Morning Thoughts: February 25, 2018

It’s always something. The monsoons lifted, but the “mudsoon" lingers. Outside, there is a two-inch thick coating of claymore mud. More on the kitchen floor. The spiders have tracked it up the walls creating limericks along the way. Here’s one:

There was a Black-Widow named Lexis,

Who hooked up with a Recluse from Texas,

She showed him some fun,

But when they were done,

She feasted on his solar plexus.

Around the world:

On Facebook, there’s muddy reasoning.

In Washington, there’s muddy talk.

From Hollywood, there are only muddy films.

The top brass in the military is bragging about their doctrine, developed in the 1970s, of only invading dry countries. “Mud is for fools and farmers,” they say.

I heard a TV evangelist say that “there is no mud in Heaven,” but how in the hell would he ever know?

Even the TV commercials are muddy now. I don’t even know what they are promoting.

Meanwhile, back at the farm, It’s a mud-prone world.

 We have to change the HVAC mud-filter daily.

I tried to go for a walk but found that, when I took a breath, I exhaled a fine mist of mud.

They had to close the barber and beauty shops in town. Hair was so muddy it ruined the scissors.

Birds can’t fly for the caked-on mud. They are disguising themselves as dog-turds to fool the cats.

The catfish have made the pond bank into a mud-slide. They are the only ones having fun.

If it will only dry up a bit, I have to search for our vehicles. They all slid away to parts unknown.

When they fired up the church organ this morning, only wads of mud shaped like notes came out.

And speaking of churches in the community, the favorite hymn of the day seems to be, "When the Mud is Dry up Yonder, I'll Be There."

Church sign down the road reads, “Don’t build your house on shifting mud.”

The missionaries are using Skype.

Elsewhere:

Walmart is running a special on mud-pie shells.

This morning, I saw a group of nightcrawlers building a mud-raft out of bamboo shoots.

Later, I saw a periscope moving through the mud. It was the postman.

A peddler just came by selling mud-filters for baby bottles.

  

The mud-mist is so thick that the 18-wheelers on I-40 are slowed to 93-miles per hour.

And I’m working on an essay entitled, “Mud As A Metaphor – How Life’s Most Worthless Things Stick To Your Shoes the Longest.”

Joggers beware!

Sunrise With Schubert: February 21, 2018

Ever have a tough week? I have. When it happens, I go back and watch videos of Kristallnacht, or 9-11, then to St. Jude’s website where I normally make a contribution.

This may be one of those weeks. It’s shaping up to be a dandy, so I may extend my Plädoyer für Stärke (plea for strength for which our Jewish brothers and sisters must have wished) generosity to the Southern Poverty Law Center as well. I might even extend the salve of serenity to the Cure Alzheimer’s Fund. Bestowments can sanctify, as I have always found.

Like I say, it’s not looking good, though. This week. I’m in line for an adult dose it seems.

First, our country is still reeling from a national tragedy. Instead of comforting one another, we have divided into camps and the “insults of blame” grow more furious and frivolous with each passing hour. Whereas we once had leaders who offered healing words in times like this, this “new batch of railroad bums” seems to revel in our discord. Few people look to religion for common healing anymore because, it seems to me, that so few people seem to worship grace and love in these bewildering times. I’m sure that both the Galilean and the Apostle would weep to hear Franklin Graham speak for them.

And, our part of the country is facing a deluge that may evoke a minor Katrina or Harvey. The first day of the rain event has already flooded ground that was already soaked and we have four more days to go. The weather, in recent years, has become a monster of extremes and shows no signs whatsoever of forgiving us for our sins against its planet.

On a personal level, our familial responsibilities have entered a new and more despairing phase. The fact that it was inevitable and expected doesn’t lessen the pain.

My body aches of a morning. The spirit of T.S. Eliot just walked by, mocking me with:

“I grow old ... I grow old ...

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.”

Pardon me. I need to take a break.

Back now. Just walked into the bedroom to get a robe when a rain-darkened sky allowed just enough light to illuminate the face of my dear companion, still sleeping. She must have been dreaming of pleasant times. We have, after all, had our share. She smiled in sleep, and the glow of it slapped me in the face like a blast of warming heat on a frozen field.

Suddenly, I was beautiful again.

Now, where’s my ZZ Top CD and that dad-blasted checkbook?

"Suck it up Jocko.
We'll always have Wattensaw."
That always helps.

Sunrise With Schubert: February 20, 2018

Nothing happens in moderation anymore. Even the slightest holiday evokes orgiastic waves of guilt-inducing commercials. Spend, they command. Spend or you aren’t a good person. Spend on whomever we honor this week. Spend before it’s too late and you’re considered a bad person. That won't make America great again.

Soon, there may be a “Neighbor’s Day,” on which we are urged to buy a Rolex watch for the man whose dog craps in your yard and a string of pearls for his gossipy wife.

Now it’s the weather. Anyone by now who doesn’t believe the weather patterns are changing has been spending too much time on social media, twittering about hell knows what.

As I write this, we await another monsoon season. I thought I had seen the last of those years ago. But noooo. The experts tell us it’s going to rain each day for the foreseeable future and the ground here is still engorged from the last of Mother Nature’s frivolous binges.

Our farm, where we spend a lot of time caring for a loved one, rests on sixty feet or more of pure clay soil. In fact, the owners of bygone days used to have a brickyard here, operated by slaves, of course. Legend has it that the Federals burned said brickyard and took the slaves and other livestock because the owners were suspected of sheltering the infamous Confederate, guerrilla, spy, and cross-dresser,  “Doc” Rayburn.

But I digress, probably from an unconscious urge to get my mind off the coming deluge. The point I had started circling my tattered wagon-train of a mind around concerned the clay soil. Left to its on predilections, clay makes a suitable, if strong-willed surface upon which to drive vehicles. It’s not much for row-crops, a feature that accounts for the past preference for dairy farming in these parts. Clay soil is just clay soil. It harbors no desire for greater grandeur.

Now, however, when such clay soil is subjected to freezing, and, if you remember, we had a “cold-weather monsoon” back in January, its mindset changes and it wills itself into a gelatinous substance of undisguised ill-will. Add a little, or lot in some cases, of rain and it’s like driving on a field of Jell-O.

That’s what we have to look forward to, and why I’m not overflowing with the “milk of human kindness" this morning. In fact, I think I’ll find me a dog (I won’t have far to look) and just kick the hell out of it.

Goodbye, and bite me.

Oh, and have a blessed day.

Yeah. You'll be in my thoughts and prayers all right.