All aboard. People I very much appreciate:

Thursday, March 28, 2019

Fortnight Lily Sighted Over Fort Lauderdale!

Here is an example, provided by Norma, of fake news:


How should we react to imperfect knowledge? We are dealing with enigmas here and know the price of inaction is potentially very high. However, the cost of action is even higher, rather like a first date in high school. 

Consider concepts of pain and truth: an embrace; a memory; a survival. Truth is undeniably valuable, but values not embodied by behavior don't exist. Consider life on the Sun. Life does indeed exist on the Sun, but it's so hot there that each generation lives only a billionth of a second.

Pain and truth. It causes us to suffer anxiety and depression, to take drugs: Celexa, Lorazepam, Lexapro and others that sound even more like porn-stars. I now prefer cabernet sauvignon, but can't get Medicare to cover it.

Pain and truth. Accepting responsibility together despite differences creates trust. It was too late for a lot of us, but on January 21st, 1977 --his first day in office-- Jimmy Carter promised unconditional pardons to hundreds of thousands of men who had evaded the draft. That's the kind of True News that should be made into a national holiday --the kind of news that woke us from enchanted sleep and brought us together. Fake news and Fake enchanters do the opposite.

 Consider Gilbert and Sullivan. The citizens awake and chorus, "Why, where be Oi, and what be Oi a-doin'?"
Gilbert and Sullivan,"Sorcerer"


And keep a suspicious eye out on the giant lily over Ft. Lauderdale.

Wednesday, March 20, 2019

Why I Don't Write After 10 P.M.

It's  well after 10 p.m. and I feel a need to write something about the first day of spring. Not only does this day mark the renewal of all things earthly; it gives onto my 49th year of marriage to the woman who took this photo:


Between morning rain and afternoon cloud-herds headed for the Sierras, she took some exceptional photos. Observe:

Calla Lilies, open to spring sky.

Joseph P. Thompson wrote: "Real glory springs from the silent conquest of ourselves." But I wonder if it springs from tragedy as well and remains hidden until long after sacrifices are made --I cite the coverage given others by parents and heroes in the pyroclastic flows of Pompeii.

Excuse me for raising the subject of tragedy but, even though it contains valuable lessons, I have never liked it very much. It is real. I am frequently forced to consent to reality but have never quite approved of it, except in the global apology of springtime.
What sad sack I'd be without Norma.

After a decade of drought, this is the kind of rain-laden sentiment I was after.  A Sign!





Wednesday, March 13, 2019

Poop! A Rural Enigma Revisited


Because we have lately had some rather  urgent enigmas to solve, I have been much away from this blog and wish our current conundrums could calm to the intensity of this post from June 27, 2014. Sometimes I revisit past entries to get a sense of mysteries resolved. This is one of those times.

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{All events in this story are true, only the names are unchanged to protect the guilty. Norma really does email me chores.}

Behind the peaceful facade of the bucolic countryside is a hotbed of intrigue. Consider this email I received from a rural address:


Norma to me---
POOP!
This is not supposed to be on my patio!  A new fence is     
                   needed.

Things had been slow lately and I was admittedly smitten with Norma's profile pic. --eyes that could melt a heart or electrocute  at considerable distance. I immediately made a long arm and hauled my Rural Private Eye Correspondence Course Textbook, by Famous Shamus Gumshoe, down from its shelf, opened its cover and reread what Oscar Wilde Famous Shamusly wrote, "The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible."

Visible and smellable. Should be an easy case. I responded by calling to the other room, " Ok, but remember, I get $25 a day plus expenses!" No answer. I took that as a yes.

I am familiar with crap and the size of bricks. This brick is a standard 3 1/2 inches, which narrowed suspects to Hoodle The Hawk, any coyote --of which we have a sufficiency in this region-- or some undetermined dastardly defecator. I gave my preliminary report: "Examination of evidence suggests presence of a wild animal of unknown genetic persuasion. Please keep me informed of unusual feral activities."

Soon another email arrived:


Norma to me--
There's something nasty in the woodshed!

When one finds a opossum nesting in a bag of Styrofoam pellets, it is prudent not to disturb the poor creature in daylight. I advised my client accordingly and suggested we discard the bag after the opossum moved to other lodgings. She asked how I could be certain the creature would move away.
"Madam, my methods are my own."
"I'm paying 25 dollars a day for that?"
"And expenses."
Her eyes amped up to electrocutive magnitude. 
"However, in the matter of my fee, it is a fixed sum which never varies lest I remit it altogether."
"In return for what?"
"Your withdrawal of the proposition and insistence that I build a new fence.

"D'accord."

Everyone, Famous Shamus Gumshoe graduate consulting detective or not, has a non-aggression pact with wild animals, against whose intrusions fences, old or new, are useless. This saves labor on both sides. It is also helpful,  to a detective, if one's client does all the detecting.
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However, along with new enigmas we must now deal with neighbor's chickens in our yard. They call me "Buck". That is not my name!