Venus de Silo

So I said “Oh, I’ll just hit it with a sledgehammer like here… and maybe over there, and it’ll come down, fer shure.”
My brother wasn’t convinced.
“And how do you know which direction it’s gonna fall?”
“You don’t, see; that’s the beauty of it..”
“..and if it falls on the barn?”
“Well, that’d be a problem, yeah, now that you mention it.”
So he did some research, found this outfit that takes down silos; “Venus De-Silo & Sons”, their ad in the book says “Put yer silo in our hands.” and yeah, they did have a picture of the famous (armless) Goddess-of-Love-and-Fermented-Corn-Silage. Shoulda had her kicking holes in the base of a silo with her marble legs, though, I thought. Not a lot of soccer fans are aware of the fact that she single-handedly invented the sport… after The Incident, y’know, with her enraged lover.
      Anyway, the Venetians showed up in their professional glory: two guys with sledgehammers(!)
“So, how do you know which direction it’s gonna fall?” my brother asked one of ’em, the guy with the most teeth.
“Well…” They kinda looked at each other.
There ensued a round of furious sledge-hammering, interupted every few minutes by conferences, discussion of tactics I suppose, and at one point it just fell down. A giant barn owl living under the roof rode the thing to the ground and emerged
unscathed. The two de-silo-ers allowed themselves to boast a bit:
“You just have to know where to hit it.” Yeah, right…

Bad Luck Don’t Tread on me no mo..

No need to comment here, it’s just more Good News…
     Old tires, like the 24 in the picture, a ‘gift’ from my ex-tenant-from-Hell, are $3 apiece to throw away around here. Unless…
Unless you have a film crew working behind the scenes making a Queen-4-a Day movie of your Life, in which case a van stops in the driveway 5 minutes after you finish stacking ’em, and the driver (an actress, I recognize her by now, but I didn’t let on; c’mon guys, give Costume a bigger budget for wigs..) asks if I’d be willing to sell them. Something about ‘we’re building an obstacle course..’  I just said ‘Take ’em, they’re yours, kid.” and smiled in all four directions. They probably need that scene for character development, where they prove that with enough unexpected Fortune, even Droopy will eventually admit “You know what? I’m happy..”
ADD: Just noticed my neighbor’s vanity plate. Sweet, but no, you still can’t park on my lawn…

Have a pleasant but respectful weekend. Freedom, such as it is, sounds like it ought to be free… but it doesn’t always turn out that way.

 

OK, now You write a story, and I promise to read it and comment.

One of a hundred and twenty or so short stories on this site.

Holy Blue Bird of Happiness!!

I just rented my house, to the perfect couple with perfect kids, the perfect attitude, perfect jobs, and probably a perfect dog, although I haven’t met him/her. (It would take a fairly awful mongrel and/or rabid critter to ruin this parade, I have to admit, despite my fear of success.)
    And it’s all the doing of those “Story of BOJ” people, the film-crew, grips and gaffers who’ve been engineering nothing but bliss for me here since I set foot on the Western Hemisphere back in February. I know they read this, they show up as “-Hollywood, CA-“. on my tracker. Who else could it be? So I just wanted to document my happiness here, and wish them financial success at the box office. Hope I look snazzier than in the last movie made about me, where I mostly bounced about looking like a 130 year-old carpenter who spends the night under a bridge somewhere.
    At any rate, my life’s work on this hemisphere is now at an end. I can go home to my uncouth horde of road-rage-ers, unfathomably incompetent government workers, and other sundry protoplasmic disappointments. But also to my blessed flowers, plants, birds, furry critters, family, and friends, and to a spirit of nation-building which, in spite of its faults, is still almost fun to watch. The US is also in an exciting though sobering period of transition it seems, but they’ll do just fine without me while I’m gone.
     I do need to decide how to celebrate(?). Wish I could party with my blue birds, dance cheek-to-beak till the cows come home. The film crew released one of them at precisely the right moment, while my prospective tenants were telling me how much they love songbirds and I was relating how I’d even seen a few Buntings.She didn’t land on my head and sing angel songs (their trainer’s not that good), but I’m sure it’ll be dubbed in on the DVD.
Wonder where they’re hiding the camera?

‘Through the Wringer, Sideways’ {or} “How I got my house off Meagan’s List and onto Craig’s”

“I notice you left your ‘grandmother’s shoe size?’  blank..” I said, trying my best to glower down from the make-shift judging platform I’d put together from some left-over 2X4s and a piece of 3/4 inch plywood. Not fun to glower, but in this case it’s simple self-defense, I thought, shuffling Prospect # 19’s four-page rental application. Three unintentional tenants in a row from Meagan’s List kinda wakes a guy up to the need to do a little more thorough background check next time he’s interviewing tenants. (Yeah, I practiced on ‘ten ants;’ they all like, ‘got dead’)

“Call me Bill”, the nervous victim attempted to get on my good side.
“You’re Ishmael, buddy, till I see money in the bank. I said, mechanically.  Now what’s with Grandma, huh?”
“Um.. she was an amputee, sir” “Bill” kinda sighed when he said it. A good sign?
“..And?” I didn’t let up.
“She was 12 at the time, when the train.. you know.. playing on the tracks.. In those days there were no warning..”
“But she was wearing shoes at the time?” I needed to write down something.
“I suppose. Don’t really remember.”
“You’ve taken a lot of drugs, haven’t you, Ishmael.” Johnny, the bad cop. I watched his eyes. He shrugged, seemed to think for a second, then decided to come clean:
“Yeah maybe, but I never swallowed.” Delivered with a small conspiratorial laugh. Hah. Fat chance, sucker…
“Seems like I heard that somewhere before” I re-glowered, and remembered the foot-switch, hitting it discretely, there on the corner of my platform. On cue, Candy (*) strode out on the porch behind me and stretched a minute, wearing possibly the government-minimum attire allowed in a public place. I watched ‘Bill’s eyes, etc. Nothing out of the ordinary. This guy’s either good.. or a eunuch.. I thought. I mean, for the money I’m paying her today, even I have a hard time keeping my eyes off her.
“Mind if I use your bathroom a second?” Prospect 19 asked all of a sudden. Aha, the diuretics in the complimentry coffee are still working, I thought, and motioned to the portable toilet I’d kinda ‘re-engineered’, off to the side of the house.
“After you” I said with a lascivious gleam, trying to ‘break the ice out from under him and give the guy every chance in the world to hang himself’, if that’s not too mixed a metaphor. Bill didn’t take that bait, but no worry, I’ll have something for the DNA lab in a few minutes, I thought, proud of my new skill at ‘backgrounding’ tenants. He was back in less than two minutes, a good sign, I guess.
“Mind if I look through the place a second?” he asked, looking a bit too comfortable.
“Not the way it works, guy.” I shot back in my best dime-store ‘haughty.’ “We’ll call you in a week or so if you made the list.”  He looked a tad dejected, but resigned to his fate. Hell, I’d be dejected if I were him, poor fellow… but hey, it takes a tough man to pick a tender chicken, and frankly, “watching roosters roost rent-free in my house from 8000 miles away in the Middle East finally got old”, I pep-talked myself from the mental script I’d actually had to print out and read aloud to myself that morning in order to ‘internalize.
‘Bill’ trudged back to his pick-up, while I noted the license plate number, the tread wear, and bent down to check for any grease spots on the white canvas I’d roped him into parking on top of, hitting the foot-switch by mistake in the process. My ‘Rent-a-Rosebud’ ® was back out on the porch in seconds, in her invisible new clothes. I looked at my watch, looked at her, watched Bill pull away, (turn signals?), and thought twice this time. Hmm.. for the money I’m paying her…

(*) Candy Kane, daughter of a “John Q, ‘Citizen‘ Kane”, or so she wrote on her application, which I approved on first sight.

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NOTE-US BRIEF-US: (Latin, sorry). Anyway, I might just leave this post here until I get a comment from each of the 24 Time Zones, even if it’s “What a pot of drivel!” signed, ‘Someone small and forgetful in Micronesia’ I don’t know how to write any better; if anyone’s got some advice I’m all ears. (My Mama even said that)

Do you believe that teenage mothers can still be successful at life? Why or why not?

Answer: Why YES, of course… Unless they’re LEFT-HANDED(!), in which case emphatically NOT, their lives are ruined forever!  My mother, who bore me when I was very young, (a lucky thing, since it gave me a free year or so to piss in my pants and not have to milk cows, and just when it most suited me.)  well, she loved to say “Ask a silly question and you get a silly answer.” Didn’t we have this question last week? Oh no, it was “What’s a good age to have kids? Hmm, I refused to answer it ’till they fixed the syntax; it’s ” What’s a good age to have kids AT?”  Anyway Jesus’ mom, who became pregnant under Mysterious Circumstances probably at about age 14, and HAD THE LITTLE TYKE IN A FREAKING HAY MOW, well you see what happened to her, which is proof she was left-handed at least. And speaking of whom, Jesus, are we soon done already with these unknowingly insinuating questions!  Bad enough “Is your Eye-pod ™  usually on shuffle? Why or why not?” and now we’re discussing The Holy Virgin Mary behind her back like she’s a leper or something. Oops, gotta run and take my Mom to her soccer practice. Yup, she’s a soccer-mom, SO WHAT??
   

I just answered this Featured Question, you can answer it too!

Now go and read the previous post, ok? ; I just thought this needed a quick answer.

America in its temporary Rectum-less-ness

    I‘m obviously living in some kind of a Bubble-world here, where everything works out perfectly, and with perfect timing, all the time. A month ago I ‘realized‘ that it’s simply because “They put me in the movies.”; some All-knowing Film Crew is making a reality show. Probably call it ‘BOJ‘ a reversal of the Job story, where they stage-manage, in secret, my life; experimenting with how long it takes me to start, this time, believing in God. I’ve since realized that I’m simply and blindly feeling only the cutest part of the elephant, whatever that is. Geographic paradise, the perfect blend of raw nature in its diverse finery and manicured access paths. Money? Just go to the nearest bank-thingy and get more, they’re open when you are. No robbers, rapists, illiterates, not even the odd ‘people you wish you hadn’t seen’ who can’t be avoided by simple planning. Lightning internet almost too cheap to meter, impossibly superb gas mileage, car insurance for pennies a day, good and plentiful food, with more growing in the yard. Yes, if it didn’t somehow bother me, this dream-world, I’d be delerious.
    But no, something tells me, for the sake of perspective, to keep groping around a bit, search for the ‘Armpit’, or even the Giant-Rectum-of-the-Amorphic-Elephant-of the Western-Hemisphere. I just know it’s here somewhere; Taxmen, Blown head-gaskets, Viruses, computer and human, Early-onset Alzheimer’s, random Fear, Death, Pestilence and War. My myriad of songbirds don’t seem to see it anywhere on the visible horizon. If they in their innocent benevolence have a message for me, it’s probably that I should imitate their ‘Be Here Now ‘philosophy. Grab the Elephant’s tail, enjoy the swing-ride, and don’t look up. That Hawk overhead is just taking a joyride, and in my case, the Great Sphincter is Closed-for the-Season. For now…

“So what? Where’s the point?”

What’s my point? I beg your pardon. Everything I post here is well-pointed. Not my fault if some folks miss it. I deliberately write in a style which may be over “2_kewl_4_U”‘s head, in an ex post facto attempt to punish my childhood tormentors or their progeny. With counseling I may be able to work through that though. (Conversely, I don’t understand much of what he posts either.) Anyway, I’ve learned so much on Xanga. Lots of souls are troubled in one way or another, and I’ve been jealous of that, of course, In an effort to fit in, I’ve examined my life and, here’s the news, discovered a small dys-functionality which may even be acronym-able. Seems it takes a new bird every day to keep me happy. And Nature just can’t keep up. I wake up each morning in the metaphorical Garden of Eden, check the “What’s New in Heaven?” column on the bulletin-board over in the Great Hall of Scrumptious Breakfasts, and if there’s nothing happening I just go back to sleep, feeling… cheated?
Chemically, this defect can be explained. Something about neural firings in the pleasure center. ‘You seen one exotic songbird, you seen ’em all.’ My coping strategy is to down-size my minimum demands. Tonight I saw two (2) startlingly-indigo Buntings at once. (One of ’em made it to first-base a split second before the pitcher’s throw, in a perfectly executed slide. I’m impressed, as are the scouts for the Phillies) Anyway, I told myself “Well, this makes my day!”. Felt almost as good as the real thing. And now on to the point(?).

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    As you can see in the photos, my father, rest his soul, insisted on’ whoa’-ing the horses on the plow, back in the early 1900’s, whenever he spotted something looked like an arrowhead. His collection, kept safely in a 1933 cardboard candy box for decades, is now being photographed and will I hope be examined by an arrowhead expert at a local museum. I’ve learned a few things about them, one of which is that they may very well be…well.. very old. And may have arrived here in PA in a trade with other native peoples from the other side of the continent, especially the one,( not pictured), which is chipped from jet black obsidian. I never found one,and not from lack of trying; you just can’t see ’em from up on the big Farmall tractor, no matter how young and sharp-eyed you are. (..or how crooked a furrow you’re willing to plow while you’re distracted looking for them!) “‘John Deere’s are green/

Though the hue’s got detractors

Farmall’s too formal,

for a number of factors.”

(Just thought I’d throw that in.)

When I know more about them; (for example, which point to use to put one of those bisons on your wigwam table,) I’ll post it here. Maybe I should be happy I never found one, my whole life would’ve been downhill from then, assuming I never found another. That-there’s probably the point of this…

“Bye, son.. I’m off to Buy some Bison.”

Two miles away, on the top of the mountain, behind the General Store lives an insurance adjuster who has these bison. That’s all I know, for now.
 Oh, and that they get out. A lot.
Both the NBA (Nat’l Bison Association) and the CBA (Canadian Bison Assoc.) warn prospective buffalo-men like myself (?)  that “a bison can jump a six-foot fence.”
They temper that with the adage “You can keep a bison in any enclosure he feels like being inside of.” Something like that.
One of Insurance-Man Doug’s bison didn’t apparently feel like hanging out inside the fence a few months ago, so I heard. They chased him a mile, got frustrated, and took drastic measures. The General Store had an exotic offering on the menu for a limited time. I mentioned the word “B I S O N” once, in a G-mail chat, and since
then the Head Robot in charge of Mining my Mail. for Keywords has been frantically pulling out all the sidebar stops to get me to click on a bison-related ad.
Bisons-on-the-hoof, Bison Handbags, Bison Basins, Bison T-shirts, ‘Bison Bill, appearing Live with Marion and the Marionettes’, one night only at a truck-stop somewhere in Saskatchewan.
The FAQ’s also warn me to “forget everything you knew about cows” I know a lot about cows, sorry to say, and forgetting it all would be tough.
I might just get one or two and see how they behave for me. A cow, past the age of two at least, gives the impression that she actually wants to do what you’re asking her.Having a family kinda has a settling effect. And even though the scariest phrase I’m familiar with in English is “Johnny, the Cows are out!!!”,

after a few hours of running around chasing thundering hooves in your underwear they usually find their way back home. But if my Bison should get out despite my Jurassic Park enclosures…
I’ll probably just hide in the cellar till the gunfire subsides. Hell, I can always get more. Thanks to Google-Ads™

The answer

So I told her as soon as she came home from school: “Great News! You’re a male Indigo Bunting. Wow, you’re so lucky.
“I knew that,” he said, looking to see if there was anything new to eat.
“But.. but.. what about yesterday?”
“I was just playing… trying to make you happy.“
“Hey isn’t that’s what bluebirds are famous for?” I asked.
“Pretty much any blue bird’ll do…” he said, and flew into his favorite tree to practice his singing.