Category: Life

It was an off-day in the hockey playoffs so we had time to watch a movie.  Matt wanted to watch Creed and I said, sure, why not?  You know about Creed, the sort of sequel, or some kind of sequential installment in the Rocky saga, that features a young boxer, Adonis, the son of Apollo Creed, who is trained by Rocky Balboa for a championship fight of his life.  Sound familiar?

Yeah, here is the thing.  I could not remember a thing about the Rocky movies.  Any of them.  Not even the first one. None of it resonated with me.  The original Rocky came out in 1976.  It was the year of the bicentennial, Jimmy Carter was running for President and I was 16 years old, going to high school and generally hanging out with my friends, drinking beer.

I am sure I saw Rocky.  Who didn’t?  I remembered that it was about boxing, that was easy.  And I remembered the song.  But for the life of me I really could not remember the details of the story.  This fascinated me.  Here was a movie that was so inspirational to so many.  It won the Best Picture at the Academy Awards.  Yet, it had long since departed my brain probably because I had not seen it for 40 years.  I also assume I saw Rocky II, but again, zero recollection of that movie either.  I highly doubt I went in for the other movies but who is to say.  Because if the first movie did not even make it into a long forgotten corner of my brain there is no way that I have some pieces of the other movies hanging around.

After watching Creed, Matt thought he might have to go on a Rocky binge.  I was not about to do that.  But I did agree to watch the first Rocky again.  I had to know if it was still a good movie.  Would I even remember it?

Nope.  The movie was completely unfamiliar to me.  Except for one scene.  I remembered him drinking the eggs.  Now that is a memory that sticks in the neurons.  But other than sloshing egg yolks, the movie was like new.  And boy, was it annoying.

In Creed, Sylvester Stallone’s words were so garbled, there were times I needed sub-titles. He talked like he had rocks in his mouth, and not in a good way.  But he was not exactly comprehensible in the original Rocky either.  What goes on in the six inches between his ears?  Anything?  It must, because he sure has been able to sell himself as a star.  But one does have to wonder, given his mannerisms, whether he is cooking with gas.

The movie dialogue was okay but not all that scintillating and the characters seemed very stereo-typed and formulaic.  Rocky was not really an interesting guy.  He was a dope more than anything.  But yet, we were persuaded to believe that this dope could experience this dream.  We were persuaded to believe in him because we like the idea that he believes in himself.  That is the American Dream.  If we believe in ourselves enough, we can succeed.  Rocky’s belief was unwavering.

Looking back, it all seems absurd.  Is it because times have change so much?  When I see movies or shows from the pre-9/11, pre-Great Recession world so many of them seem so simple and innocent.  The world was not a scary place.  There were no terrorists, or us and them.  There was no fear that the economy was slipping away and that the American Dream is a myth.  In those days, the American Dream still existed.  We all still believed life could be good and free and that redemption is at the end of the road.  I am not sure many of us believe that now.  Or at least we have our doubts.  Life has become ambiguous and tentative.

But not for Rocky.  Rocky has nothing but he believes in himself just the same. Rocky was living in a roach-infested dump and seemed to be a high school drop out.  Rocky did not have good genes.  He was a mutt.  Then good fortune shines. He is a lucky guy that Apollo Creed picks out of a book of fighters and Rocky is on his way.  He does not win the fight, but he proves his belief in himself is not misplaced.  Woohoo.  It is the absolute embodiment of the American Dream and we all accepted it was possible.  Today, well, I am not so sure we are willing to accept that, if we just try, success will be there for us.

Creed tried to evoke that idea but honestly, I was not buying it.  This was not an American Dream movie.  Creed’s son Adonis was raised by his rich step-mother and he had a proper education.  As Creed’s son, Adonis had good genes. Creed was about a son living in the shadow of his father and trying to make it on his own. Unlike Rocky, he does not believe in himself.  He fears that he will be compared to his father and he wants to make it on his own. But he also fears he will never live up to his father’s glory. Creed was not about getting a shot at success but at coming to  believe you are entitled to it.   It may be a drama that some young adults experience, but that is not an American Dream story.

Was the story line written in this way because we are so jaded that we can not even accept the American dream as a movie premise?  Or are we all navel gazers now, wanting to find a way to believe in ourselves but we can’t. So we want to see an inspirational story where someone comes to believe in themselves, overcoming their own mental impediments.

In the end, I did not find Creed inspirational.  Entertaining, but not inspirational.  Neither was Rocky but I think that is because the willingness to believe those kinds of tales has long since left me.

We started keeping bees last year.  We only have one little hive because we really do not have time to devote to the care of farm animals.

Bees are funny.  They have an entire routine that beekeepers have been keeping track of for years.  Here is how it goes.  You have a queen bee, she mates and carries around thousands upon thousands of eggs.  She deposits them into the comb and they grow into bees.  The drones are male and do nothing.  The females do all the work–that isn’t really news is it?–and are known as worker bees.  Worker bees forage for nectar and pollen and bring it back to the hive to ferment into honey and protein.  They take care of the eggs, they take care of the queen, they keep the hive clean, they defend the hive from invaders.

If you have a really strong hive, the queen just keeps producing and producing.  The hive is getting mighty full with bees.  Also, after a while the queen does weaken, she can’t live forever.  When the bees sense that the equilibrium is off, they start working on producing another queen. In one case, with a weakening queen, they stick around and produce a new queen to replace the old one.  In a very full hive, they produce queens for swarming so they can get out of the hive and on to a new life.

In beekeeping you are supposed to stop a swarm for two reasons, lost bees are valuable and you will lose honey production.  But if you prevent swarming, you have to create more colonies and we just do not want a bunch of hives.  Nor do we care that much about selling honey.  In fact, we have no intention of selling honey.  We just like watching the activity.  It’s a hobby.  We had always said if the bees swarm, it is natural and we did not really want to stop them.  We had seen some queen cells being formed and it was either supercedure or swarming.  We were not sure.  We thought there was plenty of room in the hive.  We were wrong.

The weather here has been absolutely miserable.  Bees don’t like cold and rainy weather.  If it is too cold, they stay inside huddled together.  Rain makes them cranky.  They love sun.  Last Saturday, the sun came out briefly and there was enough impetus for the bees in our hive to swarm.

We were lucky to witness it.

 

 

I looked out the back door and all I could see were thousands of bees flying like mad.  They flew in a cloud seemingly without a direction but they knew what they were doing.  They all alighted onto a branch far up in the cypress tree.  We had not expected them to stick around if they swarmed but there they were, hanging in a cluster with their queen, about 20 feet off the ground, maybe more.  They were way up there.

So what do we do?  We figured they would fly off soon enough and we went about our business.  Bees don’t bother me so I was working in the yard while they hovered over my head.  Honestly, a bee has no interest in you unless they think you want to hurt the hive or the queen.  They might fly around you and even land on you.  But stinging you will kill them so they really do not do that lightly.  It has to be a defensive act.

The next day we went out and they were still there.  Probably a little cold and tired since they survived an overnight storm and cold, pounding rain.  It was chilly out.  It occurred to me that when they are cold and wet, they are lethargic so maybe we could catch them.  The question was, how do we get up there?  The idea is to cut the branch and let it fall into a container.  Then you can move them into a hive box.  We pondered and considered and finally I had an aha moment.  Let’s get the tree loppers and see if we can reach it.  We have a Little Giant ladder, a pretty tall one even when it is in the inverted V position.  The plan was that I would pull back branches while Matt went up the ladder and put the branch off with the lopper.  The branch would fall into the hive box below.

We put the box on a table just to raise it up a little so the fall was not so far.  I pulled and Matt lopped.  The branch came down.  But alas, the cluster broke in two and there was still a ball of bees in the tree.

Catching a swarm does not work if you do not get the queen.  They follow her so you have to get her.  If she was still in the tree, we were sunk.  Well, yeah, the next day, the bees were all back in the tree.  We did not get her.

So a few days later, the bees still hanging in the tree, we tried again.  This time they were much lower.  So I pulled out my trusty butterfly net that I use to capture frogs and snakes.  I went up the ladder, carefully put the net around the swarm and Matt cut the branch.  Bloody swarm split again.  Half of it went into the net, half remained in the tree.  Damn it! I put the net up again and tried to shake them into it.  I got a lot more.  We poured them into the hive and hoped for the best.

But yeah, it didn’t work.  There were still bees in the tree regrouping.  Unless we could get that queen, they would stay in there until they decide to fly off.

So we gave it one last try.  This time I went up the ladder with a 32 gallon garbage can so I could catch the entire branch in a lump and put a lid on them immediately.  It worked.  Matt clipped and into the deep can they fell.

 

We closed it up and walked it over to the hive boxes.

 

We poured it in and mother of mercy, they all started marching in order right into the box. When they do that the queen is there.

 

That was just too cool.  So we have a new hive.

But funny thing, our original hive swarmed again with another queen (we had a few cells).  We found a very small swarm in the cherry tree.  But it was so small it was almost not worth trying to catch.  We might have acted differently had we known then what we know now– we do not think there is a queen in the original hive.  With this terrible weather we have been having, queens have a hard time mating.  Remember, they do not want to go out when the weather is bad.  So we think maybe there is a virgin there that has not gotten out yet, or there is no queen left.  This is a bad situation that we are trying to rectify.

You can buy queens.  People raise them.  But if we don’t get one in there pretty quickly we will have big trouble ahead.  We are working on it.  More later.

 

 

 

 

I must admit, I was curled up in a fetal position during the third period of Game Six against the Caps.  That was utterly nerve wracking.  I made Matt turn off the sound so I did not have to listen.  But they did it, Thank God and we are here watching the Caps fans wonder what the hell happened.  No, we did not go to see the Pens Caps play here in DC.  It was way too expensive even for us.  We are saving our money for the Stanley Cup Finals.

 

I cannot get over the fact that Prince is dead. It really does not seem possible.  The last time we saw Prince was in 2015 on his Hit n Run tour. That is the sign behind us.  He put the tickets on sale two days before he showed up (get it–hit n run) so we had to scramble like mad to get seats.  Cameras of all kinds were strictly forbidden and would be confiscated so this was all we have as a record of the event.   It was at the Warner theater and we had pretty close seats.  He was great of course.

We have seen him many times.  We’ve been up close and personal in the third row, we’ve been in nose bleeds, we’ve seen him in small theaters and arenas.  No matter where the performance, he always gave us nearly three hours of spectacular fun.  Then we would wake up the next morning disappointed to learn that after the show he went to a small club and played for hours more. If we were 20 we would have known that.  But hey, we have jobs.

He really was probably the best guitar player I have ever seen. (And yes, I have seen Clapton and Santana and Jerry Garcia and David Gilmore  every other guitar player you can think of including Muddy Waters.) He had a way of playing with exuberance and because he mixed up funk and soul and rock, you never quire knew what was going to come out next.  When he jammed, he played his music, then covers and odd music references and then back into his own music.  It was a musical tour in one song.

I remember Prince from college, when 1999  and Little Red Corvette were the hits.  But I did not follow him as intensely as Matt who has loved him forever I think.  Matt has, I am going to guess, over a thousand Prince songs in his collection, probably more.  So we have been listening to him non-stop.  Years ago we took a vacation in Minneapolis and we made the pilgrimage to his club, Glam Slam.  It was the first time we had ever seen those photos booth where you stand in front of a backdrop and take a picture of your cool time.  So we took a picture.  It was kind of goofy.  I am not sure where that picture is now.  Time to go and tear the house apart to find it.

Man, there is going to be one heck of a memorial concert and we are going to attend even if we have to move heaven and earth to get there.  Minneapolis here we come.

Apparently I agreed to go to a Duran Duran concert with Matt.  He tells me I agreed because Chic would be opening and I wanted to see them.  I have no recollection of this conversation but there I was at this concert.

A Duran Duran concert crowd is made up mostly of Gen Xers, which I am perplexed to report  are now middle-aged and sharing in the nostalgia tour phenomenon with the rest of us geezers.  I remember Duran Duran from the beginning of MTV but after the first two songs I lost interest in them and, frankly, in MTV.  This meant that I was not familiar with any of the music.  Watching people go crazy for songs that you don’t know is kind of weird.

But I did know Chic because they were part of my college youth.  When “The Freak” came out, we danced in freak lines, boy-girl-boy-girl rubbing up against each other.  The young boys loved it, of course, and we thought it was great fun to tease them with a lewd dance.  Television crews taped the lines of dancing, drinking teens and the reporters opined about how it was the end of Western civilization as we know it.  If only they could see the future and the even worse lewd dancing that goes on today.  Maybe there has always been lewd dancing and the times when it did not exist, I am talking to you Victorian Era, was an anomaly.

But I digress.  So there is Niles Rodgers, the only living member of Chic, going through his hits.  We Are Family, Good Times, Freak Out, Let’s Dance, honestly, the list goes on and on.   He has written dozens of hits.   The man has got to have a very large fortune.  Just the Pittsburgh Pirates playing “We Are Family” must keep him in a pretty mansion.  So that was all very enjoyable.

Then Duran Duran came on.  I knew three songs and that was it.  Not a memory came to mind but Matt loved it so I guess that is something.  Sometimes spouses have to do things like that, indulge a loved one.

You know I am following the Penguins, soon to be winners of the 2016 Stanley Cup.  We were not able to get to Pittsburgh for a game this year so we decided to see them play the Capitals here on April 7th.  We found some pretty reasonably priced tickets in the third row right behind the Penguins bench and right next to the players tunnel.  It is not the best spot to see a game, a lot of the rink was obscured, but it sure was fun and interesting to watch the players come and go and talk and laugh and have a good time.   When you are that close the players are giants on skates and the speed is almost exhausting.

I love the new coach, Mike Sullivan, God bless that man for turning this team around.  I made a sign that said “Sullivan is my coach of the year.  Go Pens!”  I put the sign up against the glass and waited for him to get to the bench.  He walked toward me and I’m smiling and waving.  He sees the sign and kind of smiles and then gets real serious.  Yay!!!  I was so pumped.  I got a hint of a smile out of him.  He deserves to be named coach of he year.  The man is a freaking genius.

Then the Pens beat the Caps yet again.  Oh, the joy!  I never have so much fun as watching the Penguins beat the Caps.  There are always lots of Pens fans at these games and when the game was over people were running up and down the street yelling “Go Pens!”  Good times.

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Lately I have been traveling a lot for work and I find myself in a rental car about twice a month, driving up and down interstates.  Renting cars gives me the opportunity to sample the universe of car options.  During long drives I also have plenty of time to look other at cars on the road too.

I have come to one mind-numbing conclusions—cars are really boring.  It has been this way for a while but it really hit home with me when I realized that if you removed the grill and the lights from any of today’s sedans, leaving only the body, you would be hard pressed to tell the difference between any of them.  Is it any wonder that Americans are losing their love of driving?  Half of the fun was touring around in a really cool car.

Long gone are the days of fun cars that make you stop and say, I want one.  Think about it.  When was the last time you stopped in the street just to watch a car drive by.  The last time I was wowed was when Volkswagon brought back the Beetle in a new form, color and shape.  It was fun, it was candy.  That was a very long time ago.

Cars have become so boring that any car with something a little different will turn heads.  There is not anything all that interesting about a Mini-Cooper, except that it is small and cute.  But it stands out enough to be noticed because it isn’t a safe, gas-saving sedan with four doors in the broad selections of colors–silver, black or white.

How sad is that? They even made colors boring.  When I was in high school I had the most beautiful royal blue Oldsmobile with white leather seats, a hand me down from my dad.  Back then you could get a car in fire engine red, bright yellow, burnt orange, light aqua, and even purple.  Every car had a personality with its own lines and style.  You were not going to mistake a Mustang for a Charger.  No way.  From masculine muscle cars to feminine convertibles, from station wagons to town cars, from four door sedans to two-door coupes.  Each one had its own elan and the car you drove spoke volumes about your personality.

Todays cars tell us how much you care about reliability and gas mileage.  Some car companies try to sell a car as a fun ride but seriously, we know that the days of driving with a rocket under the hood are pretty much over for the average American.

Then there is the disappearance of the muscle car.  Muscle cars had a useless macho appeal—they were meant to show how fast a guy could go and they were girl magnets.  Now men prefer the pick up truck that is Ram tough rather than a low slung car that purrs or roars depending on the car.  The siren call for trucks eludes me.  Pick up trucks are utilitarian vehicles.  The sales pitch appeals to a man’s need for a big vehicle so he can do all the down and dirty things he does like towing and hauling and off-road wheeling.  Seriously, how many guys do you know fit that description?  Maybe it’s my zip code but I see a lot of pickup trucks that don’t do anything more than haul some tools and maybe move lawn mowers.

More importantly, how does a truck get the girl?   You never see a guy in a truck commercial trying to appeal to a woman so I guess that is not the goal.  Do women now prefer men with pick ups? Man, maybe it really is my zip code because that possibility makes no sense to me.  A woman being wowed by a pick up?  I’m lost.  And bored.

 

 

Important Notice:  Do not read this if you are in any way afraid of snakes.  Pictures of snakes will follow:

This year I became a snake wrangler.  Not a Steve Irwin kind of snake wrangler, I am not that crazy, but your suburban snake-under-my-house kind of wrangler.

We have always had snakes at this house.  In our first summer, I found a very long and intact snake skin in my peonies.  Even the head was in place, empty holes where the eyes had been.  I was so excited I put it in a jar to show everyone who came by.

Last year we had a snake in our garage.  It was a pretty big rat snake.

Not poisonous but it can have a bad attitude and try to bite.  I removed it by grabbing it with one of those grabber tools and tossing it in a lawn bag.  I marched it down to the woods and let it go, singing Born Free.  It was easy to catch because it had just eaten, a large lump could be clearly seen halfway down its long body.  Apparently when a snake has eaten, they can’t really do anything more than digest.

This year was really a banner year.  The snakes were everywhere.  The first sign was a snake skin hanging in a bush out back about four feet off the ground.  A snake had climbed a tree and shed its skin along the way.  That was crazy.  I have never seen a snake in a tree here but there was no denying that skin.

One day I was out working in the yard and I noticed what looked like a large black rubber hose in the blueberry bush.  I went to check it out and found another very big rat snake, maybe three feet long, that had become entangled in the bird netting I use to protect the blueberries.  It was straining against the mesh, its body taut and pulled up, trying to push through.  This one had me stumped.  I had no idea how I was going to get that snake out of the netting.  So I took the snake, netting and all, and put it in a bag.  Then I called animal control.  They will actually rescue snakes.

A nice young woman came to our house and we showed her the snake in the bag.  She pulled the snake right out and started to unravel it.  I am pretty sure I would not be able to do this.  The snake was writhing all over and trying to wrap itself around her arm.

She just wrestled it, while she worked to cut the mesh away.  She was not wearing any gloves. I asked her if she had ever been bit by a rat snake and she said she had.  It hurt, she admitted, but no big deal.  After about a half hour of cutting and pulling, she finally got the snake free.  It lay on the ground a little stunned, then it took off and hid under the grill.  We left it alone.

Then came the snakes in the window wells.  Our basement has three windows, about two feet below ground, so they are encircled with corrugated steel.  I rescue frogs and toads from them all summer long.  One spring there were two baby bunnies huddled in the corner.

The cats were beside themselves.  They stared at them all day and night until I went out and rescued them with my long handled spaghetti strainer, my go to device for saving animals.

But on this Saturday afternoon, something very different was in the window.  A snake head was bobbing back and forth as if a snake charmer was playing a tune.

It appeared to be trying to reach the sun.  I looked out into the window, I was very close, and when it sensed I was there, it slithered away into a small drain pipe.  I ran outside but it was long gone.

It did not disappear though.  A few hours later it was sunning itself again, right on the window ledge.  I got a picture of it this time.  But I failed to get it out of the well.  It eluded my grabbers and slithered into the pipe again. It was a big one, tan and brown patterned.  I checked the snake book and it appeared to be a very large Eastern Garter snake.

I thought and thought.  How can I catch that thing?  I really did not want a snake hanging out that close to my house.  I have nightmares that I will  open a toilet lid to find a snake staring at me.  You laugh, but I have found two frogs in my bathroom on the toiler seat.  I am not sure if they think it is a small pond or they just like the atmosphere.

Then I remembered the butterfly net I had bought to use in case I had to catch baby bunnies again.

I kept checking the window wells and sure enough, a few days later, there it was.  It had used the drain pipe to travel to the next window, they are all connected, and it had eaten!  It had a huge bulge in its mid-section.  It probably had munched on a frog or toad.  It was a total lump, just like dad on Thanksgiving.

I knew I had it this time.  I ran to the garage to grab the butterfly net and the grabber.  I coaxed it into the bag and it was caught.

I marched it to the woods and let it go.  Thank goodness.

Here is another look.  It really was a gorgeous snake:

Except for one small problem. The next day another head had popped up in the window.  It had babies!  This one was much smaller but it was also drawn to the alluring sunshine.

I grabbed the butterfly net and caught it easily.  Down to the woods we went.  Okay, that was fine.  But if it had babies, how many were there?  For the next few days, I checked the window and it did not take long for another small snake appear.  He went to the woods, too.  Then, after a week of observation, I concluded we had the all clear.

I caught three snakes in one week.  I was feeling pretty heady.  Am I not a snake wrangler?  I said, yahoo.  You bet.  But the worst encounter was yet to come.

When the exterminator came to work on the ants that seem determined to turn my yard into an any hill, I told him about the snakes, which he is dreadfully afraid of.  I tried to explain to him that snakes are our friends.  But he really is frightened of them. Which explains why he came running in saying he had seen a snake in the bushes.  Could that have been the tree snake I have never seen? He swore it was green and it was staring at him from the rhododendron. I checked my snake book and we do have tree snakes in this area.  But I did not see it and it could have been his paranoia.

As he was doing his work, I was doing other things and I did not focus on the fact that he had placed glue traps in my garage.  I also have a very big problem with centipedes, which is another story, and I think his intention was to trap them.  He caught something alright but it was not a bug.

About a week later I noticed a long, black curled hose in the corner on the glue trap.  I was not sure what it was, but I had a bad feeling.  A black rat snake had become stuck in the glue trap.  I was furious.  All of the work I had done all summer to save snakes and here was one dying for no good reason.  After all of my lectures about how good snakes are, he put out a trap that would kill them.

I don’t know how long the snake had been there.  It was alive, although terribly emaciated. I tried to pull the it off, but the glue was too much and there was no way I would get it loose.  It was suffering so I did what I had to do.  I pulled down the hatchet, stood over it and in one swing chopped its head off, crying loudly, tears streaming down my face through the entire ordeal.  I gave it another chop to be sure it was completely severed.  Then I wrapped it up and threw it away.

I cussed at myself for not paying attention to the traps.  I cussed at the exterminator and vowed when he returned I was going to give him a good talking to.  I have never personally killed an animal to stop it from suffering.  I was glad I did it, but it made me sick and I hope I never have to do it again.  I lived that moment, swinging that hatchet, for days after.

For now, the window wells are clear, the garage has had no visitors.  It is winter and the snakes are hibernating.  I am sure I will see them next year.

This has been a pretty slow summer for concerts. Nine Inch Nails was playing in Virginia so we skipped that one. I value my time. In July we saw Queens of the Stone Age at Merriweather Post and I engaged in lots of air guitar playing and head banging. St. Vincent opened. While she appears to be an avante garde froo frau, she played a mean guitar. I thought her music was more along the lines of art rock. She was very engaging.

Things picked up by the end of summer  and  we went on a bit of a concert binge.

In August, we went to see George Clinton and family P Funk at the 9:30 Club. What a party. He may be 73 years old but he knows how to get the groove out of his band. Getting down and getting funky. We saw him once before and the structure was the same—there was none apparent. While the music is rehearsed, there is a spontaneity to it, with plenty of jamming. The members of the band change by song. We saw at least two drummers, a few different guitar players, different back-up singers, different horns. It all adds up to what appears to be controlled chaos with George keeping them in line. And by golly, that old man outlasted us again! The last time we saw him, we gave up. We ran out of energy and time. This concert was no different. The show started around nine. At around 11 pm, George said, “Hey we’re just getting started. We’re not going nowhere.” And he meant it. We stayed for almost three hours but at 11:45 a.m. we gave up and left. Matt had to get up early. They were still going strong when we exited. One day we will see him on a night where we are rested and ready to party all night long. We can’t let that senior citizen out party us. And by the way, George cut off his rainbow dreads. Well, I guess he is entitled.

We saw Willie Nelson. We had never seen him so we figured why not. We knew a lot of his songs.

We saw Pitbull because I just love that man. You may say, but Marsha he sings about boobs and bootie and sex. Isn’t that a bit much for someone like you? Don’t you object? Honestly, with most anyone else, I probably would. But it is so obvious that he loves women, and he absolutely loves and honors his mother. Plus, he really makes me laugh. His music is singable, danceable, bawdy, fun and infectious. It all seems in such good fun. I don’t ever get the sense that he is a woman hater. No, he loves women and not in a bad way. I would say he is okay with powerful women.   I am not alone. To my surprise, I was not the only older woman in the arena. Inexplicably, he was actually opening for Enrique Iglesias. We left when Pitbull was done. Enrique who?

We saw Erasure because Matt likes them. Honestly, I don’t know who they are.  I do not know their songs but the Gen Xers seemed to like it.  All I saw was a middle aged man dancing around in sequin hot pants and a too tight t-shirt like I assume he did 25 years ago.  He needs to take a look in the mirror because, oh, that is something I can never unsee.

To round out the concert going, we saw Lykki Li.

The concert started out kind of slow and I thought, uh oh, this is going to be boring. But it picked up as she appeared to get more comfortable with the crowd. She was dressed in a long black robe and I wondered why she was dressed for Hogwarts. Matt thought she just needed a cap and tassel. She danced around and as I think back, it all looked pretty silly.  Some kind of Goth goddess of sorrow dancing around on a black stage.  The whole thing was kind of odd but I like her music.  Played live,  the music was even more drum-oriented and I always like a good drummer. Her drummer was fantastic.

I think we are done for a while.

Have you seen the white whale? Aye, and the pure devil he was. Oh, what fun! I finished reading Moby Dick. Oh, scoff if you like, but I love Herman Melville. A friend of mine once observed that Moby Dick was really a biology/environmental treatise about whales. True. It is also a significant sociological study of the whaling tradition. If you take away all of Melville’s writing about whales and whaling in general, and just left the tale about Moby Dick, you’d have a novella at best. The Ahab story is about the all-consuming nature of Ahab’s need for revenge, wrapped in a religious fanaticism that makes Ahab believe that he and only he can and should be allowed to deal a death blow to the devil that is the white whale.

It is easy to understand why scholars study this work for a lifetime. The text is layered with meaning. Not being a bible scholar, or even a bible reader, I could not follow all of the biblical references. The love story between Ishmael and Queequeg is probably my favorite part of the book. I call it a love story because at one point, as they share a room in Nantucket waiting for a boat, Ishmael describes their talking in bed like a husband and wife. He really loved that tattooed madman with the goofy idol for a God.

The ultimate lesson is that fanaticism can only lead to destruction. In the case of Ahab, he destroyed everyone around him but not the white whale, the angel of death, and not Ishmael who is saved by Queequeg’s coffin.

Moving on to a documentary “The Act of Killing” is an unblinking study of the baseness of human nature. A group of Indonesian men acted as a death squad killing “communists” during a more brutal time in Indonesia’s history in the 1960’s and 1970’s. http://theactofkilling.com/synops/   The filmmaker discovered that this militia was so proud of their killing exploits, and they were so well-known and admired in their thuggery, that the men were willing to talk openly about their acts of killing.

The men claim to have based many of their methods on the movies. Almost as an homage to old gangster films, the movie director gets them to reenact some of their favorite moments of death. Demonstrations of the more simple acts of murder like cutting off a guy’s head with wire, to the more dramatic such as the reenactment of the burning of a village including random killing of the villagers, some rapes, and small children crying hysterically as they watched, brought these men back to their days of glory.

At one point, the men are interviewed on a television talk show where they proudly proclaim they protected the country from these subversives. It is hard to know who they were actually killing but the audience clapped and cheered as they told how many dozens of men they had killed for the sake of their country. In fact, it becomes clear that these men were a gang of thugs, enforcers who liked being in control.

Probably the most redeeming moment is when, Angwar—the focus of the movie and the best known killer of them all—comes to regret what he did. As he reenact, as he relives, he looks back at first with pride. Then he seems to crack. When he plays one of the victims in a reenactment, he becomes unnerved and at that moment comes to understand what it must have been like to be on the other side of the knife. He seems to comprehend, uncomfortably so, that it was wrong. During these reenactments they learn that they killed the father of one of their extras. Angwar listens to the young man cry as he tells of his father’s murder. Importantly, he seems to realize that he has lived with the horror of his actions for years without allowing himself to feel the humanity of it. He has been so proud of himself for being the best assassin the country has seen. By the end he comes to understand what he did was truly evil. In the last frame, he walks off and we hear no more.

It is a tough movie to watch but if you can stomach it, the study of what humans are capable of is stunning. This movie will stay with me for a very long time.

We have also been watching the Ip Man trilogy. Ip Man is considered to be the greatest martial artist in China. He practiced a form that was not well known and he had to prove himself. In the first movie he takes on the Japanese invaders. In the second movie he has moved to Hong Kong and he takes on the Brits. At the end of the movie, a young student shows up at his school. It is Bruce Lee. We are trying to pace and we have not yet seen the third.

Thanks to “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” I have come to appreciate martial arts movies. If you want to see a beautiful movie, try “The Grandmaster.” Gorgeous in detail and cinematography, it is an epic drama about Ip Man. Not all martial arts movies are as good as these two examples, and certainly the Ip Man trilogy is not in at this level of sophistication. But the action is interesting, certainly far better than any Hollywood blow ‘em up car crash movies and if the movie is well made, it can be beautiful to watch.

On a lighter note, we watched “Celestine and Ernest,” the animated movie about a mouse and a bear. It was a simply adorable, feel good movie.

We also got out to the theater to see the play “Avenue Q” at Olney Theater. Hilarious. A musical with muppets controlled by actors and those muppets go where no muppet has gone before. A story about a neighborhood (read Sesame Street) and life for a guy and girl just out of school and how they fall in love. The story line and lyrics were pretty hysterical and oddly familiar. Bawdy, goofy, yet very insightful. I wondered about it. Yep, just as I thought—created by the same guy who wrote “Book of Mormon,” which if you have not seen it, what are you waiting for?

 

The Orioles were good this year and Matt got into baseball. So we went to several games including the 60^th Anniversary extravaganza.

 

We also went to see the Pirates play the Nationals. Jim and Todd met us and we feasted on Ben’s Chili Bowl half smokes. Unfortunately, we lost.

We decided to gambol off to Pittsburgh for the 4^th of July. We met Maryanne and Jim for a Pirates game and fireworks on the waterfront. During the day, we went to the festivities at Point State park.

 

The water was choppy so the boat races were not going well, or at all.

 

Soon we gave up on the boats and made our way to the ball park.

I had Manny’s BBQ and we drank some very good beer. Gosh darn it, we missed the pierogi race. That was disappointing. But the Pirates won so we made up for it in the end.

For as long as I have lived near or in Pittsburgh, I have never been to the fireworks. They were very good. It was a long show with some big poppers. They have Chicago beat by a mile. (Sorry. No one beats D.C.)

More fireworks fun:

 

 

As for food, Mercato is a restaurant in the Arts district.  It serves meatballs. Yes, meatballs. It could very well be one of my heavens. We ate there twice because we all love meatballs. How can you not?  It could very well be a perfect food. Well, it is not potatoes, which is the perfect food. But meatballs are a close second. Matt knows that if he is ever in doubt as to what kind of sandwich to order for me, he gets me a meatball sub. Hmmmm.

The next day we traveled to my brother Michael’s house for dinner.  He was stressed out because his daughter Rebecca was in the hospital giving birth to his third grandchild.  But the baby was fine and my brother was fine.

Good times.

 

 

 

 

I tore out the old garden and built a new one made up of five large cedar boxes. It was ridiculously easy because I ordered the kit with pre-cut wood and metal corners. All I had to do was screw them together and that means Matt had to screw them together. I moved them into place. Then came the hard part. I had to fill them with dirt.

I started with three boxes. I dug up all of the good garden soil from the old garden. I moved about 18 wheelbarrows full of dirt. By my estimation that was about 54 bags of dirt at 40 pounds each. This was not even close to enough. I bought another 25 bags of soil at 40 pounds a piece. I moved them to the back yard and dumped them into the boxes. The next day I felt like I had been hit by a bus. That was some seriously hard work. But I was not done. Three boxes were not enough, so I ordered two more. I bought more bags of soil and I moved more dirt. In total, I bought 64 bags of soil. By my calculations, I moved about 2.6 tons of dirt. Needless to say, I counted this as exercise.

Once the boxes were filled I planted zucchini, tomatoes, spinach, lettuce, cucumbers, Swiss chard and mustard greens. The soil in the box was fresh and full of manure. The garden thrived all summer.  I was absolutely overrun with tomatoes.  Most of them, we just plain ate.  Some I turned into spaghetti sauce and crushed tomatoes.

Later in the season I planted a wildflower garden on the bare spot where the old garden used to be. I have flowers everywhere and the butterflies and bees are delighted.

I also planted potatoes in containers, which produced a nice little crop.  Gosh, I love growing potatoes.

The blueberry bush flourished this year. It produced at least four quarts.  I also planted two plum trees. They were under assault by Japanese beetles, which were really bad this year. I put a beetle trap out and it filled in about a week. It was a pretty disgusting pile of bugs, but it seemed to help. I did get a few plums. I would expect more next year.

We were out on a pick your own farm one day when I found peanut plants. Oh, how I wanted to grow peanuts. I planted them and in about one day the squirrel had dug them up. You see, peanut plants are grown from peanuts and the squirrel dug right down to the root and found that orb of squirrel delight. I tried re-planting but it was a waste of time. He kept digging. Next year I will make sure those are covered.

The grape-vine is growing. I moved the asparagus bed and I transplanted my herbs to a new bed. Grapes, asparagus and even herbs take a few years to really get established. So we just have to be patient. I placed some of the herbs plants in different spots around the yard. The thyme and the oregano are growing near the shed. The mint is on the sunny side of the house and the sage is by the bird bath. I like to walk around and pick stuff as if it is wild.

I had so many dandelions this year that I decided to let them grow so I could harvest them. Yes, dandelions are edible. You can buy them at the Whole Foods Market. I don’t use any lawn chemicals so I would be picking an organic crop. I have to admit, they are an acquired taste. They can be bitter, like chicory, and just as tough. But for some reason I like them, particularly with feta cheese. They are also really good in soup with ham and white beans.

After they seemed to be big enough I picked some and I had a salad. These were particularly chewy and bitter. I guess that is what happens when they grow wild. I ate them. Matt did not.

Our two maple trees out front were looking pretty bad. The bark was turning black and the branches were dying off. I called the arborist and he confirmed they were dying of a fungus and could not be saved. So we had them cut down. When they were here I had them prune up the rest of the trees. It took two days. I loved them being here. I can never not talk to tree guys. Most days I wish I were an arborist. I love to plant trees. I never have enough space to plant as much as I want. So we talked about the trees, how they looked in terms of overall health, and what to plant instead.

As they cut and pruned, they sent the branches into the chipper and out came wood chips. The young man certainly could see I was interested, so he offered to leave the chips behind. I said, how much is there. About a cord, maybe two. I have no idea what a cord is but I said, sure, why not.

They dumped a gigantic pile of wood chips on my driveway.   It was easily four feet high and about six feet wide.  My job, spread it out. I was kind of worried that it had not been given time to properly season itself, breaking down somewhat before I used it. But it was mostly oak and cedar from the arborvitae they trimmed and it was not going to break down anytime soon. So I went ahead and mulched the entire property.

I used a snow shovel to move the chips. It was big and light. It worked beautifully. I had so much mulch that I was able to put down chips around just about every tree and planting area in the yard. This much mulch would have cost me a fortune. It took about two weeks to get it done, largely because it kept raining. The neighbors who walk their dogs every day marveled as the pile got smaller and smaller. One guy pumped his bicep at me. Honestly, mulch is not that heavy. The hard part was filling the wheelbarrow and dumping it around because it took so many trips.

I love being outside, I love digging, I love the smell of freshly mowed grass and I love eating food I have grown.

 

Matt and I celebrated our 19^th wedding anniversary on May 20. He bought me sunflowers. I cooked dinner, papparadelle with duck ragu. We drank the Chocolate Block, a red wine blend from South Africa. It was a very nice day all the way around.  Hey, it’s been a nice life all the way around!