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Yesterday, on Valentine's Day; in an elevator, a lone man carrying a paper-wrapped bundle rode up the building with half a dozen women. One woman, dressed well and perfectly made up, stated, "Oh, someone is getting flowers. And from McNamara. They must be beautiful." The paper on the flowers was labelled with the name. " I have been with Roger for eighteen years. Eighteen years of holidays and birthdays and anniversaries and the first time he ever sent me flowers was last July." She paused and stared at the flower bundle. "He only sent me flowers then because I nagged him consistently for two years."

The elevator stopped and the man with the flowers started forward. "You ladies have a happy Valentine's Day." 

A chorus of voices followed him, "Thank you," and "Happy Valentine's Day." And just as he was out of sight and the doors were closing, "Wait," the well-dressed lady called out loudly, "We want the flowers."

Took William to the family doctor this morning, for, oh, he was NOT WELL. The local crud. Nasty virus. Eh.

Anyway, our wonderful doctor, likes to share. And, today, he shared the results of a new study. On the BESTEST WAY to AVOID COLDS. Nothing fancy, but all the practical.

1) Wash your hands. All. The. Time. Use hand sanitizer. But yes, wash them all the day long.

2) Eat a heart-smart diet. Especially eat breakfast.

3) Exercise! Sleep! 8 hours worth. (Yes, I know this is like two, but I lost track of where what went where. (Well except nos. 1 and 4.)

4) Avoid STRESS. (Maybe sleep fell here? Anyway, prioritize, plan for fun, but avoid stress as much as possible)

All of this is happy doctor talk, for this is EXACTLY what he says to us when he is talking about keeping the health. So, yay, keep healthy and away from the winter cold.

They were sitting at a table talking about deer and hunting, deer hunting season. She said she had seen what seemed to be more women dressed for hunting this year. He had nodded yes, but never said anything about it. He'd already gotten his first doe, and was waiting for the buck. There was one he had his eye. It had twelve points on its rack. Later, as they were leaving, he said his girlfriend wants to hunt. She'd seen a photo of a female friend posed beside the doe she had shot. "Now," he said with a huge on his face, "I'll have to buy a pink rifle."

At the truck stop off of I70, two men are sitting behind me, one of the men says to the other, "That man who wanted to buy the AK47, he believes the zombies are really coming. He said, 'Hell can only hold so many people.'"

They would say I am a pretentious, literary snob with fortunate and/or unfortunate genre leanings.

Okay. Whoa. Youngest son, remember him, he is the eighteen year old Senior of the High School this year. Remember he is the drummer son, and, oh, how he learnt, is learning, to play Spanish Guitar via tube internets? (On pause for the moment as he grew his fingernails long and, then, peer pressure got to him, so now he is waiting on them to grow out long and strong and beautiful again.) Oh, yes, him. Well, this year for institutional school instruction in music, he is taking KEYBOARD (ie piano). He bought himself an piano, electronic, yes, but real-to-piano-life keyboard and everything else (but strings) so yes. Teeny tiny songs he plays from the lesson book, BUT! he gets bored and embellishes them some. Well, William likes Moonlight Sonota so he downloaded the sheet music and is learning to play it bit by bit. Go, William! BUT the reason for the post (brought about by Rae's mention of her piano (and tuning of) as well as a message post about a song for piano) is the fact that I should ask my friends what music should I ask my son to learn to play on the piano for me? BECAUSE. Oh, I am illiterate on piano music and you all know EVERYTHING. So, I am. Here I am asking, what piano music do you love and maybe think the boy of mine could learn to play for meeee.

As I was driving home this morning, I passed a possum on the road. Her face morphed from possum to barn owl before my eyes. I know, I couldn't believe it either.

"Tis officially now THE SUMMER OF THE BUGS! This morning, I found a black beetle in my bathroom sink. And, where did a black beetle come from so that he was in my bathroom? I'm thinking that sleeping bag the eldest son stuck in the laundry hamper after he used it to tan in the back yard.

But, yeah, bugs. I have seen more bomber bumblebees this year than I think I have seen in my life. And, crickets. I've even rescued big, black crickets at work. I told the last one that we had to stop meeting like this. And, Sunday morning, ants on the car as I ran an errand.

If there is going to be BUGS, I prefer the pretty ones with wings: butterflies, wee midnight moths, and fireflies. Fireflies, which I may be seeing in July for that is when my work restriction for my injured back is released (this Friday) and that is when I return to third shift. My request. For it is cooler in the evening and when you work in non-air-conditioned conditions the cooler the better. Because you know when you're laboring over a thing and sweat runs into your eyes, ah, it stings. Like a bug bite.

And, you, try to avoid the bugs, but the especially ones that STING. I mean all of you.

Buck and I went for a walk this morning. It was more like a leisurely stroll. Then, it rained. We got wet. Then, wetter. But. One of the things I like best in walking is all the sights of lives lived. Like peeking inside of windows, but its all on the outside for anyone to view.

So, today, lives lived; a motorcycle parked on the front porch of a duplex, a blooming vine on a white trestle that could have been a morning glory but it looked like a pinwheel or a song, a window, second floor window, with a picture taped outward of Jesus (it was a blue print Jesus), a huge yellow dog pacing and barking behind a eight foot wooden fence declaring "I am lonely and I love you, I love you desperately." a beautiful brick home with a note glued on the glass of its beautiful double doors saying it had been found abandoned and therefore belonged to a government agency, a huge hand-lettered poster on a picture window of a small building, the sign said OPEN, a wild cottage garden with ivies and pink lilies and these little bushes with teeny-tiny purple berries, and, lastly, a row of garage doors, four of them, that were double farm doors, painted red and whispering, "Where are our horses, our cows, the ducks that waddle through our mud puddles? Where are our mud puddles?"

So, last week, sometime, just before Dale went hospital bound, but he's home now, and everything is getting itself in order, which is just how life is, well, last week, I received the LCRW xxv issue and Small Beer Press always (always, always, always) tucks such wonderful little delights in their mail and there was POSTCARDS. And, one of those postcards was for the fantastic novel, Couch, by Benjamin Parzybok, which I read and I liked very much and I never this blog posted about it, which I wanted to do and should have done a long, long time ago. So, here I am, and I will mention that some novels stay with you a long time, and this is one of them. Not just because it was a read that moved along so very well, but because of its journey.  

Here comes the tricky part, the part where what I say and how I say it leads you along and it has to be exactly right or it just ends up confusing. The novel begins with an interesting array of characters in the real world, roommates with a couch, and life comes along, only its the life that, well, isn't so happy. Ruined apartment. Oh. And, a couch that has to be moved/removed. And, there the journey takes off and it makes sense in a small, off-the-wall way that is possible with a group of young men. Yes. They begin travelling the world with the couch. And, it becomes fantastical logical and/or surrealistic reality and/or just plain surreal, and sad.  

So, I haven't ruined it for you and I can still say, with a voice of certainty, that the transformations, character transformation and fiction transformation, has held this little novel in my memory. It stays true to development and real to comprehension, and that's a magic all its own. May we all have such journeys as we travel along, with or without, you know, essential articles of the living.