Odd dream, too: was with an old girlfriend (Lee Kim Buh) who was very sick. Puking & diarhœa, worked on getting her hair out of the way of the upward-exiting material but it was a wig, short & sparse hair underneath. Getting the downward exiting material was another matter.

While supporting her on the toilet got vomit down my back, but not too much. I gloved up & massaged her perinium & anus to stimulate release of her GI which took about four goes. Finally got her jeans & panties disengaged from her feet & her into the shower for a clean-up.

That segue’d into a very fancy & high-level conference/symposium at a ultra-ritzy venue. This time I had the shits & there were major problems finding a working toilet. Yes, very posh place, but the loo was on the fritz: one was unusable as a haz-mat suited tech was working on it. Trying to get some running water out of a tap to clean myself up what came out was fæces, looked like soft-serve yoghurt but smelled incredibly bad. Finally found a tub with a hand shower & hosed off the nether regions.

Of course now I was going around half-naked, found a hospital gown-like wrap around & dressed. Got into a conversation with one of the high mucky-mucks about the general conditions but everyone (me too) was rather blasé about the whole thing.

“At dawn my lover comes to me/ and tells me of her dreams/ with no attempt to shovel the glimpse/ into the ditch of what each one means/ at times I think there are no words/ but these to tell what’s true/ and there are no truths outside the gates of Eden” — Bob Dylan

The Element has beaucoup cargo space, very utilitarian – but totally un-plush, not many features that I’ve come to expect from 2¾ years with a CRV. Also a gas hog, 20 city & 25 hwy, tho might eke out a few more by taking the back seats out.

The Tucson GLS costs $1600 more but more & much better features included. Alloy wheels not steel; telescoping steering wheel; roof rails; alarm system; usb/auxillary; better horsepower & torque; heated side mirrors; tows 500# more; two more years 24k mi more warranty; mpg 22/31. That last alone means $500 in gas for 20k mi saving p.a. at the current $3.25, more sooner…

Decisions, decisions —

Reminds me of the boss-employee paradigm.  Guess I, too, could wander down the street to see if there’s a nicer house with better food available.  But that might involve some gonadal adjustments.  Humans have more attachments, too.  She’s not likely to take the catnip toy mouse with her when she leaves; but it would probably take ten boxes to pack my library.

The possession-less monks, maybe Diogenes, have at least part of the answer.  If I wasn’t worried about keeping out of the rain/heat/cold, being fed, all those little things that mean ‘security’ to humans… hmm, sounds Buddhist or something, going to have to look into that.

Al was born a few years before I.  With his tour in the Air Force during the heat of the ‘Nam, that put him in my cohort at college.  He was at Nakhon Phanom in Thailand, working K-9 security, but I don’t remember him ever having a pet dog.  Quite the party animal, himself, though.

He had to take early retirement, major back problems.  Despite three pairs of rods in his back it took three times to actually receive disability from the SSA; got the back payments around Yule when his dad died, then he died a few months later – Mardi Gras two years back.

Miss the dude, muy simpático…

Thanx, Al

Looking like I’m going to be extending the demolition another 70 sq.ft. into the current vanity/closet area; rather dumbass concept & execution there as well.  So now there’s an urgent need to ‘clear the decks for action’, hopefully enough to motivate the throwout/cleanup process past the current inertia.

Or, about how long it would take to decide to move upwind or hit that thing.  Perhaps the decision-making process accelerates with experience: been there, done that, got the tee shirt/scar/restraining order/rash that just isn’t going away… But it’s said that age doesn’t necessarily bring wisdom but does bring perspective, aiding your judgement (maybe) but not keeping you out of trouble in the first place.  For that I prefer vicarious learning: what happened when he licked the frozen metal flag pole?  how many EMT did it take to disconnect?

That was with  scumbag Jimmy Carter, now it’s with scumbag Barak Obama.  When will we see memory extended beyond 30-odd years?  This kind of crap was old in the Roman empire.

What about making bribery illegal again? maybe a capital crime? firing squad or hanging? decapitation?  What do you think about having some rotting heads on stakes in front of the US Capitol Bldg to be viewed by all the legislators entering?  Deterent?  Maybe a gibbet with the last corrupted-suborned congressperson or “lobbyist” left swinging in the breeze.

What’s it going to take?  There has to be enough pain to defeat inertia/momentum; what’s it going to take?

Yeah, some more scars & disillusionment – but decided to chuck it all, ’tis all just froth in my life’s wake anyway don’t you know, & crack one of the older bottles.

Sichel 1978 Grand Vin de Bordeaux,  Saint-Emilion {Apellation Saint-Emilion Contrôlée} mis en bouteille par Michel Montadour, Negociant à Bordeaux (Gironde).  Still had the Cobweb Liquor price tag on it, $9.88 back in the early eighties.

Some damn fine wine 32 years on, with manchego even better.  Eat, drink & be merry — for tomorrow we die, or at least have to go back to work…

Sante! & à bientôt

Intellectually, technologically  & culturally, western society has degenerated from a quality ideal into the current ‘good enough’ mindset.  MLA recently put out new consumer-health literature at a fifth-grade reading level: the ninth-grade stuff was too hard.  This even with the lowered standards since the educational system crashed back in the eighties.

But stupid is as stupid does, the same going for cheapness: if you can’t cypher that it’s more expensive to buy a $15.00 item 5 times in 5 years than to get a better version of the item for $75.00 which lasts 7~10 years — well, there are inexorable Darwin & Karma to begin with, not to mention being real poor before then.

Hi-tech items are inherently different from pans, furniture, refrigerators & big-ticket items.  They start out as crap, we know it (or should), designed to last as long as the technology involved is expected to stay current – or to engage the fleeting attention of the fickle hoi polloi.

In Catch-22 the protagonist is slacking off, doesn’t want to have anything more to do with the fighting.  He’s asked ‘what if everybody else was to do the same thing’: answer, ‘then I’d be a fool to do anything different’.  {paraphrase}

In Yossarian’s situation, doing nothing is a proactive & healthy response to the societal insanity.  In our current planetary insanity, IMHO, those who can need to strive to upgrade the commonweal.  That has odd aspects, like going into the battle that you absolutely positively know you’ll lose & doing it with alacrity.  Almost Bushido, a sort of Militant Buddhism (wrathful vs. compassionate enlightenment).