Shutterbugs

I don't aim for perfection in my photographs, rarely take money, have never considered myself in competition with anyone and always leave the studio sessions to the people who make their living with a camera, those who are far more learned and professionally equipped.  I shoot to satisfy my artistic and creative side.  I shoot for the love and sheer pleasure of it.  I shoot to pay it forward to the musicians who have given me so much for so many years.   And I shoot because I love my animals and they will not always be with me.

I live in a small city that's home to a good many professional photographers - more than we need or want, some would say - and as expected, there are bad ones, adequate ones, and great ones.  They do it all - weddings and family portraits and head shots, events and festivals, class pictures and sports and pets - all with varying degrees of skill and creativity, flair and affordability.  There are artists and hacks, all far more technically proficient than the rest of us, most with studios and custom equipment and years of experience. I know most of them from my years at the photo store, can even claim friendship with one or two, and as a general rule have great respect for their dedication and ability - the very same dedication and ability that I see in the half dozen or so less well known photographers that I run into all the time, those who have day jobs and shoot for most of the same reasons I do.  We want to be a part of something we do reasonably well, to express something that we can't find words for, to capture a mood or a feeling or maybe just a moment.

So when one of the more plain vanilla photographers posted what was either a backasswards compliment or a slightly nasty shot at me, I made up my mind it was well meant and decided not to be offended.  I've lived too long, I told myself, to waste my time on a small minded, insecure man who sees competition where there isn't any and can't help but try and demean it.  (Well, okay, maybe it stung me more than I cared to admit, but I did try to be a grown up and did not respond.)  It was the second shot that did it, a wider brushed remark that, to me at least, read as a put down of all non-professional photographers.  

This from someone who is a one man Olin Mills, I fumed to myself, No imagination and marginally talented at best.

I reminded myself of my earlier advice, that I've lived too long to waste my time on a small minded, insecure man who sees competition where there isn't any and can't help but try and demean it.  I reminded myself of this several times, like a child writing I will not tell a lie on the after school blackboard.

Yeah.  I always had trouble with that blackboard thing.

Last Rescue

The little dachshund crawls into my lap and stretches out with his head resting on my shoulder and his chunky little paws curled beneath him.  Hello, little man, I tell him and stroke his curly coat.  He sighs and is asleep in a matter of minutes but I can feel every breath he takes and every heartbeat.  There is something about this small animal that brings out the best in me - his sweet and sometimes shy nature, perhaps, the absolute trust in his eyes, the velvet feel of his fur, the way he runs at the first sign of conflict and doesn't recognize what a toy is for.  It makes me smile to look at him and I laugh when I watch him run - coming at me, his long ears fly  in the breeze and running away from me, his short little legs are like miniature pistons, low to the ground and just slightly out of sync with the rest of him.  It's been almost a year now since I first brought him home - he blended in immediately, too gentle and too submissive to be a threat, too small to be much trouble, and too loving to be ignored.  The other animals, even the black dog, accepted him without question.  Though they are nothing alike in personality or looks or temperament, he reminds me of my first schipperke - Joshua would've loved him, I'm sure of it.  Sometimes, an animal just feels so right it defies description and there's no doubt that it was meant to be.

All but one of my animals are rescues, found on the streets or taken in when they came ( or in some cases, were delivered ) to my door in need of a warm place to sleep and a decent meal.  That I'm a soft touch is well known, too tender hearted for my own good and hardly ever able to say no, but the little dachshund....well, he was in foster care as it was, already had a warm place to sleep and enough to eat....a forever home would've been just a matter of a few days away.  And yet the instant I saw his face, I felt it - a pull so strong and so urgent that it wouldn't be denied.  

He is surely my sweetest companion, the most affectionate and gentle, the most endearing, and far and away the most photographed.  The other dogs were trained more easily, the cats take much less time and trouble. But this small, dappled, sweet eyed and shy dachshund has had my heart from first sight.  And I didn't even know I had it to offer.

The Mystery of The Push Bars

If breathing required an ability to problem solve - even if were no more than on a preschool level - a healthy percentage of the people I interact with on a daily basis would be dead.

Example:
The waiting room door opens and a young man with his jeans precariously hooked somewhere south of his hips and a baseball cap hiding most of his face stumbles/saunters in.  The fact that a) he has walked into a doctor's office and b) I am in scrubs, seated at a computer behind a glass window and c) ask if I can help him doesn't fool him for a second.

You work here? he mumbles.

I consider telling him no, there were no empty seats at the bus stop but as I've been recently reprimanded for not being "welcoming enough" (the doctor overheard me lose my temper with the automated Medicare insurance verification system), I force a smile and reluctantly tell him yes.

Where the kid doctor, he then says, Why they ain't got no sign.

Example:
As I leave for lunch I'm stopped by a young woman in the hall, also in search of the pediatrician.

It's all the way at the other end of the building, I tell her and to emphasize the direction, I point.  But there's no inside entrance so you'll have to go outside and walk down.

She nods, thanks me, and then asks me "which" other end.

The opposite end, I say sharply (To hell with welcoming), The end that isn't this end!  Glazed eyes, slack jaw. That way! and I point again.

She nods then makes her way to the (clearly marked "PUSH") double entry doors and grabs the push bar on the left door and pulls mightily.  When this doesn't work, she grabs the push bar on the right door and tries again.
When that also fails, she takes a hesitant step backward and looks bewildered.

I find myself wondering how she got into the building in the first place.

It's a mystery.






 

  

 

It's Complicated

When my daddy didn't want to talk about something - my mother's escalating drinking, for instance, or why he wouldn't even consider the possibility of divorcing her - he would give me his sad, resigned, "you'll understand when you're older smile", and tell me that it was complicated.  Guilt, obligation, and trying to do the right thing often are, I would think bitterly.  It was a kind euphemism for "Mind your business" I realized later, an understandable reaction to a child's take on an adult relationship.  I had no idea exactly how clearly I would understand when I got older and found myself trapped in the same kind of relationship.  It's complicated, I told close, well meaning friends who offered me their guest bedrooms and recommended good lawyers.  Emotions are messy, distracting and difficult things, I've learned and here's the bottom line - it's always complicated and it doesn't take much looking to find a reason to stay and tough it out - the devil you know and all that jazz.  I could no more grasp my daddy's decision to stick with it than I could my own so many years later.

Self delusion and denial are dangerous and clever, little devices, always plotting and acting in concert to undermine reality.  Once they have you in their crosshairs, they lie back and wait patiently, winning you over with fear and fraud til one day you wake up and realize that decades have passed and you're still in the same dark place with the same dark people.  If you're lucky, it's enough to jar you into the light - shaky, afraid, unsure and terrified of failing, you take the first steps.  If you fall, you pray it's forward or at the very least, sideways.   You get used to the urge to look back because it never quite entirely fades.

I'm leaving him, I tell my daddy over dessert and coffee, I've had enough.

He's silent, appraising but not judging, not quite making eye contact, toying with his cigarette lighter.

It'll be all right, I say, wishing I sounded more convincing, wishing I felt more convincing.

He loosens his tie and clears his throat but still says nothing.

I want his approval, I realize, want him to tell me it's the right thing, that he thinks it's brave and honest and admirable and sad and that it makes him proud.  

It's complicated, I tell him, but it's clear.

He nods, adds a second helping of sugar to his coffee and sips it.  Waiters are clearing tables around us and the piano player is packing up for the night.  The maitre'd has shed his formal jacket and is thumbing through receipts - he pulls a lever on an old adding machine after he looks at each one - he looks pale and tired.  So does my daddy, I suddenly see.  So, perhaps, do I.

Truth is, it's usually not that complicated.  More often than not, we just make it that way.

Downtown Buddy Brown

Look at that wicked left hand! my daddy used to say about Buddy Brown, The man plays piano like he made a deal with the devil!

I didn't know about Robert Johnson back then or else I might've questioned the originality of the comparison but my daddy was right about that wicked left hand - Buddy Brown had surely been brought into the world to make music, the raucous, hot kind of straight-from-Chicago or born-in-New-Orleans blues that most piano men only dream about.

They'd met some thirty years back, both fresh out of the service and slightly adrift in the seamy section of Boston's Back Bay.  My daddy was a door-to-door salesman and Buddy played the circuit of weekend dives and underground bars, scraping by but not by much, working construction during the day and living in a completely disreputable studio apartment just outside of Central Square.  They had little common ground except music but it was enough - the friendship endured for decades.

Not long after I turned eighteen, I got to hear them.  By then, Buddy had a regular gig and a regular following, four nights a week in an upscale piano bar in an elegant Copley Square hotel but his true passion was the after hours, nowhere-near-legitimate club across the river.  This was the inner circle - Buddy and a pick up band playing barrel house blues til dawn behind closed doors - playing for themselves, without limits, without rules.
On one very early spring morning, somewhere around 2am, my daddy knocked on a nondescript, anonymous door somewhere on Western Avenue.  He spoke a few muted words through the mail slot, there was a pause, and then the door opened into a world I'd only seen in old gangster movies - sawdust floor, rickety little tables for two with spindly cane back chairs, a long, scarred up bar with an ornate mirror.  The air was densely blue with cigarette smoke and most of the tables were empty, a single couple was swaying on the the tiny dance floor.  From the corner, the piano player glanced up and nodded - he wore a white tuxedo shirt with suspenders and shiny black trousers, a fedora sat casually atop his glossy hair, a cigarette was clamped between his teeth and a row of empty shot glasses was lined up on top of the old upright, six in all.  I had the eerie sense that we had just walked into Rick's, that Bogart or Bergman or even Claude Raines might materialize at any moment.
Instead, a tired looking waiter brought two heavy glasses and a bottle of Chivas, placed them between us and was gone by the time I looked up to thank him.  Except for the scotch - vile, metallic, with a noxious after taste of diesel fuel - I was pretty sure if there was a heaven, I'd found it.

In addition to Buddy Brown on piano, there was a stand up bass played by a thin, young man wearing a ponytail and a scuffed leather vest - a saxaphone player in khakis and Buddy Holly glasses - a trumpet player in a navy blazer with gold buttons - a barefoot drummer in sunglasses and metal bracelets - and my daddy in his neat, everyday blue suit and striped tie, wailing on clarinet.  I'd never seen this side of him before and was left speechless.  It was the first time I'd ever heard "Tishomingo Blues" or "Juke" or an unforgettable blues version of "Old Joe Avery".  The night - or morning since it was going on 5am when they wrapped it up - finished with "Buddy Bolden's Blues", and on the ride home my daddy told me the story of the legendary Buddy Bolden and how he was credited with inventing ragtime, before his schizophrenia and alcoholism, death in an asylum and burial in an unmarked pauper's grave somewhere in New Orleans.

Sad life, he said with a slight smile, but wicked good music.


I was, of course, sworn to secrecy about this remarkable night.

Your mother doesn't appreciate Buddy Brown, my daddy told me as he rolled down his cuffs and worked his collar and tie back into place, And God knows there'd be five kinds of hell to pay if she knew I'd brought you to  a modern day speakeasy, so this stays between us.

There was wisdom and clarity and insight in this small bit of secret keeping, I knew.  It was as certain, as true and as right as Buddy Brown's wicked left hand and while it became one of my most precious memories, I never told it to a single soul.  Until now.

Some years later, so my daddy wrote me, Downtown Buddy Brown stepped off a Cambridge trolley car on a warm and still dark morning in late summer.  He keeled over and fell, dead before he hit the train tracks on Massachusetts Avenue, a sheaf of sheet music in one hand and a flask of Chivas in his pocket.  He was given a dixieland funeral, my daddy said, the likes of which Cambridge had never seen, the likes of which would have done New Orleans proud. 

Assault of the Pound Cake

All I'm saying, dear, is that there's no substitute for a well trained house servant, my Aunt Helen observed as she accepted a piece of pound cake and a fresh glass of lemonade.

Nana hesitated in mid slice, re-thought her response, sighed.

I know you mean well, Helen, dear, she said finally, But it's really not up for discussion.

Alice, Helen persisted - she'd never been one to know when to quit - If it's a matter of finances....

Oh, for God's sake, Helen! my grandmother snapped and stabbed so violently at the defenseless pound cake that the glass plate cracked, Do you have any idea how ungodly pretentious you can be?

Why, Alice!  Helen exclaimed, suddenly pale and taken aback, What a perfectly horrid thing to say!

My grandmother sighed heavily, sunk into a dining room chair and mumbled a half-hearted apology.  Aunt Helen gave a righteous sniff or two, regrouped and commenced a fresh campaign.

All the best people have help these days, Alice, she said sternly, It's the done thing. Why, you can't possibly be expected to keep up with this old white elephant by yourself!

I saw Nana's knuckles clench and whiten at this, could almost hear her teeth grinding and wouldn't have been a bit surprised to see smoke coming out of her ears.  Helen rambled obliviously on about what a treasure her Mrs. O'Hara was, how she'd practically be a member of the family except for her unfortunate birthplace (South Boston, she believed, but it could hardly be held against her), how Helen herself would vouch for her honesty and work ethic, how willing she would be to have her call and arrange an interview.  Through it all, Nana held the knife in a death grip, tapping it steadily against the heavy linen tablecloth.  I had a sudden and quite vivid image of blood spilling onto the perfect, pretty pound cake and slipped away unnoticed to find my Uncle Edge.

 A knife? he asked distractedly, barely looking up from his chess game with my daddy, A sharp knife?

I nodded and tugged at his sleeve insistantly, overturning a chess piece and capturing his attention just before there was a violent crash and a tremulous little scream.  In a flash, both men were on their feet and running for the dining room but the damage had been done - Aunt Helen, doused in pound cake and lemonade was sprawled on the floor and wailing piteously, my grandmother stood over her, cake knife still clutched in her hand.

Edgecomb!  Aunt Helen shrieked, Take me away from this dreadful place!  I've been assaulted!

By all means, Edgecomb, Nana said with a grim smile, Take her away or I'm likely to do it again!  There's a coffee cake in the kitchen!

It was, everyone agreed much later, not the time for humor but the sight of the two women breathing heavily and glaring at each other like two aged and out of shape gunfighters was too much.  Uncle Eddie began to laugh and my daddy joined in - in a matter of seconds, both men were holding onto each other just to stay upright - the women, both open mouthed in astonishment, finally gave way to the ridiculousness of it all.  Nana dropped the cake knife and reached her hand out to Aunt Helen and Helen took it without hesitation.
They didn't hug exactly, but they did walk arm in arm to the kitchen for the clean up.  

Still laughing, my daddy and Uncle Eddie returned to their chess game.  

Interesting choice of weapons, don't you think, Edge? my daddy remarked.

Strategic, Uncle Eddie agreed, But a pity about the pound cake.

Stay Down, Luke

Stay down, Luke...
Inmates to Paul Newman in the fight scene, with George Kennedy in "Cool Hand Luke"

A musician's lot - out of work for months, in serious need of a shave, living in a small RV parked in the rear of the bar and living on charity and food stamps.  And yet he doesn't give up.  Every chance he gets, he drags out his old guitar and takes whatever stage is offered, playing for tips which don't come and an audience that doesn't pay attention.  It's no easy life and he isn't getting any younger - but he won't stay down.  It's like that when something calls to you, I think to myself, the music won't let you go.  The temptations of a 9 to 5 life pull at you, promising stability and security, maybe even what passes for normalcy, but the music pulls harder.  He isn't so different from most of the musicians I know, a little less lucky, a little more lonely, perhaps, but just as driven, just as compelled.  Sometimes I wonder if finding your bliss isn't a curse as well as a blessing.

Most  people I know specialize in ordinary lives.  They finish school and leave the nest, go out in the world and find work - rewarding if they're fortunate - and settle down to marry and raise families.  One marriage often leads to another, one career often ends and another begins.  Some of us end up on top and others end up on food stamps but most of us wind up somewhere in the great gray middle.  Nobody ever said it would be easy or fair and we all have times when we have to choose between staying down or taking another black eye.  Most of us aren't going to see our names in the headlines - most don't want to - but musicians and artists seek the stage like the gold at the end of the rainbow. 

The real world can be unkind and unappreciative of anyone who colors outside the lines, who's different or doesn't speak in standard form - we like the predictability of uniformity and tend to trust only what we understand.  Write a poem that doesn't rhyme, paint a picture that's harsh, tell a story that stings or take a picture that doesn't flatter - and the world may just say, Stay down, Luke.   Don't conform to the accepted dress code, paint your face in odd colors, wear a mohawk and be proud of it - and you're likely to get labeled, maybe kindly, maybe not. 

Paul Newman got up.  You're only beaten if you stay down.

Three on a Match

I'm not usually much for superstitions.

Black cats cross my path a dozen times a day, I don't throw salt over my left shoulder and I've been known to walk under ladders without a second thought.  You make your own luck, I've always thought, and no rabbit foot or four leaf clover is going to change fate but when I felt the chain that holds the small gold cross that I've worn for over 45 years suddenly come unfastened and slip, I confess I had a very bad moment.  A close inspection revealed that it was not something I could quick fix and to my dismay, I couldn't find a single other chain fine enough to attach to the cross.  Worse, it was a Sunday and even if I'd been willing to risk leaving home and the possibility of being struck dead by a lightening bolt, the jewelry stores were all closed.  I slipped the chain and cross into my pocket and hoped it would be enough.

The next day, the lady at the jewelry store smiled at me.

I understand perfectly, she assured me then said it would be the end of the week before it could be repaired, making it clear that she understood absolutely nothing. The thought of being without the cross for practically a full week sent a chill up my spine and I shook my head violently and opted to look at a new chain.  I started to explain about the lightening bolts but she was already pulling out a jewelry tray.  The price tags sent me into a mild state of shock but I held my ground, bravely handed over my credit card and a few minutes later she fastened the necklace around my neck and I felt at peace again.

It's only a piece of jewelry, a decoration, an indulgence or maybe a concession but this I know - without it, like the third soldier in the foxhole, I'm at risk.

But like I said, I'm not usually much for superstitions.

Rhubarb for Sale

The house around the cove stood not far from the dirt road, it's narrow driveway stayed partially overgrown with weeds and patches of wild rhubarb grew on either side.  A tired old canoe lay on its side on the rocky stretch of beach.   It was a perfectly ordinary house, two story with chipped shutters on the windows and dirty window panes but there was something, all the island children knew, that was forbidding.  We had to pass it coming and going but we didn't linger to skip stones or splash in the ditch.  There was a sense of very faint menace here, too unfocused to explain to our parents, too shadowy to bring into detail but we all felt it.  Frank and Rita Davis had no children and were glad of it - Nana said something had turned them mean and spiteful and unwelcoming - but she wouldn't say what.  We just knew to keep our heads down and hurry past, fearful that Frank or Rita might emerge and give us the evil eye or shout at us to Keep movin'!

There was no good reason to be afraid, of course.  Frank and Rita were simple, solitary people who asked for nothing and gave nothing, who liked their life undisturbed.  They sometimes stood by the side of the road and sold bunches of rhubarb for a quarter and once a week would paddle the canoe across the cove to Norman's, stock up on flour, sugar, tobacco and the like, and then paddle back.  Frank was a small, wiry man with a crooked back, bad teeth, a coarse black beard and malice in his eyes.  He rarely spoke - presenting Aunt Jenny with a wrinkled grocery list and paying in crumpled up, dirty dollar bills that he pulled from his ragged undershirt - she would return his change by counting it out and laying it on the counter, not wanting to put it in his hand as she did with everyone else.  Wish he'd shop at McIntyre's, she'd been heard to say more than once and Norman would snap, Shut yer mouth, woman, his money's as good as anybody else's.  Rita, plain faced with a hawkish nose and chin hairs, was tall and scrawny and reptilian-eyed.  If Frank scared us, Rita terrified us with her fierce glare.  We weren't entirely sure, but there were rumors she could turn a child to stone on a whim.  There was evil in the swish of her skirts - the sound was like dirt falling on a new grave - and we had all seen "The Wizard of Oz" and knew a witch on sight, were sure if she spoke it would be with a high pitched cackle.  Frank chased off children with a violent shout and a nasty wave of his shovel but Rita would advance upon us, broom in a two fisted grip and the look of the devil in her snake-like eyes.

It was a mystery to me that two life long islanders, both of whose families went back generations, would choose to live such hostile and isolated lives, turning their backs on the community and frightening little children for no clear purpose.  What dreadful secrets did they keep within their walls, we wondered, what wretched evil possessed them?  We were too young and filled with imagination to look for anything more rational so when Miss Clara remarked that rhubarb, while good for the digestion, was known to make a body mean, we accepted it.

Besides, Aunt Vi added, Some folks just ain't natcherly sociable.

If you ask me, Aunt Pearl chimed in, Some folks are too sociable for they's own good.

Mind your tongue, Pearl, Nana told her sharply, There's children about. 

But Pearl just shrugged.  Fine, Alice, she said mildly, But you can't protect'em forever.

I never cared much for rhubarb, Miss Clara added firmly and the women laughed a little nervously.  

One bright winter morning after a particularly cruel storm, the house around the cove burned clean to the ground and took Frank and Rita Davis with it.  Smoke and flames lit up the sky even though snow was still falling and it wasn't until the following summer that the site was cleared and the debris hauled away.  It was hard, wearying work, more so because so few island men wanted to lend their hands - it took John Sullivan and his brother the better part of four days - and after the timbers were gone and the foundation uprooted, the bricks from the chimney were dismantled and the land was burned black again.  The minister was persuaded to come and say a prayer over it but it wasn't enough - nothing was saved and nothing was ever rebuilt.

It wasn't the rhubarb, my friend Ruthie said to me years later when we were closer to grown and knew about such things as incest and inbreeeding.

No, I said, It wasn't the rhubarb.

And we walked away from that place arm in arm and didn't look back.

Tessa's Travels

Aunt Tessa arrived with no warning, erratically careening down the steep driveway in her shiny new, two tone convertible, screeching to a halt with a fine spray of gravel and dust and narrowly missing the old blue Lincoln sitting sedately by the rusty old swing set.  She gave a cheerful shout to the dogs and then climbed out a little awkwardly, trailing a bright red feather boa, her arms full of packages wrapped in colorful tin foil, her tiny feet in macramae rope sandals, an enormous leather bag slung over one shoulder. 

Call out the guards, Alice! she yelled with a toss of her wildly untidy but magnificent red hair, I have returned!  

So I see, Tessa, my grandmother called from behind the screen door and from the playhouse I could hear the smile in her voice, Got your room all ready!

Aunt Tessa was what Nana called a free spirit, a bo-he-me-un.  Somewhere in her late 40's, unmarried, fiercely independent, and depending on who you asked, either mad as a flea or endearingly eccentric, she lived, in of all places, California, where she owned and managed a small and as she said, tres exclusive art gallery and gift shop, modeled after (she admitted quite freely) Kim Novak's little shop in "Bell, Book and Candle".  Each summer she traveled extensively in search of inventory - Vermont for wind chimes, Connecticut for antiques, Mexico for fabrics and finally to Nova Scotia for driftwood and agate jewelry.  She was late arriving that summer, having spent several days looking at Amish furniture in Pennsylvania and then she confessed over champagne and water crackers with genuine Stilton cheese, I was just swept off my feet by the quartz in Arkansas, my dears, I simply couldn't tear myself away!  My Aunt Tessa - loud, extravagant, generous, and completely untamed - equally at home in her Malibu loft entertaining movie stars or sitting bare legged on our whitewashed porch steps and watching a sunset.

For the two weeks she stayed with us, the house sang.  Lights burned long into the night but she was up with the dawn - padding about barefoot, drinking coffee and smoking unfiltered cigarettes while she bartered with the locals then prowling the coast line with an apple basket, collecting shells and sea horses.  She visited all the lacemakers and the woodcarvers - Uncle Len made a killing with his painted weathervanes that year - and when the Ladies Quilting Circle met, she was near to fainting with delight and bought all six in-progress quilts that very day.  The only person she turned down, and she did it so gently and sweetly and charmingly that he never suspected her contempt, was the man from Westport who carved delicate scrimshaw pendants and keychains.

No, my dear, it's quite impossible, she said with a rueful smile, The work is quite beautiful but I couldn't bear knowing a living creature had been sacrificed for it.  Do have a scone and tell me more about fishing off St. Georges Banks.

And he did.

By the end of the second week, Aunt Tessa had filled the trunk of her shiny convertible with the small items and arranged for everything else to be packed, crated, forwarded or shipped.  She wound her red feather boa around her neck, slipped into her macramae sandals and shouldered her leather bag - heavy with homemade blackberry jam and scones, a half pound of scallops and an iced tea cake - and left us.

Until next year, Alice! she shouted through the cloud of dust and gravel, Look me up if you get to Malibu! 

My Aunt Tessa - unorthodox, irrepressible, brazen, and completely hew own person.  It took days to recover from her visit, weeks to get over missing her.  She was like a wild carnival ride - you couldn't wait to get on,  couldn't wait to get off, couldn't wait to go again.

A Little Perspective

The fan in the newly installed heat/ac unit doesn't seem to know when its work is done - even when I turn off the whole system, it keeps running like the energizer bunny.  I make a note to call the contractor first thing Monday morning.

After three days, I finally regain email access on my laptop but the programs that are running in the background and slowing things down to a snail's pace are still cheerfully running - also, call me surprised, my passwords are suddenly invalid.  I make another note to call AOL in the morning and then take the vile thing for repair.  Of course, I might also decide to simplify my life and run it over with my car - I haven't quite decided yet.

A killer storm hits, bringing gale force winds and flooding.  Naturally, I'm out in the worst of it, a quick trip for catfood turns into a minor apocalypse and by the time I get home a mudslide is in progress.  I curse the city and its engineers and make a last note to call them again on Monday - it's been three months and still no one has re-sodded the yard, as promised.

Once inside I shed wet clothes and dry my hair and settle in to watch Jesus die again on the cross.  The story never fails to make me cry.

It's late in the evening when, disgusted, discouraged, and still angry about all these trials and tribulations, that I go on line again.  And that's when I see that a mammoth tree has fallen during the storm and destroyed the house of a musician friend - there's nothing left but a pile of debris - he's posted that no one was home at the time so not to worry.  

How foolish we can be to fret and fuss over the insignificant and trivial problems in our lives.