day 79, day 1

Good check up Mon.  Platelets at 50 which is sorta the Mendoza line for our kinda exercise, so I'm cleared for the gym.  Not required to return to Boston for three weeks and I can eat tomatoes from the garden. (like, what other kind would one eat?)  Red and whites solidly in normal range.  Went to the gym this AM to see how bad things were gonna be, what sort of task I was up against.  Call it my third climb out of the hole, (not to say grave.)  Squatted 135 in a many-second grinder.  The numbers don't lie, but I really didn't expect to touch much more than 100.  So.  All kinds of problems with form, you can see, but this was absolute end range, if a butterfly landed on the bar it would have sent me crashing.  Fought it up with quads and back.  Happily call it a max effort after lots of rep work.  Haven't felt jello leg in a while.  Better yet, I still had 4 pull ups.  Four pull ups is SO much better than none pull ups.  The blog will get a little exercise-y, from here sorry if that bores or offends.  Feel free to bitch about it, or tell us what you're up to.

 

#75 in your roster, #1 in your heart

Between the Safe Harbor and Holtwood dams, the Susquehanna gets wide and deep, a lake really.  Net up some sunnies, hook 'em through the back, put 2 oz of sinker and a swivel up the leader and let fly into the channel.  No need to set the hook.  The flatheads hit it hard and then fight like broncos.  This one the experienced would only call tiny.  Three years ago I pulled out one about a big as the boy.  Last night we were on the small side of things but this one nearly fought Wyatt out of the boat.  They are savage battlers and when you land them there's a feeling like you've pulled up a different geological era.  Well behind the photo there is an island with petroglyphs easily seen (in daylight and) when the power company cuts the cubic feet per second.

73

Helped dig a footer on Tues as an adjunct for Morris Masonry Inc.  I ask you is there anything better than a backhoe?  Boom, stick, bucket.

No, there really isn't.  Especially first time behind controls.

69

Queen Anne's lace, water, food coloring, tiny vases.  It's the simple things.

Dare you not to dance  NB: Bethlehem Steel tee.

. . .64

Apologies for the break.  One a week seems about right, now that I've tried it.  Good check up yesterday.  Numbers stable.  Chimera measurement reveals that I am 99% donor, 1 % me.  100% is ideal and it still may tick up.  The higher the better.  Dr. seemed pleased.  Back in two weeks.  Good visit with Rick.  We split 2 games.  Quiz for you:

a) Le Corbusier working on chapel
b) Lloyd Wright contract work
c) math teacher trying to electrocute himself

57 CLEAR PROP!

I keep messing up the count, sorry.  The good Dr. himself said Mon was 56, so we'll call today 57.  Good checkup yesterday.  Numbers normal except platelets, still down but inching up.  Super visit with the McCready clan.  His boy, Huck's birthday.  The Angry Birds' anger strikes me as contrived.  Must also announce Rick took a game from me after I was profligate with my queen.  I'm still series leader, rest assured, and it was a good object lesson: don't be stupid.  Sunday was Wyatt's first airplane ride.  Should have seen how wide his eyes.

To be clear: I will give up the gun when they pry it from my cold dead fingers, or such time as our body politic gets less fatheaded about gun control.  This is not a contradiction; it is Keatsian negative capability.  I own a lot of them (though not as many as some).  I don't think anybody's coming to get them.  Quite the opposite, I think supply is over heavy.  What do I know?  What's true is I don't hunt Odocoileus Virginanus with them anymore, just not as sporting as I prefer.  Unless there are tags to fill, then sport be damned, my kids love deer jerky.  This I believe is quite in line with the cosmos.

Speaking of the cosmos, I confess I could use a little higgs boson primer.  I got lost at imaginary numbers.   Pilch? Nate?

54 now taking venison orders

We're calling it the treehouse.  Handmade by the army of one you see in picture.  Archimedes said he could move the world with a lever.  Pop can set 6x6's, hoist carcasses, and lift whole engines with a block & tackle. No tree exactly, though many were sacrificed (and hugged) in the making and house enough for sure.  Two Stories.  Tin roof to come.  Deer population to plummet.  Come visit.  Bring ammo.  And let me just get this off my chest: How many times did Nate and I ask for a treehouse?  Apparently the answer was as soon as you have three kids.

51, 52, 53 Poetry Tuesday

Must put a couple in the bank.  Holiday and all.  Taking the tribe up to Birdie and Pop-pop's for the sparklers.  Hope to get a swim in too.  I was told no swimming except in private pools and that seemed class biased to me.  Then I thought of going pool to pool, backyard to backyard see how far I could get.  Make a good story.  The gang went out for miniature golf last night at the world renowned Village Greens.  It's the Pebble Beach of putt-putt.  Played the shorter, though no less forgiving, Orange course.  Wyatt and I were paired.  He took coaching well and had 4 or 5 honest bogies.  Heather and Adders, Ab-mat and Agnes did not keep their scores, which, well.  I don't want to get into it except to say, If there's a score, you keep it.  Yours blogger in chief:  -1.  Hope everyone has lots of bottle rockets, M-80's and Roman candles.  Remember to hold them in your hand and let the fuse go a good bit before throwing them at somebody.  Beer will give you some extra courage so drink a lot of it.  Have a superb holiday my people. God bless John Roberts Jr.  Here is KME, see if the hair on your arm doesn't stand:

Out Walking with Baby

We are the untouchables, separate 

from traffic, a still between the scenes 

of do & take. The leaf blowers pause 

at their task of dislocation, mowers 

change direction to let us pass. 

They think the world for us 

is soft & fine, playful shadows 

tossed from filtered light. 

But we know the red violence

of animal brought forth from animal. 

We know the force that moves us to kill.

49 50 Our Marilyn