Home Sweet Home. Probably.

It’s looking like this is the one – the place to call our own! House_2

Personally, I’m not wild about the big garage door up front, but life is about compromise isn’t it?   I think this house is a fine compromise.  (I’m a renovated farmhouse kind of gal at heart, complete with horse barn…)

I appreciated the comments people made on this earlier post about walking into a house and feeling the "ahh, this is the one" factor.  I felt it here.  Steve needed a little convincing, but not much.  Unfortunately the house faces south, but most of the living space is on the north side.  We’re going to install a couple of extra windows in back to brighten it up just a bit.  That and a lighter color paint than what’s in there now and it will be perfect! (Except for the fact that it’s not a farmhouse with a horse barn out back.)

~ Connie

Visual description: gray vinyl sided 2-story house, with some brick detailing. White, rather prominent 2-car garage door on right.  Don’t know what kind of build an architect would call it.  Anyone know?  It’s all of 5-years old…

Homage to the Grim Raker

The man across the street is raking his leaves but instead of using a rake he’s running some kind of hyper-industrial, mulching machine–a thing that sounds like a snow plough dragging against pavement, certainly there’s something wrong with the damned thing.  Accordingly he’s making a statement about his neighborhood and his place within it: he doesn’t care about the fact that he’s disturbing the people around him.  He is moving his leaves with sinister efficiency and he’s giving nature an obscene gesture at the same time.  I think he feels good out there forcing his outsized and outdated internal combustion engine over the dark lawn.  His wife comes out and shouts at him over the din and though you can’t hear what she’s saying, she sounds wildly happy about the torment they are together inflicting on Ridgeway Drive.

I wonder what it means when people are so utterly regulated to noise that they will endure it for the sake of something like ten minutes of convenience.  The mechanical leaf blowing gizmo will probably save the man all of ten minutes over an old fashioned manual raking.  In geologic time ten minutes is nothing.  In domestic time it is barely enough to make a can of instant soup.  So he can’t really be saving time.  There’s no way to justify the idea.  So what’s he up to?

He hates the sound of a rake.  That "long scythe, whispering in the wind"–the scratching of death, the scraping of "the grim raker"–this is most certainly what all that noise making is about.  "Death, where is thy sting if I can’t hear your crumby little scythe?"

Either that or the guy’s just an inconsiderate boor who likes Campbell’s Cream of Asparagus.

He ruined my raking this morning.  I like the ancient, dry, confirmatory scritch pitted against the oceans of leaves.

My friend, the Finnish poet, Jarkko Laine, once described dead leaves as being "death’s butterflies".  I like that idea.

I guess I’ll have to rake by night, while Mr. Asparagus is dreaming of oil filters and pop top cans.

S.K.

Chamber of Commerce for Persons with Disabilities, Inc.

A Chamber of Commerce for Persons with Disabilities has been launched as of June this year. 

"The Chamber’s mission is to help persons with disabilities and
their direct caregivers to form and grow businesses" through networking
opportunities, links and resources, and programs and services.

Chairman Peter Schoemann leads the Board of Directors,
all of whom are committed to people with disabilities and as
volunteers, receive no compensation for their services.  Clearly, this
is a very passionate group of people devoted to what, in their view, is
"a way to help the disability community help itself".

For more information and an application, visit www.disabilitychamber.org.

Chamber_logo

Continue reading “Chamber of Commerce for Persons with Disabilities, Inc.”

A Halloween Scare

In October of 1962 I had my first lesson in social engineering, though I didn’t know what it was called. I simply thought that the kid across the street had an unfortunate Halloween costume, though I didn’t know what that was called. The poor guy was seven years old, the kid across the street. He was my age. He was a pretty cool kid. I liked him. Why I even thought of him as being "my best friend". I’ll call him "Jack" because what with President Kennedy in the White House, "Jack" was the coolest name at the time.

Poor Jack went out on Halloween night of 1962 wearing a "home made costume" and I probably don’t need to say anything more. That was the age of TV Land, of unbridled American prosperity, and yes, the age of cheap plastic. It is hard to remember perhaps, that there was a moment when all those things were new. Accordingly all the kids wore Yogi Bear masks, Lone Ranger masks, Bugs Bunny and Snow White masks, and of course you had your perennial pirate and John Wayne outfits.

Poor Jack.

Continue reading “A Halloween Scare”

Zombie Woof

Once when I was around 14 and full of zeal of a certain kind, I went to hear Frank Zappa and his rock band "The Mothers of Invention".  Zappa was a brainiac cross fertilized rock and roller with a strong interest in 20th century classical music and a more than passing understanding of jazz.  Unlike most rockers of the 60’s and 70’s Zappa looked down on the use of drugs and he used to whip out a flashlight and train it on the audience, casting about until he saw someone who looked especially stoned.  He would really make fun of that poor, witless guy.  The man hated playing to a stoned theater.  He wrote inventive and outlandish songs about drug users.  He would sing: "who you jiving’ with that cosmic debris?"

Frank Zappa could also play a peppery, lickety-split lead guitar and while other kids my age talked endlessly of the guitar mastery of Eric Clapton or Jimi Hendrix, I was convinced that FZ had the real chops.  I can still hear Zappa’s transcendent guitar solo from the song "Zombie Woof" on his album "Over-Nite Sensation"—I can hear it in memory, note for note, the way Hemingway said he could follow a trout stream in his imagination.

Frank Zappa died all too early from prostate cancer and I find that on this particular autumn day I miss his brand of social satire and his exceptional musicianship.  All I want to do is go down to my local record store and buy the latest from "the Mothers".

Here’s to intelligent and impatient rock and roll.  Here’s to a deep distrust of lazy audiences.  Here’s to living the art while disdaining the commercial music industry.

Here’s to a hot suspicion of authority but without all the contemporary cheap perfume of despair.

S.K.

"If" You Love Disability Blog Carnivals, You'll Love This 25th Edition

Kara of If the World had Wheels is the "Ringmaster" of the 25th Disability Blog Carnival.  Her chosen theme is simply "If…" and as Penny commented, this carnival is "full of gems." 

As "if" anyone had any doubts!  Thanks goes to Kara for another great read!

Cross-posted on Blog [with]tv