April: What a Start!

Northwood Drive	- Serenity on the surface.

     Don't let the serene scenery fool ya. It's been a bitch!

    All the simple little things, each beginning innocently enough and as innocuously as one could expect or should expect, only to become full fledged hassles, every last one of them.

     First there was my brand new, Canon EOS R8 camera (a carry-over from March) that was defective right out of the box. By the start of this week it had returned repaired, and past my initial test. However, I had to wait until midweek to buy a protection plan, now that I had sufficient funds.

     While I was waiting for the monies, I noticed that our equally brand new Xumo stream box was blinking incessantly. A recommended restart should correct it. It did, but only for a short spell. The blinking returned. Now the service was intermittently failing to launch. Then the signal from the box was altogether lost. So I had to take a whole day running down every technical scenario as to what and where the malfunction could be. That there is no user manual available, physical or online, save for the half page quick start guide, did not help. In the end, I had to speak to two Xfinity support agents, and neither could restore the box. They arranged to have a field technical come to the house.

    Meanwhile, my sister was having trouble, getting into her online banking account, which wouldn't recognize her legitimate password. Nevertheless, it also wouldn't let her reset the password, and she was forced to wait for a live agent. Finally, when they came on the line, it took more than an hour to resolve the technical system snafu. My sister was not at fault.

     Now, her BMW key fob was weakening, indicating a need to have its battery changed. Did I know how to open the battery compartment? My sister could not see a way, nor could I. So I went to the internet, to find an answer. Would you believe hers was the key fob series made before BMW switched over to replaceable batteries! Yes with some soldering and Crazy Glue the battery could technically be changed out for another, or one could just fork over $500 bucks for a new key fob. Screw that! All my sister needed to do was pull out her second fob. Now where she keep it?

    She was also having her taxes prepared. This year my tax information, would play a part, but in order for the tax preparer could proceed, the IRS rewired one extra item: my IP Pin number. Did I happen to know it offhand? I knew of no such pin. In all my IRS dealings, no mention of an Identity Protection pin was ever addressed. So I went to MyIRS to find out as April 15th was rapidly approaching.

     There was no direct reference to the pin listed in my account profile. I searched under help, to learn if there was a way discover if there was a number associated to my Social Security Number. There was. I could request to retrieve the number online simply by supplying some key information.

    I started the process. Oh dear, my street address is wrong. Easy enough, I'll merely update the information. No can do. It turns, I will have to download, fill out, and physically submit by snail mail to Kansa City, a Form 8822 Change of Address in order to effect the update. Once approved, the I can retrieve the number online (if indeed I have one assigned to me in the first place). But that will take weeks and weeks! I will have to call IRS which is the second option.

    In the mean time, MyIRS is strongly urging me to register with IDMe in order to facilitate my sign-in(s). I commence those proceedings. I just need my California Driver's License. I supply the number and image... Nope, not sufficient! Please submit your Passport and License, oh and your portrait. I set up the webcam. Done. Nada. Now I'm being asked to add my SSN card. Okay, I'll go along, sure.

     No how, no way! A direct video call is necessary to complete my registration! An hour later, Conrad (Conner?) from IDMe has me hold the three pieces of evidence up to the webcam before my identity can be established. The proof now approved, the registration is concluded and my password accepted. Whew!

     That leaves the matter of the IP Pin.

    Early, the next morning, I get on the horn with the IRS. Surprisingly, there is no waiting for the agent, who answer immediately. Here's the short: After, a short 45 minutes it comes down to this. There is fact an IP Pin attached to my IRS/SSN account. (Years ago, Identity Theft was assumed regarding a 48 year old systems mix-up with another individual. Only the IRS never apprised me of the pin number.

   Unfortunately, the agent could not divulge the number over the phone. He could issue a new one though and have that number sent to me. Regrettably, that procedure would require a minimum of three weeks to finalize, making that April the 23rd, eight days after the Tax filing deadline for my sister. Here's what she could do instead: turn in her taxes by mail, that would defeat the electronic online IP Pin challenge. It would necessarily delay my sister's return by a few months, but she would still to claim her deductions. I am relieved to know on a side note that the order of my name, was not an issue. Additionally, my address was updated in the phone call.

    I inform my sister, whose passes the suggestion to her tax preparer. Will do.

    The Xfinity technician pays a house-call. He tries all the solutions I tried days earlier, even the Ethernet cable. No signal, fer shur. Retrieving a second Xumo stream box from his equipment truck, he plugs it in. Signal, but no set-up! It is failing to complete! This has never happened to him he exclaims! After bringing in a third box - success! Score: two broken boxes; one good!

    Uh-oh, now my sister, in the other room, is having difficult with her online banking! The sign-in won't accept her legitimate password, nor will it permit her to reset it! It just hangs! Only after an hour on the phone with a representative, does the person move the process forward. The password is reset and her sign-in successful.

    A day later, she finds her second key fob, and I, after some searching, the information to Car Keys Express, the company that supplied me with a replacement fob.

     April 4th, sees my Canon 4 Year CarePak protection plan go into effect, covering March 3, 2025 - March 2, 2029. 

    Oh me, oh my, this time it's my Adobe Premiere Elements 2025 which has been getting sicker and sicker by the month. I suspect the cause to be a corrupted file that was carried over from my last laptop during the file and system transfer. In any case, the video won't properly play, but freezes or glitches wildly, rendering the editing impossible and the final pass superfluous. Sigh.

    I told you. You were warned. This month has started with a bust! Tranquility Base here,... Kablam!

Honkers!

“One with dinosaurs and volcanoes in it!”

That was my tall order to our dad, who would usually, when he went out Friday nights, return with some comic books for my twin sister and I.

I was utterly blown away when, a few hours later, he produced this!

'Turok, Son of Stone' Issue: 20 Jun-Aug 1960

'Turok, Son of Stone' created the year I was born (1954) was my favorite comic book series as a youth.

Ugh.

    On the 7th of March with the help of my siblings, I was able to purchase a brand new Canon EOS R8 mirrorless camera body through Walmart's generous offer of $400,00 off the retail price. Due to my finances, and my never having issues with Canon's product reliability, I decided to hold off buying an extended warranty, which is something I otherwise customarily do. "Uh-oh," I hear you say, "I can see where this going!"

A cropped still frame from the 2025-03-10 unboxing video.

    Well, for the very first time in my 44 years of Canon photographic equipment ownership, something was awry with the performance of the camera body, although I did not know it at first. There was a stark white vertical line in both the viewfinder and LCD screens and a corresponding white crosshair in the playback. (See below.) 

    Initially, I thought they were deliberate, perhaps acting as a frame of reference of some sort. Eventually, I surmised, I would learn how to disable the unusual feature. However, after a week of pouring through the 937 page instruction manual, I could find no mention or depiction of the lines.

    Then I discovered, the crosshair was ending up in my actual images. It wasn't confined to the camera screens! 

    Ugh.

    Having alerted my sister, I proceeded to contact Canon Chat. When the technician had me do a factory reset - it failed - he postulated the likelihood of a sensor malfunction.

    So now the R8 is on its way to Canon for a warranty repair.

The sensor anomaly with a lens attached.

The sensor anomaly without.

     We shall see, as they say, and hopefully, it won't be the image artifact when the body is returned.

Moon's Eye View

    From my neck of the woods, last night’s lunar eclipse was a washout due to cloudy weather. Fortunately, the Moon’s view of Earth has no such problem with overcast.

    Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost Mission 1: Ghost Riders in the Sky, was able to relay the eclipse as seen from its lunar lander.

    Oh, and about the lunar eclipse itself, I came about these interesting tidbits on NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) website:

    "On March 14 the Moon was Full. In an appropriate celebration of Pi day, that put the Moon 3.14 radians (180 degrees) in ecliptic longitude from the Sun in planet Earth's sky. As a bonus for fans of Pi and the night sky, on that date the Moon also passed directly through Earth's umbral shadow in a total lunar eclipse."  [Again] "...the moon [was] Pi radians from the Sun at exactly 06:55 UTC. That's about three minutes before the midpoint of the March Full Moon's total lunar eclipse."

    Neat!

During the eclipse.

Just moments after totality.

The Earth days before the lunar eclipse.

 

The Earth and the "Diamond Ring" effect just after totality.

I’m Reminded of Another Coincidence

 

‘Claws for Alarm’ Warner Bros. (1954)

    With the previous post (see its addendum), I am reminded of an earlier coincidence that occurred some thirty years ago.

   I once had a surprising coincidence alphabetically looking up a word in the dictionary, when I chance to happen on another I didn’t know. It caught my curious eye while I was also turning on the TV set, and waiting for it to warm up. As I was reading the definition of the second word, I could hear the voice of Porky Pig on the tele, reprimanding a terrified Sylvester the cat*. “You eb, eb, pol-troon of a chicken cat, you!’ “Poltroon” was the very entry before me!

    Here is the line as delivered by Porky (voiced by Mel Blanc):      "Th-Th... That's all, folks!"

 

*‘Claws for Alarm’ Warner Bros. (1954)

Dinosaurs!

    At almost seven (March 1961) what topic was there that could absorb my interest more? I think I'm even gazing on the Tyrannosaurus Rex!

    ADDENDUM: On the day I posted these pictures, I noticed the word "epiphyte" on the cover of Book 5 of The Golden Book Encyclopedia series (see below). What's that, I wondered, having never heard of the term [I already knew the meaning of "daguerreotype"]. So, I looked "epiphyte" up in the Golden Book, and found out. 

    The very next day, I heard that exact same term referred to in passing, as part of an alliteration in a YouTube science video! What a coincidence! Sixty-four years later, looks like I just learned the definition in time! The 1959 encyclopedia was still teaching me anew!

March 1961

Dinosaurs! The Golden Book Encyclopedia (1959), Book 5, Pages 420 & 421

The Golden Book Encyclopedia (1959), Book 5 Cover (slightly cropped)

Some Treasured Space Maps I Once Had as a Child

    And rediscovered online via the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, The American Geographical Society Library Digital Map Collection! 

    From Rand McNally & Co. (1958)

    My personal favorite: The Universal Map of Outer Space.

Rand McNally Universal Map of Outer Space (reverse side only)

    This colorful map even has the distinction of making an uncredited appearance in one of sci fi's most iconic film from the 1950's, serving as the literal backdrop to actor Edward Innes' character: Brigadier General Alan Prescott.

As seen in 'The Angry Red Planet' (1959)

   I wore out the paper map early from overuse.

   Then there was the second map, which lasted until the mid 1970's before becoming too tattered to keep: the Rand McNally Space Map and Moon Map. Here is the obverse side.

    As a kid, I didn't like the aesthetic of the moon being split into two halves, as shown below, but that was before I learned to read. I also thought the mechanical fingers of the above space man in orange, right hand looked broken, as though they were limply dangling. Maybe that's why he's drawing his hand up to his visor: to check out what's wrong. I didn't realize then that he merely had his robotic palm facing upward. WAIT A SECOND! The hand is still messed up! With the palm and fingers turned upwards, the opposable thumb is on the incorrect side. That space man has TWO LEFT HANDS! My younger self was right to notice the mistake after all!

   The Rand McNally Space Map and Moon Map's reverse side.

The links to UWM's digital collection:

UWM's Rand McNally Space Map and Moon Map (obverse side)

UWM's Rand McNally Space Map and Moon Map (reverse side)

UWM's Rand McNally Universal Map of Outer Space (reverse side only)

DSB (The Billion Year Version)

  -This Post is Slowly Under Construction-

    (It may take a few months.)

    At first, it was with some enthusiasm I thought to make good the promise I made in a recent post, to shortly recount the personal events that transpired on the evening of Sunday, January 26th, 1975. (See the 2025-01-26 post I wrote commemorating the 50th anniversary of that long ago eve.) Then the misgivings started to take hold. The endeavor, I feared, was fraught with the potential to be greatly misunderstood.

    For starters, a straight forward, play-by-play rundown, a bare bones sequence of events, without context, without couching, would likely than not, precipitate readers jumping to preconceived but erroneous conclusions. Yet, who can know, or has the time to learn my personal psychology and history. Who too, knows the whole of the public persona with respect to the other key figure involved in this tale, as experienced by me (and not to mention even some of her closest associates)? Who has witnessed this person’s myriad behaviors from day one, or dealt with the questions certain of her actions have raised? Plainly put: one would have to have been there; not only for this event, but for the entirety of my existence and witness. Hell, it’s taken up fifty years of my thinking alone, just to come to grips with all the ramifications of this particular experience, and I’m the one who was present!

    If a lack of background, unavailable to the reader wasn’t enough with which to contend, then more aggravating still, in my simply trying to relay what occurred, is the pernicious linearity of language, Its word-following-word, ticker tape aspect is dauntingly slow. Nor does it help, that while the readers are doing their best to piece my thought together, the individual words themselves can have any number of different meanings and senses to them. The temptation and tendency therefore, for others to jump the gun or wrongly finish my thoughts for me is enormous. “I see where you’re headed.” Misunderstandings are bound to occur.

    So, I suppose, the only reader, who can truly understand the words I will henceforth lay out, and the way I mean them, will be me. That's fair. Which is why, all things considered, I write this blog partly with an audience of one - namely myself - largely in mind. Yet that only raises the question of why then I would bother to write.

    Let's face it, it's a testimony I’m about to perform here, and clearly going "on the record" to make myself at last "be heard" (by others) as no one else will or can speak for me. There's a part of my effort then, that truly wants to be acknowledged by another other than myself. Indeed, not being recognized, i.e, heard, seen, or read, will be an important, if not the most important, takeaway from my post.

    Dammit! now I’m having the strongest inclination to address this post straight to the one who continues to affect me! Richard, I tell myself, you can’t! It’s way too personal about the attributes of the other, some of them intimate! Yet I will go mad if I if don’t express what’s been bottled up all these decades. For I'm going to relay the one event that proved the second biggest paradigm shift of my entire life (the first was when I initially laid eyes on you.) How can this not lead to you being the one whose heart I wanted to address? 

     Anyhow this latter epiphany was all triggered by the most unlikely circumstance.  

     However, just on the rare chance someone should accidentally stumble upon this post, bear with me as I will have to preface all that is to momentarily begin, by covering a few extra points/disclaimers.  

    My apologies for the already lengthy setup...

•  First and foremost: No one herein is guilty - of anything. In what follows, it may seem like I am trying to assign blame as I try to understand the nature of personal responsibility, but I am not faulting anyone. 
•  I'm going to be giving my subjective impressions of the key individual on which this account and my whole world is centered. While my impressions are undoubtedly suffuse with whatever biases, misconceptions, and prejudices, I may be carrying, consciously or not, still, they are not solely limited to my interpretation alone. Others have noted the same patterns of behaviors, independent of me. We may be entirely wrong in our perception of this person, but this the way this individual came across. 

• That there is a sexual component greatly underpinning this incident, surely muddies the waters, yet biology is purely biology, and again no one is to be faulted. However, given the sexual undercurrent at play, also means we are not any of us, acting in a void.

 

    A diary.

    The Sunday evening in question...

   It is the 26th of January 1975, and my memory of the incident begins at about five minutes to seven PM. I am sitting alone in the high school classroom of my church, back when the latter was known as Bethel Temple. In the first row of folding chairs facing east and nearest that end of the renovated space (the large room used to be the church’s main kitchen) I toil, putting the finishing touches on the poster I have been tasked to create. It is a promotional for the Christian rock band of which I  a member. ‘Dayspring’ was our name. 

    As the start of services is only mere minutes away, I will have to pause, and resume the work later. After the service is when I’ll have chance to hang the poster next to the front entry of the church, announcing Dayspring’s upcoming performance. In five days we’ll be onstage, Friday January 31st, at Bethel Temple’s weekly Youth Service.

    While excited at the prospect of performing again in a few days, I am also a wee bit forlorn at the moment albeit for completely unrelated reasons. I have spent this day between the morning and evening services all by myself and another day apart from the only woman that means any and everything to me. That would be you. You even managed to turn twenty-one six days prior with no well wishes or celebratory participation as yet on my part.

    To think, you’re only across the hall, in the sanctuary, at choir rehearsal. Having fun, while I sit by myself as usual. Oh, the time again! The Young Sounds are breaking up having finished their weekly, hour long practice. I can hear their individual banter spreading out throughout the church. Time for me to stop work and eventually rise. There’s a guest missionary speaker from Brazil speaking tonight. He always gets into a sweaty frenzy. That’s all I need: another service, yards apart from you, having to wait for its conclusion before I’ll a chance perhaps to approach you. And with this guest, who knows how long church will be? I hear some light laughter immediately in the foyer hallway outside. The youth choir dispersing.      

    Why ever did they change my suggested name “Young Sound” to “The Young Sounds” —

   Then to speak of the Devil, from the far door at the other end of the room you enter. My back is to your hurried words of greeting: “Hi Richard!”

    Before I have the time to turn, you swish by. I should perhaps add to my return greeting with a birthday felicitation but my words catch in my throat. You meantime barely have a moment to reflect on anything but your explanation as you retrieve an item from the closet cabinet ahead. Moving like a whirlwind you are, as I looked on stunned. I don’t think I even saw or heard what you were after.

    Your dress, your skirt… it is the shortest attire you wore to date! It almost rivals that of your younger sister or the two [■■■■]*!

     Swooping out the room, without the slightest thought or concern, you flit. I am immobile. Stuck to my folding chair, and doing all to piece myself together. Billions of years of biology are beginning to boil over and I must somehow stymie all those eons of brute nature. My mind has snapped, and not in a good way, for there is no outlet for my sudden desire. I cannot enter the service across the way, but must now remain behind, holding a tight reign on my turmoil. The emotions are everywhere, but I cannot cry out or react - good or bad!

     What I feel, it’s personal, and nothing directly to do with religious settings and circumstances about me, or the religion itself , although those extra layers of social repression don’t exactly help. I cannot have you. You won’t let me—

    Quiet, Richard, quiet! Calm your hurt; your stress. Yet, the eons are on a rampage. They know what they want. I do too. It’s gonna be a bumpy night… 

    The minutes slow to a crawl. Your indifference shatters my confidence. Your person now has total rule over me as I wait the long minutes knowing I must look on you again. There’s no fooling myself. I pay the intercom broadcasting the missionary’s fervency barely the slightest notice. My fires are much greater.

   I try to distract my mind. Is that skirt a part of your having to work for Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA) I wonder? One of their trademarks is the look of their female staff. [■■■■] got you that job, did he not? Concentrate, concentrate.

    Finally, the service is over, and believe it or not, I have managed to steel myself to whatever follows, though I also know there is an undercurrent lurking not too deep within me. However, I am functional for the moment, and therefore, to that degree, socially presentable… so I venture forth.

    I exit the classroom with the poster in tow; headed for the Sunday school office where the supplies I need are kept. Holy molé, tacos and frijoles, you’re also in the office! Talk about a blessing and a curse! Heaven and Hell! We pleasantly small talk as I take a seat facing the office door. I finish up applying tape to the front side of the Dayspring poster while you busy yourself behind me with your administrative duties as the assistant Sunday school superintendent.

    Oh, if I could only swivel in my seat, but I am trying to play it cool - nonchalant. You see, despite my inner repression, my diffidence, there is also the unwritten social contract long inculcated into me. I must be honorable, chivalrous, curbing my “animal” impulse in the name of your “purity”. It stinks on the face of it, but in a way I am trying to moderate myself because I really do care about you. At some level, I truly don’t want to offend you in the slightest. Yet, the lust in my heart - it’s as unadulterated as your virtue! And I have it something terrible!

    The horns of a dilemma have me skewered. And they’re about to twist.

    Mrs. [■■■■ ■■■■] appears at the door. “[■■■■], have you some pencils?”

    Omigod, the pencils!

    In an instant of time, several simultaneous alarms and thoughts go off inside of me! I know where the boxes of pencils are kept! I was just recently up there. At the highest point of the room, where you have to climb atop the desktop to reach the top of the overhead supply cabinets. I mean the boxes are above the cabinet!

    What to do? Should I interject myself and volunteer to get the pencils? Yet that might call attention to your skirt and my awareness of it. Awkwardsville, for one and all. And if I don't do the gentlemanly thing, what then? So should I wait for you to ask me, thereby once again bringing notice to your attire...

    But before my thoughts can fully form, and while I'm only beginning to gasp, I hear the unmistakably distinct sound of a folding chair being scooted into position! You reflexively ascend to the top of the table behind me almost without a thought. 

    Now, the unfairness starts. My blood begins to boil. Now all the onus is entirely on me to refuse to turn around! I fume and look toward [■■■■]. Suddenly, she seems just as caught off guard, but in a world weary sort of way. There's almost no expression on her face, as her matronly eyes remain leveled on the hem of your skirt, never once veering away. I imagine the thoughts her gray, undaunted eyes reflect. (See my fragmentary poem in the earlier post.) Is it envy, insight, or pity?

    You reach up, your hem hiking in the process, as you take hold of the pencil box and shortly descend with the goods. Angrily, I stand to my feet and excusing myself, make my way past [■■■■]. I know she cannot come to my defense, but like me, is as unable to do anything about what just transpired. I don't even she said "thank you" to you. She just nodded upon receipt of the pencil.    

    Retreating to the vestibule, here's what blew my cool:

-FIN-

*[■■■■]=[Name redaction: first, last, or both. Color coded to reflect specific individuals.]

 

Eons old biology in which personhood is, figuratively speaking, but an emergent afterthought

Miasma

I am responsible for my actions; not my reactions.

It's exasperating trying to figure you out

PK's

Circumspect pk carry yourself who must never bring reproach

Violate your personal integrity.

Letter spirit observation by another who personally knew you

A master of plausible deniability

Toying baiting

Maybe you didn't care. Maybe you did and wanted to get it over with. Or maybe you subconsciously jumped at the chance. Anyway, I can't think you totally unaware.

Again my subjective POV

Withering excoriating blistering rebuttal from the other perspective.

If I am ignored, who do I ignore?

We are all, in part, victims of circumstances outside of our control

Ethnicity white/brown fair/foul

Swarthy POC

Glass wall

Out in the literal cold

Window shopping

YS practice.

Speak of the D-

PSA [■■■■] got you

El's, Tr, LK, R

Before I have the second time to turn and rise, my ears hear the distinct sound

Retreating to the vestibule

 

 

Remembering

    It was four years ago today, my siblings and I lost our sister Angie. As I write, the time is as it was then, and now the memories of that last day begin. I was going to chronicle the sequence of events, but decided to simply post this collage and short montage instead. 

Noncitizens

A couple of days ago, I posted an image of my parents along with their alien registration cards on my Facebook. I had this to say.

October 11, 1944. Although my father served in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II, my parents were never citizens of the country, ever.

Yet, I’m afraid, for that, there is an ugly sentiment in our land today that would want their remains exhumed and deported. 

SUNDAY, January 26, 1975 and 2025: 'Mayhem', 'Plate Glass'

At 6:55pm, it begins.

By 9:20pm… mayhem.

Wounded,

I step out.

My isolation, 

Complete.

My destitution?

To this day.

 

The setting in 2018

    1975, six days after your twenty-first birthday.

    It commences inside the doorway at the far end of the foyer (the last visible entry to the upper left, just past the larger of the two bulletin boards pictured).

    Two hours later, the main incident takes place within the lighted room; continuing, ten minutes later, before the smaller bulletin board. 

    While I was "up-close-and-personal" for the 6:55 and 9:20 events, I had retreated by 9:30pm to where, pretty much, this outside January 26th, 2018 perspective was taken. Back then, in 1975, there was a floor-to-ceiling, plate glass, window pane to the right of the silhouetted, door frame seen in the foreground of this later shot. Arranged in panels surrounding the entry, they made for the main entrance. They no longer exist, but it was at this adjoining pane, adjacent to the door, where my final point of view, four feet farther to the right, was situated in 1975.

    The floor was carpeted then, and colored a dark, grass green. The looped banister was not as wide, but much narrower and the handrail made of blond wood. Only its single row of descending balustrades was fashioned of metal (brush steel I believe). 

    With that said, other than what the poems and my brief description of the layout state, I cannot be more specific about what actually occurred involving the elements to which I allude.* Nothing salacious. Suffice to say, this happenstance was singularly, the most life-changing moment, by far, in the whole of my existence. From this night forward, I was never the same.

    There was no advocate.

    There was no audience.

    There was... 

    Nothing whatsoever.

    I loved you, body and soul.

    And was utterly, utterly alone.

    Desolate.

    The truest, purest futility a person apart can know.

 

    Now the actual fiftieth observance begins. It's 6:55pm once more.

    9:20pm.

    9:30pm: it ends, and I am struck by the relentless indifference of time’s arrow. Did its forward momentum pause for a moment? 

    Did it back then? No. 

    To change metaphors, how unaware nor concerned time sweeps over the present, sending this too - my fiftieth observance - into eventual oblivion. I am the one however, we all are, being dragged along with my ragged past tied to me, in tow, pulling on me, until time completes my destruction, and discarding me, moves on into the future I will not share.

    Yet perversely, that’s where you and I will one day be joined in forgotten likeness.

    I only wish we could know another moment in life. One more moment.

    You see, I still hope. I still stubbornly press my case, with or without audience.

    I cannot undo the truth of you, no matter whatever happens to me.

 

‘MAYHEM’

Dreamsteel-Blue,

Short is the work

Skirting her thighs.

Quick to give rise

To a surfeit of dreams,

Whose misstep,

What mischief,

Bestrode me it seems.

‘PLATE GLASS’

Plate glass,

Decades thick,

It’s clear what you reveal to me:

That pity ‘s blind

To any pain,

Which looks on,

Unrequitedly.

 

 

 

Music credits: 'NATURAL' by Florian Christl from 'Pianissimo' (2023)

ADDENDUM: There is yet another poem, a fragmentary portion from an early, untitled work, related to this instance. I started it but never finished, only liking this one phrasing in particular:

"...No shock to the gray eyes,

Which on my behalf,

Reflect back the hindsight,

Most youthful girls lack...."

*It may be that I shall yet chronicle the incident in full, though for reasons, not at this date or occasion. Rather, I will wait a short spell, and it will be under the rubric of Dreamsteel-Blue, that I shall detail the event.

 

 

 

 

Annually

 Once again... soft delicate wishes issue from my waiting lips.

Keep her precious, happy, and safe another year.

 

 

Felled (Image Rollover)

The tree which was... is gone.

It was too near the house. It was too problematic. It was too large and leafy, though a lovely sight in its spring bloom.

It was sad, but necessary to see it go.

Gone.

Ending Out the Year

   The look of "Magic eye" tubes  have always fascinated me, so I thought it would be fun to end 2024 and my forty-fourth post of the year with a GIF I created for myself in 2017. Ta-ta!

There Was a Time...

 ...I was so into...

Look Magazine Special Edition (1967)

 

 

See what I mean...

 That's my twin sister in the foreground and me behind her with the magazine she is calling to the camera's attention. Holy cow, it only cost $1.00 back then for the special edition. Anyhow, I liked that 'Look' so much, I had a back copy of the "Flying Saucers" issue up until 2021.

 

Humanitarian

James Earl Carter Jr. (October 1, 1924 – December 29, 2024)

 

 

 

 

 

 

'An Acrylic Digital Picture Frame is Worth...' (A follow-up)

     For my Christmas gift this year, my twin sister Georgene got me an acrylic digital picture frame (just like the above title and description on the box both say). Neat! I next created a video to be displayed, and set it to  the short piano piece entitled 'Miss Clare Remembers' from Enya's 1988 'Watermark' album. For the visual, I chose the 1985 poem I just recently posted twelve days ago.

      Here is the simple video I assembled:

 

 

 

 

According to A.I....

Presenting: me!

For reference, below is a photo of me from 2017. The above image more closely resembles my younger self than it does my present day portrait on which it was actually based. Flattery will get you anywhere.

‘Apparition: I Trouble the Moonlight’

 

 

 

 

I trouble the moonlight,

“Come, shadow me a spell.

 

In thy gray light,

It may be that I shall see her.”

 

A shimmer of luminescence, I know,

As long ago's go.

Patrolling the Earth...

 

Still, I wonder:

 

Clothed in the pallor 

Thy albedo accords,

 

Who is the haunt,

With this spectre,

A ghost?

-antaresrichard-

The Greater Half of My Life.

   This is it.

    I seem to passing one milestone after another lately. In a little over a month from now, I will be observing yet another golden anniversary. However, I just recently passed a milestone I almost overlooked. Had a thought not occurred to me forty years ago, none of these other landmarks would I have reached. 

    "If I die now, the improbable will become impossible."

    On the fourth of December 1984, defeated in love, and distressed at my employment prospects (I had gotten myself fired a year and a day earlier) I took a lethal overdose of sleeping pills and was waiting for the effect to set in. 

    It wasn't immediate as I had imagined.

    That's when the aforementioned thought I hadn't considered, with respect to unrequited love, crossed my mind.

    Needless to say the suicide attempt was aborted as I walked myself over to San Francisco General Hospital (which was just across the street) for emergency treatment.

    I have now lived more decades since that moment of crisis than I had leading up to it. This then is the greater half..

    As for my troth and my chances...

    At present, my hope is still improbable and one day, it will be rendered impossible, but I will let life do the final turning of the page and closing of the book. It will not be my own hand, for all hope requires is but the barest improbability to persist.

    Dying only cements ill fate - forever.

'This Then the Notion'

 This then the notion I confess,

A pure devotion have no less:

What lips to lips in  soft caress,

Address in kind, I too profess,

And offer mine up to thy "bess",

To that which grants sweet Heaven, yes!

 

I penned this way back in 1985, but somehow forgot to include it in  my little blog.

BAMPFA...

...with Birdie or, as she is better known on social media, Birdie Roy (Trish Keefer). To celebrate her birthday, I was asked to treat her to the Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), which I did, and happily so.

 Roy (Trish 

Photo by Trish Keefer, who herself was actually in a James Bond flick, Vic!

Thirty-three+ Years in the Failing Part 2

 Continued from Part 1...

    Running off the temporary splice, all appears to be okay. The flow of electricity has been constant since the patch was installed. Till the field crews show up this will have to suffice.

    Then around 2pm I lose power at the laptop. Strange, three quarters of the house is down but the kitchen and livingroom remain supplied'. Yvette and I summon PG&E again.

    Joe returns at 2:30. The underground line to 1379 Northwood Drive (our nextdoor neighbor) is out, but the temporary splice is still drawing limited energy for 1385 (our residence). Alfred Pulonco, our neighbor, now totally without electricity, has also contacted PG&E. 

    Joe decides to leave the splice in place so that 1385 will not be completely in the dark. He does show me the master power switch used to shut the meter down should any major disruption occur. A second step-up in the case will bring the crews tonight. 

    4:30pm sees Joe depart and 4:55pm has Ken of JB's High Voltage arrive. He's here to mark the street and to assure Yvette and I of the ETA of the crews (both contactors to PG&E). They are about an hour to an hour and a half away and enroute from their prior job.

    Ken takes off at six. 

    Minutes later, a lone, non-company truck drives up and is joined by a public works vehicle from the City of Fairfield. The two occupants meet at the junction box across the street and after a little discussion the public worker leaves. The time is 6:15pm

     7:15pm: At long last, the field crew arrives to join that lone occupant of the truck. Holy moly, they are many! There must be no less than five possibly six big work trucks, representing JB's High Voltage, Inc. and Henkels & McCoy West LLC. The vehicles disgorge around ten crewmembers. (One even brings his five children with him!)

    That mystery man? It turns out, he's the onsite representative from PG&E, He spoke little and smelled a great deal of cigarettes (though I never saw him light up once the entire night). Hmm.

     The crew gets to work, locating the trouble almost immediately. It's under a tiny rose bush in our front yard and near to the side fence and mailboxes shared by our neighbor and we. Placing the dug up plant in a wheel barrel, the workers use high pressure water nozzles to spray open a four foot hole in the dirt which they suction using a high power vacuum aboard their big bruiser of a truck.

    I mingle among the workers with their permission taking photos and videos of the absorbing field repair.

    Dominic of Henkels & McCoy West (he's the one who brought his kids with him) uses my camera to take a close-up for me of the particular damage the crews hove found.

     He explains the "burnout" they uncovered. It was all due to a bad splice the construction people made when they hooked up both 1379 and 1385 Northwood Drive to the main, PG&E underground, electrical line some thirty-three or more years ago! The resultant short, decades later, took out twelve to eighteen inches of electrical line. Gone completely was the section!

    Whoever the developer hired back in the nineties to do the hook-up, has, according to Dominic, so far resulted in forty or so such burnouts in the Cordelia Hills home development of which we are a part. it's almost endemic to our community. Luckily for us, the neither the front tree or the the fence was the cause for the burnout. Though early on they were both under suspicion, neither will be impacted.

    by 9:15 pm the personnel expertly replace and hook the cables, fully restoring electric power to both homes. "Lovingly" they replant the tiny bush and with that, all is done.

    The only snag to occur at all was a tree limb that snapped across the street having accidentally latched onto one of the departing trucks. The branch had to be sawed off and discarded.

Photos and videos:

The crews acted like the job was one big get-together!

Dig, dig, dig!

About twelve to eighteen inches of braided wire are completely gone! Photo courtesy of Dominic

A souvenir clip of one of the burnt-out electrical lines.

It only two the crew two brief hours to do the entire job and restore Christmas cheer.

     The following day, Joe came out once more to close out the work order the crews, the PG&E guy, or PG&E itself, forgot.

Thirty-three+ Years in the Failing Part 1

    I will try to keep this concise.

    Around three in the morning, Yvette awakens to the sound of the office cam security trying to boot. When she turns on the room lights, she discovers they are flickering. Thinking it a momentary issue, she returns back to bed and sleep.

    At 5:55am I awake and think to use my iPad tablet. It cannot get internet. I go to the living room and find Alexa constantly cycling. When I turn on the lights, they are at reduced power and flickering. The kitchen refrigerator is turning on and off. I check the household electrical panel but the circuit breakers seem perfectly fine.

    At 6;25am I put in a call to PG&E. They remotely test the meter and though there is power to to the vicinity, my meter is dead.

    Joe arrives at 7:25am. I note to him that though our outside meter appears off, the next door neighbor's meter shows no such sign. Indeed, Joe finds our address receiving barely any juice and ratchets up the case calling in for a repair crew as he suspects a damaged underground line leading anywhere from the PG&E junction box across the street to our house. Other properties seem unaffected.

    Finishing his paperwork, Joe leaves at 9:30am. 

     Yvette is well up by now.

     10:20am sees the arrival of Jerry. As the field crews are currently tackling other emergencies, Jerry decides to place a temporary splice from the nextdoor meter to ours so that we will have a steady current. I text our neighbor to apprise him.

     Temporary power is restored by 10:58am and Jerry leaves with our thanks in tow.

     End of Part 1

The PG&E splice up close.

A mobile phone video of the same splice,

Thirty-three Analemmas Later

    In 1991, before the start of the Fall semester, I drew up a proposal for my year-long student project: to trace out the sun's analemma by following the shadows cast upon the SFAI student quad. Although Paul Kos, my teacher at the San Francisco Art Institute, very much liked the idea I proffered, he proposed another project of his own: to learn Spanish together with him. My idea was quashed as we set out to learn Spanish after hours, and I never did get to perform the analemma.

    Here below is that very artpiece submission I put forward to Paul.*

    As I was coming up with the idea, I thought surely the notion of recording the shadow must have occurred to others, but I never saw such a timelapse captured. 

    It would be that way for a great while.

    Finally, in 2024, nearly thirty-three years later, someone, a certain Nick Wright of Falcon, Colorado took note of his driveway shadow as taken by his security camera. Voila! On November 29th, 2024 NASA's APOD (Astronomy Picture of the Day) posted Wright's inverted "Driveway Analemma" on their YouTube Channel.

     Again, the decades long wait is not to suggest that no one else had ever thought to document the aforementioned shadows before me or since. I merely say, that in my case, it took that long at last see it so recorded by another.

    *ADDENDUM: Just to make the original 1991 proposal a little easier to visually follow, I added in some shading. Here it is with the building shadows in place.