Neckties, contracts

Talk to me, Goose.

My dad sent me some photos from Hawaii, or as my niece Katie says, "Who-why." She also says "Helloha" instead of "Aloha." (Shouldn't "Aloha" always be followed by "Mr. Hand?")












If I'm here and you're here, doesn't that make it our time?



And what's wrong with a little feast on our time?



We had a chill day yesterday. In an odd twist, we had guests for breakfast both Saturday and Sunday. Billy, an absolute shit-hot drummer, and his girlfriend Susie came on Saturday. Stanette made her patented, "South-Kack-A-Lack-A Heart-Attack-Stack," which consists of eggs, peppers, sausage, guacamole, cheese, salsa and chili beans, layered between corn tortillas and baked in the oven. Yeah. It's every bit as good as it sounds.

Billy re-rigged my stereo-video system, upgraded some of the speakers and we enjoyed some thundering live Zeppelin on DVD. Thanks, Billy. It sounds and looks great. Next step is moving to HD and getting some kind of tivo.

After that, we moseyed downtown for some shopping and dining. I came this close to buying a thousand dollar statue. It was Indian (dot not feather), and it was a cross-legged figure, roughly three feet tall. Seriously badass. It would look great next to the gong. I got shanghaied into buying some really tight, spandex-y Seven jeans. Although they were thoroughly enjoyed by Stanette and her friend, Paige (who joined us for breakfast this morning), rest assured, they will be returned to the store on Monday.

I felt like a Gay Pirate or an ice-dancer. Or maybe Robert Plant. I'm just not used to having my ass featured so, um, prominently, nor having my junk cupped like that.

Fun, for certain, especially for Stanette and Paige, and definitely rich in joke-fodder, but sadly, readers, not for me... or you.

I did buy some shades.

That's Mick behind me. And a didgeridoo (((no, I can't play it)).

We fell asleep in front Children of Men, ten minutes into the movie. We'll watch it today. I have been excited to see it. I'll let you know how it is.

Kobe is going off behind me on the telly.

Today, Paige joined us for breakfast.

I took the helm at the stove for a sausage-pepper-onion scramble with hash browns, coffee and bloody marys ((from scratch, natch, with horseradish, worcestershire, fresh ground pepper, celery salt, dash of clamato, V-8, and garnished with pepperoncini and claussen pickes- I don't fuck around when it comes to bloodys)).

Here are some pictures from the final weekend at Potosi Hot Springs:








((((^^The trout in that creek have mutated to a golden color to blend in with the creek bed. Amazing.))))





P.S. I was joking about Clinton and lefties. Lying about blowjobs trumps lying about WMDs and getting 19 year-olds killed any day. I'm sure things will be much better in Iraq after your tax dollars help re-build all the infrastructure that we smart-bombed to smithereens. Absolute genius.

P.P.S. Stanette runs 50 mile races. She enjoys it. I think that is insane.

Somewhere, over the rainbowWay up high

I am back at my home station here. Starfleet headquarters.





Things got a bit.. a bit... I'd like to say "hectic," but it was a pretty much the opposite of hectic. Anyway, old friends, things got too chill amidst the ocean breezes on Maui.




I spent some time with the family.



I spent some time kayaking.




I spent some time in the sun, drinking a frozen drink with a hibiscus blossom.



(That is a humpback whale.)




I spent some time driving on small, one-lane roads, which reassured me that there are still people living in brown, sun-kissed isolation, with chickens wandering free and startlingly bright white smiles, offering hot-out-of-the-oven banana bread that warmed me far more deeply than the sun ever could.





Liz and I went on a whale-watching cruise, then we drove around the West/North side of the island for the banana-bread goodness.




She and I get on like a house on fire.



Maui is damned unsightly. Reminds me a bit of Kansas.




Occasionally, you run across a situation so odd that it makes you yearn to throw a dead, limp squid on it, tentacles splayed in a way that you can taste the calimari, which you love despite knowing that beneath that fried, circular, almost-onion ring-like-except-for-that-strange-rubbery-chewy-sensation goodness, you are eating something that has ten legs, a beak, and squirts ink out its ass whenever Jacques Cousteau gets too close.




It's times like those that make you grip your grapes and ask yourself, "Why shouldn't I buy a ukelele? Why?"



Times when you find yourself shrugging your shoulders and explaining to the TSA dude in rubber gloves that yes, you have a ukelele in your luggage, dammit, and I am happy to see you.



There are times when I wish I had more Words. For you, for me, for posterity. Yet, everytime I sit and try to write, it seems that I lack the skills to translate the experience adequately into the English language. I feel like just making stuff up, but that would be an injustice to the experience... yet, I read exclusively fiction. Twisted fiction (this week, I read the new Irvine Welsh book, The Bedroom Secrets of Master Chefs, and the new Chuck Palahniuk book, Haunted, both masterworks of depravity).




Ahhh, who cares, anyway?





So long as you escaped from the Man for ten minutes on a Monday, forgetting where you were, taking a mental dreamscape internet vacation, basking in the warm sunlight, I fulfilled my end of the bargain.





When are you going to fulfill yours?

Hmmm?