www.LifeWithBuck.com

I was sitting outside this morning, staring into the sky and contemplating how we’re all made from carbon, and carbon is created in the stars, so we really are stardust. Buck was sitting across me but I don’t know what he was doing. I think he was reading the newspaper. Then the dog grabbed a mourning dove and started killing it and we had to jump up and run across the backyard in our bare feet, stepping on cactus spines and jagged pine cones to chase after the dog and I only got him to let go of the bird when I threw a heavy, hardback copy of The Chicago Manual of Style at him to stun him long enough to get him in a strangle hold and throw him down on the ground while Buck was shouting and inadvertently throwing rocks at us both. The dove crawled into the bushes and I dragged the dog into the house and threw him into his pen and locked the door.

I returned to my seat and tried to forget about the dove in the bushes and get my head back to the place where we’re all stardust and I just couldn’t. So I limped out (I pulled a calf muscle during the mad dash) and retrieved my Chicago Manual of Style from the desert and opened an article to copyedit. I think Buck tried to erase it from his head by hiding in his office and reading the latest news on TMZ.

Jeebus.  I hate it when the day starts like this.

 

 

 

If you look closely at this photo of my deserty backyard, you can see about twenty mourning doves eating dog food. Dry dog food, Pedigree brand, small bites for little dogs. Doves are crazy about dog food. I toss them a handful every morning while I’m drinking my coffee. I try and do it before Buck gets up because the racket made by dozens of mourning doves gets on his nerves first thing in the morning.

The doves here are nuts. If we leave a door open, one or two inevitably walk right into the house. They walk, not fly, into our house and start looking around like they’re thinking of buying the place. When you find them and chase them out, they walk out with a disgruntled look on their face. They walk very slowly out the same door they came in.

We can’t have a bird feeder here in El Paso. We tried it once. We filled a large bird feeder with seed and hung it from a tree. Within minutes, about 700 mourning doves descended on our backyard and we had to run into the house to get away from them. The noise they made was deafening. Buck said, “Don’t ever do that again.” I told him, “Ugh. Don’t worry, I won’t.”

But I do enjoy their company in the morning while I’m coffeeing up. Except for the slapping part. Yes ,slapping. That’s how they fight: they slap each other like they’re in a Three Stooges bit. It’s unsettling and I don’t like it. Last week, two of them got into a terrible slapping fight way up in a pine tree. It was violent and awful, I had go over and shake the tree just to make them stop.

Mourning doves build the worst nests in the world. They place four or five sticks on a tree branch then lay their eggs on top. The eggs fall and break on my patio, and I have to hose them off before the dogs run over and eat them. It’s gross as hell.

Last year a mourning dove left one of its babies in our courtyard. I had to worry over that thing for weeks until it was big enough to fly away. I hated that responsibility, and I’m too kind-hearted to ignore it. So I had to constantly check on this baby dove every few hours for weeks on end. It eventually flew away but it seemed to have taken forever. And the flying practice involved was unbelievable. He kept flying into my chair and I had to yell at him.

I know more about doves than I want to know. They’re okay, but if they all flew over to Mexico and I never saw them again I wouldn’t be upset.

 

 

I’ve been blogging less over here, devoting more of my time to working on my book as per my New Year’s Resolution. I’m not abandoning this blog, I’ve just been trying to finish my book. (I still write brief posts every day here.)

For all my fellow writers out there, here’s a couple of quotes I find comforting and you might too.

 

When I face the desolate impossibility of writing five hundred pages, a sick sense of failure falls on me and I know I can never do it. This happens every time. Then gradually I write one page and then another. One day’s work is all I can permit myself to contemplate, and I eliminate the possibility of ever finishing.

                   – John Steinbeck

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The first draft of anything is shit.

                  — Ernest Hemingway

Part One of this post appears below this post.

Me: THEY DO NOT. Italy does not have a fucking space program.

Buck: Yes they do. Umberto Guidoni is an Italian astronaut. He was in the Italian Air Force.

Me: Italy has an Italian Air Force? Ha. I find that impossible to believe. You’re so full of shit. [laughing] So … you took a special NASA bus at some point.

Buck: Yeah, I couldn’t believe when I saw the bus driver. I didn’t even realize he was the bus driver, I thought he some old guy they were using as a guide. His name was Kenny and when I  first saw him he was outside of the bus. I couldn’t believe it when he got on the bus and sat in the driver’s seat. I got scared, actually. [laughing]

Me: Why?

Buck: Well for starters, he couldn’t lift his head up. His neck had moved down to the middle of his chest. He had osteoporosis so bad. He was ancient, and completely bent in half. But somehow he wheeled that bus around with no problem. [laughing]

Me: He probably had some kind of contract with NASA that they couldn’t let him go, ever. He was probably a former astronaut.

Buck: Something was really weird about it. And the whole time he was driving, he was pointing out alligators on the side of the road. Suddenly he’d come on the intercom and yell, There’s an alligator to your right at 11 o’clock! and There’s an alligator to your left at 3 o’clock! It was disturbing, to say the least.

Me: Did you ask him to stop so you could pose with one of the alligators pulling off your underpants? Like the little girl in the Coppertone ad, or like in Florida postcards?

Buck: NO. And that was a puppy in the ad, not a big fucking alligator. If we had stopped, these things would have attacked the bus.

Me: I hate alligators.

Buck: There was a pelican sneaking up on one of the alligators, and I told the NASA press secretary, That pelican is gonna kill that alligator. She smiled at me like, Who’ is this fucking asshole? [laughing laughing laughing]

Me: [laughing] Do you suppose this is why people outside of New England don’t like us? Like the time we were in the Grand Canyon and we told the guide we’d both been bitten by their rabid chipmunks and it was their fault for allowing us to wear sandals?

Buck: Yes. And then the press officer said to me, No, no, pelicans don’t kill alligators. So I said, Really? I find that hard to believe because pelicans are so vicious, I’m surprised it isn’t more of a problem here in Florida. [laughing] And that pelican certainly looks like he’s gonna kill that alligator. But she didn’t get it. She didn’t think I was funny at all.

Me: So when did you get to go to that room where you’re weightless and can float around? The zero-gravity room, where you can spit and your spit will just float in the air?

Buck: Oh, you’re talking about the bus. The bus was zero-gravity inside, because Kenny kept hitting the brakes and we’d all go flying. [laughing]

Me:  [laughing laughing laughing]  So they didn’t let you into that room so you could float around?

Buck: That isn’t a room.

Me: What the hell is it?

Buck: It’s in a plane.

Me: No. You’re wrong. I’ve seen them on TV, floating around in a room and having lots of fun.

Buck: No, it isn’t. You’re talking about some ride where they shoot the air underneath you –

Me: YES. At least I think that’s what I mean –

Buck – at amusement parks.

Me: NO. They walk into a room wearing space suits and they literally float around and do aerial stunts. It’s like they’re underwater –

Buck: NO, THEY DON’T. They get up in a plane, a big plane, and then the plane dives. When the plane dives, everything’s the same weight, so you can float around in there. But the plane has to pull out of it.

Me: That sounds horrible, absolutely horrible. If I was in a plane that took a dive like that, I would not be enjoying myself floating around.

Buck: It’s happened to people in passenger jets when the plane takes such a dive –

Me: Hey, I don’t want to talk about that. I know all about it, my grandmother was in a commercial jet crash, you know.

Buck: We all know about your grandmother.

Me: [laughing]

Buck: I’m glad she was in that plane –

Me: WHAT?! [laughing] What the hell is wrong with you?

Buck: — for all the grief she’s given me. [laughing]

Me: Shut the hell up. She’s never given you any grief. Me, well, that’s another story. [laughing]

Buck: I’ve had to relive your grandmother’s plane crash regularly for more than twenty years.[laughing] I’m glad she’s dead. [laughing]

Me: Oh. My. God. [laughing]  You really are an jerk. [laughing]

Buck: I did get to see the original lunar landing control room, and that was pretty cool. I was pretty amazed by NASA, actually.

Me: Well, I think your trip sounds just okaaay. You didn’t get to float around in a state of zero-gravity, you didn’t get to eat a tube of liquid turkey and mashed potatoes … did you? Did you get to eat a tube of liquid turkey and mashed potatoes? Or any space food, for that matter?

Buck: No.

Me: Did you get to pee into a special vacuum tube?

Buck: No. Well, I did, but I don’t think it was a sanctioned tube. It was a cardboard thing I pulled out of the trash.

Me: [laughing] Ugh. I hate to tell you, but this trip sounds kinda awful.

Buck: It wasn’t. It was very cool. Fascinating, really.

Me: Right.

Buck: It was. Did you know that when they’re going to launch a shuttle, they have to use this high frequency noise-thing that drives all the alligators away? It’s to protect the alligators –

Me: It sounds to me like alligators are more trouble than they’re worth.

Buck: — but then they have to be careful, because the next day it makes the alligators just want to breed all over the place. [laughing]

Me: Oh God! How hideous. Imagine taking off in a rocket and looking out the window and seeing that taking place all over the ground below you? Jeezus. I’d freak out. I’d probably throw up.

Buck: NASA is very fascinating.

Me: No it’s not, Buck. It’s a very weird place. And after this trip of yours, I’m no longer sure I believe we really went to the moon.

Buck: [laughing] That’s insane.

Me: No, it’s not. [laughing] And I’m not the only person who feels this way –

Buck: Why do you have to bring Coast to Coast into everything? Why must George Noory and his conspiracy friends infiltrate every thread of our lives –

Me: It’s not just George Noory that thinks that, okay? NASA was probably lying when they said we went to the moon. I think it was all staged. They probably  filmed it here in El Paso.

Buck: Hey, just because we have NASA here in El Paso –

Me: WHAT?! We do not.

Buck: We do! [laughing] It’s right out by the airport. It’s where the shuttle astronauts train. Here and at White Sands.

Me: Right … Ugh. I don’t know what happened to you at NASA, but you’ve returned as the Manchurian Candidate. You’re completely insane. Wait till I Fast Blast George Noory this week and tell him about this. His hair is gonna stand on end. 

________________

Me: Oh my God. What it is with you and batteries? You’re killin’ me –

Buck: What? The batteries are right where they always are –

Me: But you’ve got all these dead ones. Why do you keep these dead batteries? It’s like you’ve got this ailment involving dead batteries –

Buck: They’re not dead. They work just fine in clocks.

Me: Ugh. I feel like the next thing you’ll be re-using is our old coffee grounds. This is retarded.

Buck: [laughing] Everything is retarded to you. You’re so retarded you can’t even find the new batteries, you choose to take the loose ones that are just floating around in a drawer. [laughing]

 Me: I hate batteries so much. Whatever. People have been complaining to you because I haven’t been posting, but I believe all they really want is to read about is some Aston Martin you drove in Nineteen-Dickity-Two.

Buck: I drove a ‘65 Pontiac Bonneville in high school.

Me: In tenth-grade?

Buck: No. That was a Porsche I was driving in, I think, eighth-grade, at Lance Louis’s house. His father would fly to New Jersey for the weekend, and he kept a Porsche in the barn up on blocks. So we’d put the wheels on it, the battery in it, take it off the blocks and drive it around.

Me: Like in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

Buck: Except we were a lot younger. It was probably eighth-grade.

Me: You little bastards.

Buck: I always drove. Lance didn’t know how to drive a stick. Neither did I, but I told him I did. [laughing]

Me: [laughing] What is Lance doing now? Does he own a car dealership?

Buck: No. He’s probably a doctor or something. His father was a doctor. We only got caught because Lance insisted on driving one time.

Me: Fool that he was.

Buck: Yes. So he immediately took off in reverse gear and shot down a hill against a horse fence that was next to their house. They owned a farm. The only way we could get the car out … I was driving it up the hill while Lance was pushing it. The tires were spinning like crazy the whole way. Then, when I hit the driveway, it left two black strips. Two big black strips in the driveway. [laughing]

Me: And that’s how you got caught?

Buck: Well, we tried to clean it all up. We cleaned the tires, we put it back up on blocks. But his parents came home and noticed the two black tire marks in the driveway. [laughing]

Me: Why the hell were the parents always going to New Jersey?

Buck: He was a doctor and he had a practice there. He had a practice in Taunton and one in New Jersey.

Me: That is insane. Why would he do that?

Buck: He had his own plane.

Me: But it’s not like … I mean … Jesus, if he wanted a practice out of state for whatever bizarre reason, why didn’t he just go over the line to Rhode Island? Why the hell did he fly from Massachusetts to New Jersey? He sounds like a complete lunatic –

Buck: He had his own plane. He flew there. It only took him about two hours.

Me: This is getting crazier.

Buck: He had a lot of money. He was an anesthesiologist.  He put people to sleep.

Me: LIKE THIS STORY IS DOING TO ME.

Buck: [laughing]

Me: So … NASA. You’ve recently returned from NASA. But … were you actually in NASA?

Buck: Yes. I’ll show you the photo I ruined. It’s so embarrassing. I know there are all these editors groaning about this photo taken with an astronaut because I wrecked it.

Me: I doubt you wrecked it.

Buck: I did. I was all bent over and looking stupid.

Me: Well, I’m pretty sure I want to use it in my blog.

Buck: I don’t know. This is really humiliating, even for me.

Me: I’ll blur the other people’s faces. But not the astronaut. The astronaut has to show his face, it’s the price you pay when you become an astronaut.

Buck: That’ll look weird.

Me: I don’t care. So … how the hell did you get there? I was in a fever fog, and this whole trip you took was like a bad dream to me.

Buck: We rode motorcycles there.

Me: And that was your destination? NASA? You didn’t arrive there by accident, did you?

Buck: Yeah. We were doing circles around the space shuttle when they ran out and stopped us.

Me: [laughing]

Buck: The astronauts live in the shuttle and we were disturbing them.

Me: [laughing] Whatever. So, you and a bunch of people from Italy hopped on motorcycles and rode to NASA.

Buck: Yeah. It was very nice. We took all these back roads and went through all these forests and swamps. They warned us we had to watch out if we made a pee stop because there were all these alligators and snakes.

Me: If I had been there, I would have just wet my pants. I have no qualms about doing that  –

Buck: I know.

Me: — if there are reptiles involved.

Buck: You have no qualms about doing it even if reptiles aren’t involved.

Me: No. No. That’s only when I cough or laugh really hard, and it’s because of having kids. Kids ruin your bladder –

Buck: So you say.

Me: — and that’s why I hate kids. Kids suck. Kids and animals. I hate them both so much … But anyway, were you scared something would rise up out of the murky depths and bite off your private parts while you were pissing in a swamp?

Buck: No, I refused to go. I held it the whole way. I was grabbing my crotch like a little kid. [laughing]

Me: You were not.

Buck: Yes I was.

Me: Well on the bright side, that’s a rapper move, grabbing yourself like that. Did the people from Italy think you were a rapper?

Buck: Um … no. They were all peeing, even the women. But I wouldn’t go into that snake and alligator infested swamp.

 Me: I wouldn’t either. As I said, I’d just pee my pants. I can hardly stand the rest stops in the Southwest. They’re always in the desert and they always have those big BEWARE OF RATTLESNAKES signs. It makes me want to just pee in into my Fryes and to hell with the consequences. Did they have alligator and snake signs where your Italian friends were relieving themselves?

Buck: No.

Me: How long did it take to get to NASA?

Buck: It took quite a while because we had to do a lot of photo shoots along the way. I don’t know how long it took, but it was about 50 miles from the hotel.

Me: When you arrived at NASA, did Jean Shepherd run out to greet you?

Buck: Jean Shepherd? The writer?

Me: The astronaut.

Buck: That’s Alan Shephard.

Me: I do love Jean Shepherd. You can download his old radio shows off of iTunes, but mostly he loved talking about his military days when he was on the radio, he hardly ever mentioned A Christmas Story, but it’s nice to just hear his voice –

Buck: What the hell are you talking about?

Me: You and Alan Shephard. Oh wait … if I recall, and I can’t do that very well because I still had a fever when you got back, but if I recall, you were complaining that the astronauts you met were all strangers, none were identifiable.

Buck: Yes. When we got on  the official NASA bus for them to take us around, they told us we’d be meeting these two guys, I said, What?! You couldn’t get a REAL astronaut? Where the hell is Alan Shephard and John Glenn?

Me: [laughing laughing laughing] Did all the people from Italy laugh?

Buck: NO. They had no idea what I was talking about, and the ones who could understand me probably thought I was incredibly rude. And the press officer from NASA looked at me in shock. She looked like she was going to faint. There was this long dead pause after I said it.

Me: [laughing laughing laughing] Well you’re my hero, anyway. I think it’s really funny.

Buck: I did too. I was chuckling about it, but as it turned out I was chuckling to myself. People were aghast, especially that press officer. She was horrified.

Me: Did you ask about the woman astronaut who wore diapers and tried to kill that other woman astronaut? [laughing]

Buck: You have no idea how badly I wanted to ask about her. I wanted to meet her.

Me: Definitely. That would have been such a wonderful, wonderful dinner party anecdote.

Buck: I really wanted to ask about her, but I figured I’d already overstepped my bounds by balking at the astronauts nobody’s ever heard of.

Me: It’s probably all the same to the people from Italy. They have no idea about astronauts.

Buck: Yes they do! They have a space program!

Me: THEY DO NOT. Italy does not have a fucking space program.

 

End Part One

Go Here For Part Two

*I truly apologize for breaking this Q&A into two parts. My tape recorder broke during this interview and it’s taking me much longer to transcribe the tape than it normally does. I’ll post the second half of this Sunday evening. 

_____________________

 

 

                                               Influenza Virus

 

Just a note to say that I have not abandoned this blog, and I’m not ignoring it. I’ve been sick as a bastard, I’ve had the flu and I’m still getting over it. (Strange blogging has been going on over at my other blog, if anyone’s interested. Buck was pinch hitting for me.) I really miss blogging here, and I can’t wait until I feel strong enough to get back on here and post. I need to interview Buck about his recent trip to NASA, and how he somehow managed to alienate members of our space program. See you soon.

 

This is the wall that surrounds our property in El Paso. It’s the Wonder Wall.

El Paso is so far from New England I could scream out loud sometimes, but there are a lot of things I really like about living here that are hard for people to understand.

I’m thinking maybe that’s my fault, as I spend most of my time talking about all the things I don’t like. But in all honesty, that’s what some people like to hear. I think it makes them feel better about living in the same place their whole lives. I’m talking mostly about my family and I’m not trying to be unkind when I say that. I fully understand it because I used to be the same way; hearing that you’re better off staying at home is very comforting.

But I had this nagging guilt that living in the same house in the same town for 30 years was probably not the true definition of living, and this might not be how it’s supposed to go. Yet I wasn’t happy about the idea of stepping outside my comfort zone to try anything new and different, not that different anyway. I admit to feeling better about my decision to stay put whenever I heard horror stories about people who had ventured off of Cape Cod and failed. It wasn’t total schadenfreude, but it was comforting. Like when I watched a friend move to Belize and it turned into a scene from Mosquito Coast, and the couple who moved just over the bridge to Plymouth and ended up moving back to the Cape in less than a year because they couldn’t seem to assimilate. It wasn’t that I wanted these folks to fail, but hearing that they had made me feel like I was doing the right thing by never leaving.

I was basically forced into leaving because of love, opportunity, and a fear of becoming an old lady who spent her whole life standing in one spot. The latter was an especially powerful fear that was swelling within me and, in retrospect, I now know that I was well on my way to making it a reality. When the kids were growing up we were always trying new things, going places, keeping active. But when they started approaching their 20s things kind of tapered off and quieted down, and somehow without realizing it I’d become timid. I did not want this queer timidity that had taken hold of me in later years to be the example I set for my children. I wanted them to continue to go out and grab life, try new things, and never be fearful of the unknown no matter how old they were. Even though Buck always set a good example in this category, I knew that if I didn’t also set an example for them, they wouldn’t fully get the message. And I really-really wanted them to get the message.

With that in mind, as well as the job opportunities on Cape Cod having dwindled while the traffic problem continued to worsen, I didn’t see any reason to fight Buck anymore on his argument that it was time for our Act II and we needed to move on. He was right, opportunity does get tired of knocking, and I’d refused to open the door so many times I couldn’t be sure it would ever coming knocking again.

So here we are in Texas, of all places, and it goes without saying that I miss everybody. But the fact of the matter — and it’s an important fact – is that there are a lot of things I like about our life in El Paso. I think I should start letting people know.

One of the things I treasure about living here is our privacy, and I attribute it to this wonderful wall you see in the photo at the very top of this post.  This wall is so wonderful, I call it the Wonder Wall. Made of stone and standing at six-feet-tall, it surrounds our entire property and keeps our dogs in and nosy neighbors out. From the outside it is a fortress, but from the inside it’s hidden by some Southwestern variety of azalea that blooms from May to November with pink and white flowers. Granted, they’re the only flowers that can live in our Mexican-oven of a backyard, but they’re lovely and I’m grateful for them. I’ll take a photo in the spring, but here is how it looks this afternoon:

This wall might not seem like a big deal to some people, but it is to us. We would never be able to afford a six-foot stone wall surrounding our property in New England (we had a ratty stockade fence that was in constant need of repair). So that’s one thing I’m really loving about El Paso, that our dollar goes so much farther here and we’ve got a Wonder Wall to remind us of it.

Now I need to go take a nap, and that’s another thing I love about El Paso. No, not the siestas, though I do love those. It’s the fact that in this house we have so many wonderful spots in which to nap. This afternoon, I’ll be reading and napping here on this couch in a corner of our kitchen. That’s another thing we’d never be able to afford in New England, a kitchen big enough to add a napping corner. G’night, sweet dreams, and adios for now.

This week’s selection for Poetry Wednesday is this:

 

I believe my muse for this one was a blowhard artist who incorporated only “found beach objects” in his work and kept name dropping while referring to the hundreds of art classes he’d attended all over the globe. I wondered if in reality he was simply asking people to send him postcards. I apparently had a child with me, which means Buck must have been very busy as well that day. If we were without daycare for whatever reason, Buck usually brought them to the bike shop with him. Depending on which son I had with me, that drawing to the left is either a song (Max) or a story (Sam) written while waiting for the blowhard to stop talking.

 

This poem is from the collection titled My Old Job. As always, I wrote it somewhere between 1990-1992. Staff meetings were new to me then, and I thought there was something wrong in the way our meetings turned out. As I became more experienced I realized that all staff meetings everywhere go like this.

My daughter got me into GoodReads, a free website for readers who want to know what their friends are reading. Joan (from Whatever I Think)  and Dragonfly (from Thoughts From An Intoxicating Mind) have both joined now, making my list of friends a total of five. I really like this, because  I can see what they’ve read, add my own two-cents on the subject, and also see what I think I might like to read next. It’s a no pressure book club of sorts.

The good thing about GoodReads is that you can pop in whenever the mood strikes, read some reviews, add some books, or whatever. It’s very low key. I find myself going there late at night when I can’t trust myself to write anything of substance. I peruse the site and add books I suddenly remember I’ve read . 

GoodReads has some very cool widgets to put in your sidebar if you’re interested in such things, although the coolest one by far is a flash and WordPress doesn’t allow those. You can still insert the badge, however, and it will tell people what you’re currently reading.

If you’re interested in joining, let us know so we can friend you up.