Just Thinking....

Why is it that whenever I'm behind someone in line I want to slap them out of my way. The backs of people's heads enrage me for some reason. Maybe because they are so innocent and defenseless. If I could have any superpower I wanted, just one wish to be granted, it would be to have the ability to morph my right hand into Andre The Giant's hand. Whenever I get the urge my hand just turns into the big freaks hand and I wallop the person in front of me upside the head. No harm intended. I don't dislike you per se, it's just that your head annoys me.

Darkness

Sitting in the darkness listening to old school country music wondering if there is a point to any of "this". We're all on borrowed time. Cinnamon(my last surviving bantam hen) is out there all alone waiting for the fox to come and get her. All of us have a "fox" out there that's making its way toward us. I guess the best attitude to have is the "duct tape a meat cleaver to each hand and sprint in the direction of the "fox" laughing all the way" attitude.

My Grandfather's Bar

Mrs D.O.M.s latest assignment for me is to paint all the furniture in the dining room white. I hate painting and I hate when it's given to me as a chore. Anyway, one of the pieces in the dining room is a bar that my grandfather made about 50 years ago. I've been putting off "re-doing" this for years. To me it's a holy item. My grandfather was a carpenter/casket maker and the bar was made from mahogany that was used to make caskets. I'm sure, the project of making the bar, was and excuse of his to escape from his family. Something ALL real men do. "What honey? You want me to make a bar? Sure thing, I'll be out in my workshop every night for a week. I'll need to get some supplies(Vodka and cigarettes) first". What's really cool about this piece is some of his writing on the underside of the shelves in the back. There are a couple of scribbled notes and some measurements written down(that I never knew were there until today)and to me it makes the bar even more special. It's like part of his spirit resides there. And don't think that I don't know how wrong it is to paint over beautiful wood like mahaogany. Norm Abram would have my head, but I see it as a way to keep it part of the family. Adapt and you survive. To honor my Dad and his Dad I really should be drinking Vodka while I do this. It is a bar after all. I'll do the final coat of paint while drinking a shooter and smoking a camel non filter.

Saturday Morning

I'm setting up Mrs D.O.M.'s tent at the Concord Art Market in the freezing cold frigid October morning(it snowed yesterday morning Mr Gore) I'm not cold everybody but else is. They're babies and they're not built for extremeness like me. Anyway I'm walking by a woman who was setting up her tent

Missy is Gone

I went to let my hens out this morning and instead of seeing two of my little sweethearts, only one greeted me. The late Ruben's old lady Missy didn't make it back into the coop last night. It means only one thing. She's in the belly of some animal. How the hell can anyone eat a chicken? She was a wonderful friend. The last remaining chicken, Cinnamon, has always gone into a state of hysteria whenever she lost sight of Missy. This is going to be hard on her. Tenderhearted Mrs D.O.M. said I should just snap Cinnamon's neck to put her out of her misery.

Saturday NIght

So I'm in the "Dress Barn" with Mrs D.O.M. We're loaded. Dresses? What's not to like. But when your Doc "Friggin" Manly you got no business being in a dress store with a bunch of dames. They don't even have a bloomer section. I'm trying to get Vicki to steal a dress but she's having none of it. What the hell are we doin in Kittery anyway? I wonder if any one of these broads wants me to take my shirt off and show them my new tattoo. Vicki stops me. I giggle like a school girl and do my "Duke Wayne" saunter to a rack of skirts over by the dressing room. After about five minutes of pretending to thumb through the rack I notice Mrs D.O.M. has left the store. That bitch!

Friday Night

Coffee. Tom Jones cranking. Working on Don Knotts drawing. Taylor on an ice cream run. Verde on loon patrol down in Lowell. Feel like I've got a grip. Recent local heinous crime got me thinking about more firepower. Booby traps? Clown suit? How cool would this be. Someone breaking into my house and I come running out of the woods in a Spongebob costume with a .45 in each hand. Just riddling my house with bullets. I smash the would be home invaders out of my way and break my own door down... Anyway... I can't wait for Taylor to get back, she's supposed to surprise me with a new ice cream flavor.

A Day at Jim's Tattoo

Lots of stress lately, raging arguments in my head with no end in sight and no foreseeable solution. No solution until The Smoke Eater(famous Boston Firefighter) calls me and says "When we gettin some more ink". That's it! An afternoon among the manly is what's needed. Nothing better for the soul than to spend the day at Jim's Tattoo shop and having a tattoo legend dig a hole in your arm with a needle attached to an old dentist drill for two hours. This to me is the equivalent of when "normal people" go get a massage or spend the day at the spa having a relaxing mud bath. Getting a tattoo is an almost zen-like meditative experience(which may be addictive). Sitting in a chair for hours, focused on breathing, trash talking our "old ladies", the game on, pain blood and ink in abundant supply. Like modern day vikings. I mean, have you ever had a stressful day at work or stuck home with the family and wanted to empty a revolver in your head or taser yourself? A tattoo scratches that itch.

Pantalones and The Rooster

Pantalones and The Stranger

I found myself trying to befriend this cat, not in a normal way(whatever that means)cats don't like the normal. I'm in a house packed with people. All loons in their own right. Daren our host, just like Yul Brynner in the "Magnificent Seven", has spent a lifetime gathering only the craziest of crazies for who knows what reason. He gets us together for these parties to get us "used" to each other. I haven't figured out why just yet. Anyway, so I'm standing there in the middle of a fascinating conversation with Steven Hawking and George "The Animal" Steele. A flamenco guitarist is playing Malaguena. A three year old girl is tap dancing to the music and.... I think I'm getting side tracked again. Where was I? So I'm trying to befriend this cat who is curled up in this chair but I'm trying to do it in my mind. The cat's looking up at me and I'm just staring at it and saying to it "I love you. I would never hurt you,I'm not like these other people". This is all in my head, and it worked. Slowly I made my move and sat on the chair, inch by inch, until we were snuggling together. Hello! I'm a cat whisperer. The next thing you know I have the cat in a baby carriage(in my mind) and we are strolling down the street. All the other fathers have their cats in similar strollers. Smiling nods as we pass each other. Pantalones,the cats name, looks up at me and says that she's in the mood for a lollipop. She giggles a little and tells me she's joking. I think to myself today is the most wonderful day of my life. Filled with joy, I scoop up Pantalones and start running down the street. She looks up at me and starts shouting "Faster Daddy, Faster".....

More Hiking

More hiking this weekend. I dragged my Mom,nephew and children up yet another mountain this weekend. I haven't been on this one in like 10 years so I forgot how steep parts of it were. The trail was very wet and slippery and in some spots nearly vertical, not really but to a seven year old girl(and their Grandmother) it must have been pretty scary. We turned back about a half a mile from the summit, at the bottom of a particularly steep section with water running down it. To me it was a total success because the girls pushed themselves out of their comfort zone and had a good time doing it. Mostly because they were following the lead of their ten year old cousin, D.O.M. junior, who sprinted up the steep sections laughing all the way.

The African Sulcata as a Pet

I found Leonardo while driving in my work van about four years ago. I was stuck in a traffic jam and I got out of the van to see what was going on and noticed everyone was stopped because a large tortoise was walking down the middle of the street. At first I thought it was a snapping turtle because thats the only thing around here that could be that big. I got a better look at it and I knew it wasn't from these parts so I made my way through the crowd and picked up the beast and put him in the back of my van. I didn't know at the time that it was the third largest tortoise species on the planet. I called my wife and,excitedly, told her that I found a tortoise in the road and was bringing it home. She was picturing a box turtle when I told her, boy was she surprised. Anyway that was the beginning of our life with Leo the African Sulcata.

Mount Monadnock

Two seconds after I realized that I've gone as far as I could go installing the carpet in the new classroom downstairs, the argument that's been going on in my head for months picked up right where it left off. The inside off my skull is like a drunken Parliament meeting where someone exploded a gigantic killer bee bomb. Everyone running around screaming. Hookers, politicians, crazy relatives, serial killers, clowns, chickens, Howdy Doody, Jethro Bodine, all of "Them". And I'm screaming back at them, because they're all nuts. So ,thinking that I was going to be alone the rest of the day, I knew I wasn't going to "last" very long. So I came up with the idea of hiking up Mount Monadnock. A four mile fairly strenuous hike on an 80 degree day. Perfect for chasing the demons away. After eating a huge bowl of macaroni and cheese I got myself an iced coffee from Dunkins and drove the hour and a half to the 3000ft mountain. I pull up to the gate and the ranger gives me the whole "Hi, how are you, nice day isn't it" crap. He asks me if I've ever been here before and if I needed a map. I was like, "you too? I'm The F-ing D.O.M.!, just give me my ticket before I stab you." If I get lost, just look to the sky to see all the bodies I will be hurling off the mountain. Anyway, I put on my late Uncle George's hiking boots, slung my rucksack over me back and headed up the trail.

So things were going pretty good. I had to stop to take some aspirin to try and stop the baby headache that was forming and I had to go to the bathroom but the place was surrounded by a group of young "feel gooders" sitting at the picnic tables all "happy". No thanks. Probably pee my pants later anyway. OK. So my hiking strategy was to plod along when nobody was around and when I encountered anyone I would triple my speed past them, while holding my breathe so they wouldn't hear how heavy I was panting. What's weird is I didn't feel the effect of my hiking style until I stopped to catch my breathe after a particularly steep section(where a lot of people were resting, so I wasn't breathing out, only slowly in as I passed them, just so they would feel bad at how amazing I was). Anyway, at the top of this section, I stopped to take my first break and it felt like someone had shrink wrapped my face. Not only could I not breathe but my heart was beating so fast I couldn't recognize any individual beats. It was like a hummingbirds heart. A hummingbird that ate cheese at every meal,every day of its life. After letting my body calm down for about five minutes I set off again, repeating this process often. About two thirds of the way up my legs started to shake uncontrollably and I seriously thought that they would just buckle under me and stop working but they didn't and I got into a really good rhythm and made the summit in about and hour(I've done it in less than half that time in the distant past). Above treeline on Monadnock was absolutely beautiful. Very inspiring. Idiots lazing around being stupid on the summit kept me from spending any time up there. I did stop often on the way down to enjoy the fine view and have some snacks. At some point while making my way down the mountain I realized that there hadn't been any arguments in my head since I started the hike. I had found some peace. I even started talking and even encouraging the fellow hikers that I came across. I didn't hate them anymore. Not up there on the mountain anyway. I even waved (one finger) at the ranger on the way out. Then one more iced coffee for the road and back to stupid reality.

Vacation Day

Beautiful day hiking with the girls

The Wood Frog and Mother Nature's Son

The cold little guy sits in the road
Terrified!
Love is near
A warm glow overwhelms him
He bends down
Raining tears of goodness on his new friend
Picking up this little tan guy
An eternal bond is made
Placed in the tall grass
Words unspoken
They part ways
Sadness and Joy