several around to accomodate space for a new half-chevron, and even remembered to color coordinate the thread I used for each different colored patch.


Looking forward to the day when her kiddie club discovers the joys of iron-on's.

Not that I'm the greatest ironer in the world...but at least I can make a few grilled cheese sandwiches (remember Michael Keaton in Mr. Mom?) while I iron some badges on.

The unused handle on my coffee cup

I've been drinking coffee lately, which is something new for me. I have never been a coffee drinker. I don't know where this new taste has come from, but perhaps the cold weather had tickled a new tastebud on my tongue.

Anyhow, the other night I was enjoying a cup of Biff's Caramel Cream blend when my 7-year old commented that I never use the handle on my coffee cup...that I always hold the cup itself.

I stopped for a moment and looked at my hands and how they were indeed not holding the big blue mug by the handle specfically made for that purpose.

Generally speaking, unless I'm at a Presidential State dinner and want to conform with the other lemming coffee drinkers, I find myself instinctively drawn away from holding a steaming cup of hot liquid, any hot liquid, by a protruding handle.

Is this just a lack of proper coffee cup etiquette training or experience?

In case you've never been to an Asian restaurant and ordered hot tea, generally, Asian teacups do not have handles on them. You are forced to endure the pain of grabbing onto the superheated porcelin teacup to have the honor of scalding your lips, tongue and epiglottis with the hot beverage. And, while I'm a totally westernized, 20th century product of American birth and upbringing, I'd have to say that the majority of my tea has been ingested using the handleless teacup method.

This by no means is an excuse for my avoidance of the western coffee cup handle. I'm not playing that race card. So then it must be instinct. Or is there something deeper in my psyche that prompts my hands to forego the protuberances and head straight for the cylindrical container itself.

Here's an excerpt from the eulogy I gave at my Grandmother's funeral a little over 3 years ago that may reveal an answer...

Bonding with Grandma was never an easy thing for me to do. After all, when I was younger, she was just Grandma.

...(omissions)

When I was entering my mid-20's, I strangely found myself spending Sunday evenings at Grandma's house with my best friend and my brother, watching a selection of TV programs being broadcast in her native language. Grandma would always have a bag or two of rice crackers ready, and she'd make us a big pot of tea...the good stuff. The kind of tea that only Grandma could make.

We'd barely notice as she'd shuffle off to the kitchen when the hot water kettle was boiling, then return moments later with a porcelin pot and four teacups (the good ones reserved for guests) on a lacquered tray. She wouldn't fill our cups until she had tasted the steeping tea several times, making sure it had sat long enough to be strong enough to drink.

We'd drink her tea, eat her rice crackers, laugh, moan and groan together at the melodramatic subtitled dramas.

Finally, I had found something to bond with Grandma with.

When my girls and I went to see her last Saturday, the day she passed, I knew it may be the last time I would see her alive. She had stopped taking in fluids and we were told to expect the end to come soon.

I didn't know exactly what I was going to say to her. But I knew that I did want to introduce her to my 8-month old daughter, PK...Grandma's 5th and latest great-grandchild.

When we went up to see her, the words started flowing with ease, because, no matter what physical or mental state she was in, she was still just Grandma.

I told her that she didn't have to fight anymore. That is was okay to let go and get some rest. That her money was safe, all her hotel rooms were rented out, that her kids were healthy and happy, and that Grandpa and other loved ones were waiting for her on the other side.

I told her that her family loved her very much, but that we all understood that she was ready to leave us.

Before I shut the door to leave, I did ask Grandma for one last thing. That the next time I saw her, would she please have a bowl of rice crackers and a pot of tea ready, so her and I could pick up right where we left off.

Later that same day, we got the call that Grams had passed.
I went and made a pot of tea.

November 12. 2003
When I hold my coffee cup, I see my grandmother's hands.

Seeing the lights from the back of the Elky

I'm not sure if this phenomenon is abundant in other states or areas of the country (it certainly wasn't an epidemic in LA County), but here in Oklahoma, the holiday season spawns millions and millions of city sponsored but privately funded light displays of truly epic proportions.

My small town caught the fever to put up temporary Christmas twinklers at the largest city park for a drive-through attraction sometime in it's past and it's now become a major bullet point in the Chamber of Commerce's propaganda package to get people to visit, stay, and spend money in our little town.

The other night, we took advantage of the unseasonably warm evening temps (40's-50's) and piled into the back of the El Camino for a cruise through the megawatt park.

I didn't have any astroturf, but a few furniture blankets sufficed for a soft pad in the bed of my car-truck. A few heavy wool blankets, mittens, earmuffs, hoodies pulled tight, and the girls were ready for a nostalgic 5 mph slow jam amidst the man-made milky way of cheap made-in-Taiwan mini-bulbs, prelit wireframe sculptures, and animated figures of frequent repose.

Norman Rockwell couldn't have envisioned a winter sleigh ride with more holiday fervor and nostalgic je ne sais quo than we had going on right there in the back of my muscle truck.

As I fired up the small block and let the beast exhale some Flowmaster fumes, my wife commented that even growing up a small town Okie, she had somehow managed to avoid what she termed a very "redneckie" activity such as we were about to partake.

Yet here she was with her So Cal born and bred husband and daughters, oohing and ahhing at Christmast lights, while smiling and waving from the back of a pick 'em up bed.

I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure the kids behind us were wishing at that moment that they could pop out of the heated leather seats in their Dad's BMW 3-series eurolux sedan and switch places with my girls.

Or maybe they were just chuckling at the expense.

When pigs become hogs...cold hard facts

A few weekends back we took the kiddies out to a Christmas Tree farm up by Tulsa to get an interview with the owner for a story that my wife was working on.

It's an old fashion select-and-chop-your-own-tree joint, where Y2K families can romp through the rows of trees and relive a Little House on the Prairie episode that never existed in their own lives.

The owner has a great attitude towards his customers and was an amateur botanist of the nth degree. The farm is a family affair with his wife working the counter, his son's working the farm, and assorted cousins manning the tree shaking and netting machines (both of which are wonders of modern Christmas Tree technology).

This farm offered a complete family afternoon entertainment experience complete with hay bale maze, hay rides (tractor powered of course), a lunch wagon pulling a portable smoker, a gift boutique and store, free coffee/cider/cocoa and cookies, as well as a visit with a real-live Santa-person in a mocked-up sleigh.

But it was the petting zoo that drew my girls attention for the duration of our 4-hour stay.

Three goats, two piglets and all the kibble you could feed them.

The petting zoo was stafffed by the youngest member of the Christmas Tree Farm family, a strapping young fella resembling Bobby Hill (of King of the Hill) in appearance and dialect. He took to my "city girls" with a keen interest that only a card carrying member of the local FFA could muster with confidence, and proudly dove into a "day-in-the-life" retelling of a pigs life.

He started at the blessed event of the little piggies birth and ended it with the following:"When they get to be hogs, we'll eat 'em."
The whole, "piglets becoming hogs becoming bacon" transformation took C a few seconds to comprehend, to which she replied sternly..."You're not really going to eat these little guys, are you?
Guess my 7-year old isn't quite ready to join the blue and gold brigade -- I'm told the minimun age for FFA membership is nearby the teenage years.

Perhaps by then, I'll have worked up the courage to tell her about the birds and the bees and the bacon and the ham.

Or is that her Mother's job?

Preserving anonymity

Regular YASTM readers may have noticed that I don't use the real names of myself and my family, nor do I reveal my actual location.

It's my little attempt to retain some semblence of security through anonymity in the midst of the all encompasing internet cloud.

However, it seems that I've provided enough evidence in my hundreds of postings for some locals who are familiar with the surroundings of my hometown to figure out my whereabouts.

And I thought I was being so careful...huh.

Still others claim to have stumbled upon my blog accidentally (wonder what they Googled to find me?), the most recent of whom was from the very small town I live in...what are the chances?

As much as I appreciate and look forward to comments and musings related to YASTM, just so you know, if you post a comment that contains a grain or two of information that I feel is too revealing, I will moderate the comment to private-land and it will be seen by my eyes only. Sorry about this, but it's for security sake that I do this.

Call me paranoid, call me a freak, call me a dike-plugger trying to tide the floodwaters of the digital information age. Just don't call me out of my small town moments.

Instant Karma's gonna get you

Instant karmas gonna get you,
Gonna look you right in the face.
Better get yourself together darlin'.
Join the human race.
How in the world you gonna see,
Laughin at fools like me?
Who in the hell d'you think you are,
A super star?
Well, right you are.
We miss you, John.
December 8, 1980

Small town Catholic musings

Excerpts from the newsletter that my youngest comes home with from her Catholic School Pre-K...


This is the small rural town version of "Hey Spanky, let's meet at the clubhouse and put on a show!"


Not being a Catholic, this entire statement fills me with both a sense of dread and wonder, with the question foremost in my mind being, "just what is my obligation for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and why would I even THINK that going to Mass would fulfill that obligation?"

Current page turner-"Empire" by Orson Scott Card

An infamous day

As my Father tells it, it was his father that woke him up in the early morning hours of that infamous Sunday, and not the loud explosions, or terrified screams, or the Mitsubishi A6M Zeros buzzing overhead.

My grandfather scrambled his entire family onto the shaky tin roof of their plantation home in Puunene, Maui so they could see what the commotion was about at a neighboring island.

My grandfather, of course, knew what the commotion was about. He recognized the red dot painted on the underside of the wings of the planes that periodically flew overhead and had by now filled the smoke-filled skies around Pearl Harbor.

My dad tells me that his father was cursing at the top of his lungs, screaming obscenities at the pilots who shared an ancestral heritage with his own family.

He made my father, my aunts and uncle, and my grandmother watch the entire attack, commenting that this was something important that they needed to all see and remember, because this was going to change everything.

I remember visiting Pearl Harbor as a boy with my family and Grandparents. We marveled at the glass bottom boat that took us out to the Arizona Memorial. Dad pointed out the oil still bubbling up from the sunken ships belly and we all paid our respects at the marble slab wall listing the names of fallen sailors and marines.

At the time I wasn't aware enough to understand the importance of this place to my family, my country, my home. When I was a kid, things of this nature weren't discussed openly among family.

When I eventually do take my girls to Pearl, I wonder what I'll tell them when they inquire what this place is, or why we came here.

Do I need to call someone about this soon?

I've noticed that a lot of the power poles up and down the highway have this sort of bend to them, which in the past has always incited a mild "whoa nelly-ish" chuckle from me.

Then I noticed this one in the alley behind my house.

Now I'm wondering just how far this sucker will bend before it snaps like an old and brittle willow switch.

Currently reading-"The Jester" by James Patterson

Disturbing the peace

Early in the a.m. last Friday, after the snow had fallen all night and during most of the previous day before, I was sitting with my 7-year old in a big comfy chair, looking out one of our three 9 foot tall living room windows.

The air was still, it was early enough in the morning that the traffic on the highway was sparse, and the chilly white blanket outside was muffling the sounds of the world to a serene silence.

I pulled the fleece blanket tighter to my daughter and in my best Mr. Miyagi frame-of-mind, I attempted to paint a perfect picture of the absence of sound that surrounded us.

I spoke of the traffic noise that wasn't there.
I cited the lack of electronic sputter from teevees, radios, cell phones, and CB radios (hey, this is Oklahoma),
I talked of the empty skies above, void of news and cop choppers, airliners, and executive jets carrying celebrities to power lunches on Victory Blvd.
I continued with tales of non-existent horn honks, hypothetical pedestrian yells, unprevailing dogs barks, theoretical leaf blowers, reputed lawn mowers and a complete absence of a 28-year old "teenager" who insists on tuning his Mitsubishi Lancer posing as an EVO 7 at 2 a.m.

And when I finally finished my poetic recounting of all the noises we weren't hearing, and all the peaceful silence the snow covered world was offering us, my daughter offered these words...Her - "Daddy, I hear something."
Me - "What's that sweetie?"
Her - "Your voice."To which I simply and eloquently, shut my mouth.

MIO

Normally, I try to buy items made and manufactured right here in Oklahoma. 'Round these parts we just call it "MIO," or made in Oklahoma.

To this end, there is a flour mill in a town called Shawnee that produces some pretty fine white powdery substance used for baking, frying, dusting, and the like and since moving here I've been almost exclusivelly buying their product for my culinary needs.

The other day while reaching for the trusty MIO flour brand, this nugget of packaging wonder caught my eye...


While it's not MIO (this product is from our neighbors directly to the north -- Dorothy's turf), the simple, totally non-commercial and completely inelegant cover art won me over.

I mean, c'mon. What kind of adult imagination comes up with a chicken leg, a goldfish, and what looks to be a pork chop, happily diving into a frying pan.

Who says great art can't be found in your local supermarket?

Currently engrossed in-"Hundred Dollar Baby" by Robert B. Parker

My first snow day

My 2nd winter as a full time resident of central Oklahoma and yesterday was my first snow day.

Sure, it's snowed here before...couple inches here and there over the last two years, but this one was different in that it became an official "Snow Day."

My wife feels sorry for me that as a kid, I never experienced the excitement of watching the local news in the morning to see if your school was closed, and the joy of reading your school's name scroll up the screen.

She said the sounds of the depressed sighs of thousands of parents across the city could be heard as they faced an unplanned day of having the kids stuck inside the house, making messes and driving everyone crazy with their cabin fevered antics.

I always counter her feigned sympathy by citing the fact that she probably never experienced the eye-burning thrills and chest-wheezing excitement of going to recess during a 3rd Stage Smog Alert in LA in the 70's.

So there (cof-cof, wheeze-wheeze).

Anyhow, this particular storm that was looming on all of our intrepid weatherpersons radar was apparently so bad that schools were announcing their closure the night before the storm even hit. So last night, as Jay Leno sat on the couch with Al Gore (the movie star), the names of dozens of school districts across the state electronically scrolled the good/bad news across the screen.

Upon eyeshine this morning, my first peek out our bedroom window revealed no snow falling and just a dusting of the white stuff barely discernable along curbs and lawn lines.

On went the tv and the local news stations were already scrolling the names. One channel had their scroll line on top, the other on the bottom, one had the names in red with a blue background, yet another had white letters on black.

The entire scroll listing school closings due to weather, took over 25 minutes to get through the entire list.

Now that's a snow day.

Just got an email from my big brother back in sunny So Cal. He writes:"It's freezing here. Literally. This morning was about 37 degrees. Hope it's warmer where you are."My brother cracks me up.

Postscript - between 5 - 8 inches of the white stuff was dumped on our little abode today. The girls dug it. Literally.
Postpostscript - You know it's wintery out when your 7-year old yells at you from behind the closed door to the bathroom, "Daddy, the toilet seat is freezing!"