h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Oh, and I'm not ignoring Phred's blog in particular. I ignore everyone's blogs. I barely have time for h2g2 and e-mail.

Hey, I've been thinking about you all, and upon clicking upon that dusty h2g2 bookmark I discovered that I was locked out.

All better now, obviously, as I'm here to say Hey, and apologise to Helen for missing the springtime haiku.

My long absence is symptomatic of avoidant personality disorder [APD], I've been convoluting involuting rechanneling neurons to find the missing synapses.

Just now, a quiet helpful voice in my head said a few words, so here I am.

Anyway, , Hey.

It's nice to hear from you, Night Rider. It would be great to have the old gang back together here. I miss this thread and everyone who posted regularly.

There has been a major change in family dynamics for me. Marilyn and Larry are both gone now. She died from breast cancer. It will be two years in October. Then this spring, the day before Easter, Larry shot himself. He had suffered from chemical depression for decades and just couldn't come to grips with living alone.

The library is still standing. I've put on a lot of exhibits the past year and a half and have some really good ones scheduled for next year. Right now I'm struggling with the script for our annual Mystery Night. Unfortunately, the first one I did a couple of years ago turned ut well enough that now I'm stuck doing them.

I've completely redesigned my garden. I took out the peach, nectarine and almond trees and am going to try to espallier fruit trees in future. Keep them low enough for me to spray them and actually reach the fruit. Give it all a couple of years and I should have a very low maintenance fruit and veg plot.

Annie, my litle dog, died in early December. I adopted a female Sheltie from a kennel and a month later, to everyone's surprise, she had three puppies. One died the first night, so I have two that I raised. They're absolutely gorgeous, and I enjoy them a lot. But I didn't plan on three dogs. The trouble was that by the time they were old enough to sell, I was so attached to them that I couldn't bear to part with them. The mother dog is named Spice and the pups are Heather and Hamish. Photos of them are here:

http://public.fotki.com/Hypatia/

I haven't put any new ones up for a while. I really should do that.

I can't think of much else right now. Hope you stay in touch.

What? What was that? Getting back was hard. I had to create a whole new Phred Firecloud. I feel like I just stepped of the S.S. Heart of Gold...

Nothing new here...still camping out full time with Mrs. Phred.

Sorry to hear about Larry.

Right now I'm stealing Wi-Fi from a Canadian who seems to be named Scott.

Did you hear about the guy who wants to set up a boot camp for the unemployed to teach them personal hygiene so they can all get jobs? Sometimes the news is weird.

I keep in touch with Helen and her hubby Chris, but nobody else for what seems like years.

Hey Xantief...you cross my mind now and then. Hope the boys are doing well.

I think my mail guy took all my 2010 calendars and the pile of money to mail them and threw them all in the trash. He also charged me for a year of mail service and skipped town.

Anyway....Leo must have graduated by now?

....The New and Improved Phred

It's like coming home, being back at the Campfire...

I'm sorry to hear about Larry. I was wondering how he could handle losing Marilyn.

Mystery Night at the library? Please, Hyp, tell us more.

I'm also sorry about little Annie, but for the Shelties I can only offer a virtual squeal of pleasure. Beautiful! Candy, Hamish and Heather. BTW, how are the raccoon and opossum? and Minerva?

I thank you, Hypatia, I should've stayed wif me friends all along instead of going off to battle the evil god of Abraham....

Arrh, Cap'n Phred of the USS Heart O'Gold...
I recollect, from your excellent Blogspot presence, that you mentioned a flowering fondness for Beer. How's that going? I'm naturally curious about that.

Also, you have the assurance of two true Bavarians, myself and former colleague Alexander H., that northern Californy (or wherever the brew is distributed to) is the best place to celebrate springtime in the ancient Bay'rische tradition. Now I know I'm not supposed to advertise here, but the truth is, the Sierra Nevada Brewery has produced the most totally respectable Bavarian Bock west o' the Pecos.

An instant classic, much like Zatarain's Creole Mustard. They named it Glissade. But it's only available as a Seasonal Brew. Alex promised to spam them without mercy until they build a dedicated Glissade brewery. Up in Chico, Californy.

Spice, not Candy.

Hi Xantief,

Welcome back. All my beer and wine making gear is back in Tampa, where I haven't been now for five months.

Beer? No. I have fallen in love with a new grape, the Seyval. The grape is grown mainly in England and the Finger Lakes region of New York. It contains some non-vinifera genes, it is outlawed by the EU authorities for wine production. I'm looking forward to producing some cases of Seyval Blanc this winter from this outlaw grape.

The God of Abraham...always a problem in polite conversation...my dog tags read "A Pos" for blood type and "Existentialist" for religious preference...when the subject comes up with believer friends, I tell them that the Universe is more strange and wonderful than we can imagine and that I find the explanations of all organized religions way less than satisfying...that usually suffices...

We've been fighting Newfoundland mice and fruit flies this summer. I've become an excellent trapper.

We're about to zig across lower Ontario this morning to Michigan. Sorry I didn't look you up in California. We stayed on the East side of the mountains for the most part and crossed over near the redwoods.

(As you may know, The Seyval grape is a hybrid cross of the Seibel 5656 and Rayon d'Or (Seibel 4986).

Minerva is fine. Full of it, as always. The possum and raccoon have moved next door, thanks to the dogs. I also have fewer squirrels in the yard since the Sheltie invasion.

Mystery Night is a fundraiser sponsored by the Friends of the Library. A dinner and a mystery play for $25. What a deal! How many tickets do you want? This will be the 4th one. I bought a script for the first and wrote them for the second and third.

I've wondered about Leo, too. Wish she'd drop by and at least say hello. Young folk are so busy.

What's the date on the mystery play? Maybe We can be there...

Three Shelties...huh! That's a bunch...

Just finished "From Here to Eternity" one more time...I'd almost forgotten the difference between the pulp I read habitually and a real author...King, Koontz, Lescarot, Vince Flynn, Stephen Hunter, Lee Child, Hunter S. Thompson, Greg Iles and Michael Connelly...all punks...good for a slow afternoon, but a long way from real literature...Maybe James Webb, Tony Hillerman and Larry McMurtrie are a step up...maybe not...

I remember in the movie Frank Sinatra played Maggio and Burt Lancaster was Milt Warden as First Seargeant and Fatso Judson the stockade guard was played by Ernest Borgnine...

I don't remember who was Prewitt (the boxer-trumpet player-coal miner) or the lady who played Warden's girlfriend (Captain Holmes, her husband, gave her the "clap")...

Just making conversation...

So...anybody read any good books lately? What is it about WWII marines like James Jones and Norman Mailer?

Oh crap...when you start listing readable authors it's hard to remember them all...

Ray Bradbury. Larry Niven, Arthur C. Clark, John Steinbeck, Jules Verne, H. G Wells, Isaac Asimov, Faulkner...Orson Scott Card...even Harry Turtledove and James Michener...and how about George Orwell?

Suggestions appreciated...

First, our Mystery Night is October 23rd. Tickets are $25 a head. Seating is limited, so if you really think you can come, let me know at least by October 1 so I can get you some tickets.

We go through phases where we enjoy actual literature and phases where we just want to be entertained. And our reading tastes are so subjective that it is difficult to recommend books for someone else. One of my go to authors when I'm out of sorts and hard to satisfy is Truman Capote. I like Southern authors like Faulkner and Welty. I also reread Hemingway every few years. Other writers I use as emergency go-tos that are pretty much forgotten these days are Leon Uris and Frank Yarby. Have you read Bernard Cornwell? I don't enjoy the Sharpe series, but I like his other books. Want an epic? Try Edward Rutherfurd. Want just a good, gritty mystery/detective series? Read the Rebus series by Ian Rankin.

We'll be gone from your vicinity by the 23rd of October...Thanks for the tips on authors...Most of them I know, but there are a few on your list that I'll look into....

We're in Port Huron, Michigan today...planning our trip to include Chicago, St Louis and Petite Jean, Arkansas...

I have Cod...maybe we could drop by and cook another fish dinner and a blueberry pie...or perhaps you would prefer Lake Huron lake trout with the pie?

I picked the Blueberries myself...

I haven't done much reading for the past couple years except philosophy and history, along with various apologia and theologia. So this imaginary war I have waged was not a total waste. But please humour me, my dear friends, as I will occasionally feel the need to detoxify.

But I'm still the wiseacre. For example, if I were acquainted with Husserl and Heidegger, I wouldn't have had to reinvent the phenomenological philosophical wheel.

ah campfire dreams campfire dreams ... oftentimes I dream that I am eating a virtual corncob around a campfire with my dear h2g2 friends and a strange otherwordly campfire smoke is swirling around my head and filling my brain with an intelligence that I don't normally have ... .... and I am visited by poetry and strange white birds that whisper secrets into my third eye ..

and hullo all ye darlings and brothers and sisters and mentors .... ....... just read all the postings ..... and now my brain is filled with an otherworldly smoky intelligence ..... and I am whispering thoughts and secret spirit poems to Marilyn and Larry ....

sort of thing like and everything .......

I'm not at home right now .. in fact I am on a sticky keyboard in an internet cafe in Eastbourne Sussex ...... again ....... so I can only post sporadically right now .. my 89 yr old Dad is moving house ... from the family farmhouse to a bungalow up the road .. like you do when you're 89 and can hardly walk but hey .... so we have been clearing the farmhouse which is sweaty work .. yet strangely poetic ... I am prepared mentally and emotionally but my muscles aren't quite up to it ... .. in fact I haven't worked so hard physically since 1977 when I leapt from city to city like a young gazelle in search of work and friends and food and scraps of inspiration ....with my shadowsoul panic watching me from twilight corners ......

Also been dealing with my old Mum who went into a dementia carehome in December .... so its been a parental time for me ..... strangeness and sorrow and beginnings and endings ......

luckily I have my writing which keeps me alive and sparking ...still writing my word paintings ... fragments of moment poetry that bubble up from the wellspring and cleanse mine eyes and mind ....

and I am setting it all to music ..... I am a synth player now .... I am synthesizer crazy ..... those strange frequencies ... that sound ... ah that sound ..my room at home is a tangle of wires ... .. I scuttle through them like a techno roach ... ... ... I have this theory that the synth sound is the same sound as the electrical impulses in the brain ......

I am currently reading Miserable Miracle by Henri Michaux ....

and am listening all the time to the music of Philip Glass .. I am crazy about Philip Glass .....especially Monsters of Grace (Rumi poems set to music) ... The Book of Longing (Leonard Cohen poems set to music) .... and an album called Songs of Liquid Days ..... incredible amazing .. Philip Glass I love you....

OK dear friends .. gotta go ..... back to clearing the family attic ..... where I will find laughter echoes .... birdskulls .. primroses pressed in a book of secrets ..... boxes full of old photographs and glass marbles and tiny silver crucifixes ....

..... yadayadayada .... ... you get the picture ... ......

H

Phred, it would be great to see you both -- with or without cod and blueberries. Just let me know when you're going to be in this vicinity.

Yay!!!! Helen is back on her stiocky keyboard. I'm sorry your parents are winding down. It's hard to watch. Mother is also 89. She's still living alone but shouldn't be. I'm not looking forward to the upset it's going to cause her to move. Little brother is no help whatsoever. He doesn't want to face the inevitable. That's just part of his nature. He inherited it from our father, who was a classic ostrich. As long as he didn't think about something, it didn't exsist. And Bro is far enough away that he doesn't have to watch it. Lets him pretend everything is as it always was.

Xantief, I know that battle very well. Unload on us anytime you feel the need.

That reminds me...I don't think I've ever read "You Can't Go Home Again" by Thomas Wolfe...

I think that I just now realized that Tom Wolfe is another author of a much later generation..."Electric Kool Aid Acid Test" and "Look Homeward, Angel" are NOT written by the same Wolfe...

I'd guess that this conversation will never crack the 10,000 barrier...

March 6th 2006 ... ... that's when this campfire conversation began ... I just went to the very start of this Phred-thread by mistake and went ... ......

that's why this conversation moves slow at times perhaps ... ... we are all so deep and interesting amd our spirits are so well established in this virtual smoky atmostphere that we can now communicate telepathically .... ...

sort of thing .. like .. or maybe not ....



I'm no longer on the sticky public keyboard .. I'm at home .. for a little while anyway .. ... hullo world ....

yes ...hey Hyp luvvy .. ... yes ...'tis certainly a very potent and emotional time ... parents moving into a new phase of their lives ... all of us moving into new phases of our lives ... the passing of time ... the transience of all things ...

ah yes ...

...interestingly .... or not ... ... my Mum is more at peace now in the carehome .. she is looking so beautiful and surrounded by a curious light aura ... she seems to be letting go of a lifetime of emotional struggle .... which is .. in turn .. a very healing experience for me ..... as she is receiving the physical and mental nursing care she has needed for so much of her life ... but wasn't somehow available till now ..... free of the taboos of other times in history ...

.... makes me sad sometimes ..... all the social constrictions of history ....all the taboos that prevent access to deep healing ...

hmm ... these deep thoughts could run for a while ....

(sound of brain ticking) ... tikky tikky tock ....



hmm .. must think about story-cycles .... I'm getting into a rather mystical vein right now .. ... having been clearing out the family home ... old photos ... story cycles etc .... and history turning into spirit ....

curiously though ...during this time ... I happened to have with me my Philip Glass CD of Rumi poems set to music .....in which is included the little verse ... by Rumi ... entitled Spirits ....

..... but I will over to my h2 journal for more of this .. as I am yadayadaing all over the Phreddy-Thready .... ...



Ah ... Electric Kool Aid Acid Test .... fine book ... very very fine book ....

you know one of the best reads in town? The Firecloud Report ... tis so .... we read it all the time .... end of commercial slot .. ...

hey brother Xantief ..... lovely to hear from you ....

all all ye ....

and everything ....




H

Phred, no reason why we can't hit 10,000. Patience is a virtue, remember?

It's wonderful the way sorting through old photos and other bits of family history inspires us. I'm always amazed at how different my perspectives on events are now than when they happened. Time softens the edges. There are a few memories that remain diffiult, but for the most part we are able to see things more objectively.

I was reminded just this weekend of a running family joke that grew out of my grandfather's dubious distant relationship to Queen Victoria. The Queen would probably be amazed to learn that she provided amusement for our family for decades. I really should write it up in my journal.

Off to a sultry start this Morning...

The US Army Corps of Engineers is spending Obama money fixing up the campground here in Mountain Home Arkansas on big Lake Norfolk...they built new bathrooms and have about half the campground fenced off to build nice new concrete pads with shelters, picnic tables and firepits...

It's been dry here until today...they have a burn notice in effect. The engineers have thoughtfully placed a bunch of firewood on our site...maybe the burn ban will be lifted because of the rain...

The thunderstorms started about noon and dropped a lot of water...I hit the used bookstore yesterday and picked up five paperback...

The rain started me thinking about all the fun things one can do indoors...pie made the list...I'm waiting for the oven to hit 425F.

Ingredients

* 3/4 cup white sugar
* 3 tablespoons cornstarch
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
* 4 cups fresh blueberries
* 1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie
* 1 tablespoon butter

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).
2. Mix sugar, cornstarch, salt, and cinnamon, and sprinkle over blueberries.
3. Line pie dish with one pie crust. Pour berry mixture into the crust, and dot with butter. Cut remaining pastry into 1/2 - 3/4 inch wide strips, and make lattice top. Crimp and flute edges.
4. Bake pie on lower shelf of oven for about 50 minutes, or until crust is golden brown.

I prefer my pie with Breyer's French Vanilla ice cream on top...As my dad used to say when he returned from France...."A la mode"

When we visited San Antonio, this appeared to be a big favorite...they kept saying "Remember the A la Mode!"