There is Good Stuff to Read Here

“Study drawing shows the allegorical figure of Romance nude. She bends her head to read a book on her lap. Romance was one figure in a painting, The arts, in the north end lunette of the Southwest Gallery in the Library of Congress’ Jefferson Building.” Graphite drawing (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It is a perfect night to read and I can think of nothing better than reading old posts on A Little Tour In Yellow.

There is good stuff scattered on this blog, even a picture of a blonde in silk chemise, and you’ll have to settle for that.   I am simply tired — too tired, too damn tired — to tired to write.  Too tired to think…I’m repeating myself.

I am taking my own advice and reading, and I’ll be reading, too.

I need something light and easy so I will push on with Amore Towles’s novel, Rules of Civility.  (You can follow my reading by clicking the Good Reads link on my blog roll.)

Rules of Civility is a very well-written mediocre book.  While the writing is indeed quite good, the story is fading on me.  I want to like it.  I plan to see the author later next month.  And I wonder how insulting it will be if I ask:  Did you write this with a screenplay in mind?

Ah, yes…well, it will translate easily to film and visually it better sparkle.  I am only a third through the book and if anything is going to happen it better happen fast.  (We’re in the second reel already, for crying out loud!)  Oh, there has been an accident, naturally, but that has turned out to be one of the most disappointing accidents in literature…at least so far it has been.  Nevertheless I am holding out hope that there might be a twist to shake things up a bit.  Or maybe we’ll go unexpectedly Proustian or something.  No…impossible…this novel is solidly an American period piece, a simple — but well-written — American novel.

You, on the other hand, don’t have to bother with such uncertainty.  You can simply scroll through this blog and find something fantastic to read and share.  When you do find something, tell me about it, too.  I like pleasant surprises.

And finally, don’t forget, don’t vote Republican.  Good night and sleep well.

 

 

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Wasting Moments That Might Not Even Be Mine

The Thinking Man sculpture at Musée Rodin in Paris

Do you know what I accomplished today?  Nothing.  At least nothing that was on the carefully thought out to do list I created Sunday night.  Today is Tuesday…Two days in a row?  Ouch. That’s called a flop.

I started thinking about this…and it isn’t good.   It works this way…

When one wastes time by putting things off — at least when I put things off — I do so with the thought that I can always get caught up tomorrow.  But then … holy cow…what if I keel over tomorrow!  What if I don’t quite die but get laid up somewhere?  Or lose my mind?  Or just get lost?  What if I start forgetting things…

In more practical ways, what if I cannot do tomorrow what I want to do today?  Maybe I’ll just get too damn stupid to flesh out my strange sense about string theory.  I can’t say for sure.  Maybe I will simply forget what I wanted to do.  Who can say?

So when I am sitting about thinking I’ll get caught up tomorrow, that might not be an option.  In that sense, the time I a wasting is the time I think I have tomorrow and that time might not even mine.  Think about that because I don’t think I am making any sense.  That isn’t good.  Maybe you can explain it to me.

So time to get myself back on track!  I am going to start holding myself accountable again.  I will publicly announce my tasks and chores.  And I think the best way to do it is to start with the ugly stuff first.  If you start your day eating a bug, everything you do the rest of the day is better in comparison, right?  Isn’t that the saying?

(Why do I seem to be asking so many questions lately?  Is that an early sign of dementia?)

First on my list tomorrow — after a hearty breakfast of waffles and eggs scrambled with black pepper, spinach, and shredded Parmesan cheese — I will call the client who wants to take me to court, just to see how he’s doing.  But in no particular order — other than task #1 —  here is my Wednesday list:

1. Call the client who wants to sue me.
2. Clean kitchen and dining room.
3. Read before Netflix.  (This has to become a hard rule.)
4. Write before Netflix.  (This has to become a hard rule.)
5. Schedule my client follow ups…before Netflix.
6. Daily walk.
7. Reset my Carbonite back up.
8. Write to Ed Doering.
9. Pay my currently-expired magazine and journal
   subscriptions.

I think that is a complete day.  In fact I think I will get a jump on things by finishing Elizabethtown tonight so I can drop the disk in the mail and not think about Netflix, disk or streaming.  (Elizabethtown, by the way…how did I get that?)

9.  Check Netflix queue for films like Elizabethtown.

There, now that is a complete day.

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Your Kid Has Autism? Start a Business!

We have a new poster child for myopic conservativism:  Sher Venezuela, a Republican candidate for lieutenant governor of Delaware.  The self-duped fool spoke tonight at the Republican convention and spewed the out-of-touch rhetoric of far-right ignorance.

Sher tells us that when faced with high cost of care for her autistic child, they built a factory to cover the cost.  The factory is her family’s “kitchen table.”

Is it just me or does this seem a little out of touch with reality?  (It is Day One and already I cannot take it anymore.)

Is there any chance that good fortune and timing might have helped Sher?  Ok, maybe that sounds cynical.  Let’s say she has extraordinary talent, is it fair to say that not everyone is as gifted?  Besides, maybe everyone doesn’t want to start a business!  What would we do with 300,000 million factories in this country?  Seems kind of crowded to me, if not entirely unlikely…or impossible.

Let’s imagine that the Republican myth — heavily stewed in the simple-minded fiction of Ayn Rand — is correct.  Let’s say everyone can take care of himself or herself if they apply the right ethic.  Am I to believe then that everyone will own factories and earn millions?  And if you’re unwilling to be a captain of industry, then you should be left in the gutter — with your kids and grandma too —  to suffer the consequences of your laziness?

God Help Us…

Ok, maybe everyone won’t build a factory; perhaps you can start a business offering therapy to stressed out factory owners.  Would that work?

One third of Americans believe they are in the economic top 10 per cent.  Obviously that is impossible, but it fits conservative logic.  In fact, Republicans appear to suggest that everyone can be in the top ten per cent.  Not only will it get awfully crowded at the top, but that is impossible, too.  (Cons find math perplexing.)  So someone is going to be left out.  Is it you?

God, I don’t know…but I do recall lessons in history.  There were other governments founded on the idea that the superior should reign and to hell with the rest.  Is that the ethic we want to live by?

You don’t have to listen very closely to hear that the Republican Party really isn’t about people anyway.  Corporations already have their way with us and if you are in Romney’s camp corporations are people, too.  No, Republicans don’t worry too much about corporations, at least not in the current side show, but they do seem to be all about small business, which appears to be the GOP‘s primary constituency tonight.

Listening to an hour of convention speeches is enough to prove it.  Each speaker has talked about how urgent it is that government serves small business, because, as Republicans are saying tonight, they “built it.”

Did they build the state universities, the freeways, and the public utilities that serve us all, rich and poor alike?  (Or at least used to…)  Did they enact the environmental and financial laws that protect us from reckless excess that destroys our common interests?  How about the public investment that has gone into research, health, social services and more?

(As an aside, how many jobs have Democrats created?  None??  Of course that isn’t true; Democrats create jobs and work, too.  And isn’t a public worker a worker?  Don’t we need public workers?  As taxpayers we invest in public services and those services create jobs.  Therefore we are indeed all job creators.)

In short, these people don’t get it.  The United States is not a business and it cannot be run like a business.  People, not business, should be the priority of government.  As Lincoln advised, we should defend a “government of the people, by the people, for the people,” which highlights the importance of equality and democracy for all.  Are you hearing that from the conservative speakers tonight?

We can all be critical of our recent past for many and varying reasons.  The question to ask is what are conservatives offering that is different.  We have been through their ideas of less is more, we are living its results now.  Do we really want more of this?

 

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Has My Love for Paper Gone Too Far?

I love paper.  I really, really love paper.  I subscribe to newspapers I haven’t time to read because I love paper so much.  Get me within a time zone of a true stationer — one with great paper, pens, and paper gadgets — and I am there.  So I am always aware of paper around me.

So who would have thought that a random purchase of sliced cheesed would push my love for paper to the limit?  Did you know they put paper between the slices in those packs?  Wow!  I thought the packed the stuff in plastic.  I’m a deli guy usually, but this discovery might reset my perspective on things.  Cheese AND paper for one flat rate.  Unbelievable.

You see I tend to hoard paper, especially great paper, and when I opened my sliced cheese and found the paper, I started to giggle.  What a find.  And what good paper.  Nice texture and weight perfectly cured between slices of extra sharp cheddar.  It gets better.  Like the cheese, this paper is pre-cut for convenience.  The cheese paper is sized just right for quick notes and reminders.  Perfect!  And, because they are cut in squares, they are perfect for origami, something I cannot do very well.

But I can make notes!  Take a look.

Think of how impressed the love of your life will be if you send that “I’m sorry” on a piece of cheese paper.  It shows resourcefulness and thrift, if not responsibility, too.  Global awareness is key.  Save a tree.  Mom will be impressed for all the same reasons.  Even your boss might take notice.  And cheese makes people happy.  Even people who don’t like cheese seem happy around cheese.  Why do you think the phrase “cheesy” is so easily understood and unthreatening?

There’s more…

Suppose you get a piece of paper that is a bit irregular — a bit folded or something — well, guess what!…They make great book marks.  Just fold it over and put it to good use.  I do!

So what do you think, am I nuts?  Or do you understand my cheesy affection for cheese paper?

 

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Romney Can Turn the Economy Around?

Mitt Romney (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On the eve of the Republican National Committee convention in Tampa, Florida, the message Republicans hope to send is clear.  Romney, they will claim, is the right guy to fix our nation’s economic woes.  But for all the reasons they make this argument are exactly and correctly the real reasons why he is, in fact, absolutely not the right person for the job.

Very simply, Romney is a businessman through and through.  He appears incapable of seeing the wold beyond the scope of business models.  This is bad news for a man who wants to be president of the United States for the very simple reason that a country is not a business.

At a very common sense level this should be obvious.  Businesses are about generating profits.  The goods and services they sell are not in essence the final goal of a business.  They merely are part of the profit-generating system.

Government has different goals.  Profit is not the goal.  Instead the goods and services it provides are the goal.   Moreover, governments operate in a closed system.  Compare this with a business which operates entirely differently.  A business, for example, can move or even shut down. In fact, Mitt Romney‘s career as a businessman is one that takes advantage of the open opportunities that a business enjoys.  He routinely moved or closed businesses for economic gain.  You cannot move a country.  And you cannot fire its citizens.

At an economic level, Romney, like most conservatives today, is terribly unprepared to manage the United States economy.  First of all business finance is not the same as macroeconomic policy.  There are questions of balance of trade, monetary policy, and deficits that conservatives seem inherently unable to grasp.  Government plays a very different role in our economy than a business does.  In fact you can look at what applying businesses best practices to government policy has done to our economy so far.

The era of austerity is failing our economy.  Deregulation and lower taxes has failed to stimulate economic growth.  And the profit motive has sent more and more of America’s wealth up the economic ladder, and not down to the benefit of most Americans as promised.  Why, one has to ask, would you ask for even more of these failing policies and not less?

Of course at the root of all of this is a basic difference in how conservatives and progressives see government.  Conservatives are not afraid to gut social safety nets, schools, environmental regulation all the rest that does not involve wars, guns, and prisons because they believe in a so-called merit system.  If you live a good life, you should be able to send your kid to school, pay your medical bills and so on.  Of course economists see this differently.  A good job for you comes at the cost of a job for someone else, for example.  Not everyone can have a million dollar income or a million dollar will have no value.

There is a whole argument about public goods that should be made, but we’re way beyond that now.  However it is indeed important to understand how investing in the common good serves us all, rich and poor alike.  A healthier,  better-educated population is a safer and more productive society.  Challenge these so-called individualists to move to Somalia and start up a business and achieve their American standard of living.

Even in today’s paper, my friend Tim Pawlenty was again mentioned as an attractive Republican politician because of his success from humble roots.  But it is hard to see how the policies guys like Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney promote would let the son of a delivery truck driver attain the sort of success and opportunity Tim has enjoyed.  Can a delivery truck driver own a nice home and support a family today?  Seems less and less likely.

…if you are really concerned about your children’s future.

Very simply these guys don’t get it and, as much as I hate to say it, it isn’t entirely their fault.  They don’t believe in government, don’t understand how it works, and are ignorant of economics.  Why should we expect them to propose sound and appropriate public policy?

The real fault lies with the voters who nominate and elect these politicians.  A poorly-informed and unsophisticated electorate is the real risk to democracy.  And it certainly looks like we are in the thick of it now.

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Politics at the Minnesota State Fair

Now some people might say my opinions are a bit biased, but I don’t know why anyone would say that.  They might also suggest that I do generalize a bit too easily.  Really?  No, no no.  Pish posh.  That’s just silly.  And I am going to prove it.

Yesterday I went to the Minnesota State Fair and lingered at the GOP booth.  I like to do this, especially with a few anti-Marriage Amendment and pro-Democratic buttons pinned to my shirt.  I also like to see how long I can hold my breath.  (I don’t know, but those people must have caught something and I don’t want it.)  So picture me there, holding my breath turning shades of red and holding a half-full cup of pale ale, too, while I eagerly look  for action.

I am an observant guy and I seek out the truth.  So I linger and watch and wait and so on.  I want something to happen, after all I always look for facts that I can share with you.  And year after year I keep giving these people a second chance and each year I am disappointed.  Certainly their politics are wrong — bad thinking leads to bad politics — but why the hell can’t these people get fashion right?

Come on folks!  Have some style.  Who dresses you, Nurse Ratched?

I exhale and leave.

Here is an indisputable fact…if you see a stylish, well-dressed (maybe even sexy…definitely if sexy) person at the Minnesota State Fair, they’re a liberal.  I’ll take that fact one step farther, if you see a stylish, well-dressed (and most definitely if they’re sexy) person anywhere, they are a liberal.   And I can prove it with one visit at the fair.

Certainly there are some liberals with closets best suited for the 80s, I don’t deny that — I might even be one of them — but I challenge you to find a conservative with any fashion sense.  I only speak the truth, so prove me wrong.

Let’s start with the basics.

Your typical conservative congressman, as an example, matches his belt and shoes only because someone told him to do so.  Whereas a liberal finds fashionable ways to mix it up.  And pulls it off.  Look back at any of the Republican debates earlier this year.  If there are people who can make a standard blue suit look bad, that’s your gang.  Clearly they watch episodes of Dragnet for tips on style and poise.  Dare them to mix patterns or try a European cut.

I do have to give George W. Bush some credit, though.  He appeared to have a tailor.  And a good one.  Of course he wore his suits like a coat hanger — Jack Webb would have been proud — but then a suit of clothes doesn’t make the man.  Often the other way around.  And we know other issues swirl around and through George W that a suit cannot fix.

But this is simple stuff, clothes are clothes, so let’s go back again to the fair where I can prove my point.

The GOP booth was a raging bore.  A few folks with bad hair (once again, check out the people conservatives elect, cf. Kurt Zellers?)  and even worse t-shirts stood around catching flies or awaiting the Rapture, I couldn’t tell which.  It was disappointing.  These people were lost in their own little cloudy cocoons, being extra careful not to make eye contact.  I couldn’t find anyone to talk with me.  Instead they wandered to and fro as if they had been at the Kool-Aid just a bit too long.  An absolute disaster over there at the GOP, but that should surprise no one.

Have I ever been wrong about Kurt Zellers?

The DFL booth on the other hand was busy with happy, energetic good people.  Most of them were hot as hell, too.  Even I felt a little sexy over there with the Democrats.  And of course there was no arguing with my Black Fleece gingham shirt, pressed linen pants, polished shoes, and jaunty hat.  Clearly not a conservative, because even if it didn’t quite work, I at least tried.  (When was the last time a conservative tried ANYTHING…other than taking away your public services and limiting your rights, that is?)

Now let’s go up the street where the anti-marriage rights people have a booth and…you know what…I’m not even going to pick on these people, not their sense of style or anything else.  I genuinely felt a little sorry for them.  Their politics, however, are fair game.

(By the way, if I remember correctly, they are sporting a bad shade of aqua at that booth.  Aqua?  Maybe it was Gatorade green.)

The anti-marriage rights booth was dead, just as that amendment surely is dead.  For the record here, the amendment is commonly called the “Marriage Amendment,” which is an example of conservative talent with Owellian Doublespeak.

The pro-rights people — the people correctly opposing this soi disant Marriage Amendment — attract quite a crowd.  It is a large, busy, and — even at the Minnesota State Fair — socially diverse crowd.  People actually wait in line to sign a petition, and none of them were wearing grey air-brushed t-shirts showing F-15 fighter jets flying through a bad collage of American flags, eagles, and Mount Rushmore.  I felt kind of sexy here, too.

In fact, I think I can close the circle on this discussion right now.  Is it simply the fact that liberals have a better sense of style that makes them more attractive or is it something else?  Likewise, does bad art silk-screened on a cheap shirt or a DIY haircut really make one unattractive or is it something else?  Sarah Palin spent $70,000 at Neiman Marcus here in Minneapolis and it didn’t seem to help her.  Maybe it is her glasses or her screeching, whining voice…I don’t know.  But I think I do know…

Using Sarah Palin as an example — a woman whose sense of style cannot be saved by the fashion forward efforts of Neiman Marcus’s talented sales people — we see that style isn’t so much about what you wear but who you are.  In the current  epoch of American Conservativism, I can go to the GOP pound year after year and not find a winner in that show.   Look at Sarah.  Even  a stylish Armani suit cannot overcome her wooden, Team America persona.  She might impress a knuckle-dragger, but she does nothing for me.

The progressive thinking people at the anti-Marriage Amendment booth, on the other hand, possess something entirely different.  There’s nothing wooden about them.  They possess a degree of thoughtfulness and intelligence.  And intelligence is attractive.  Therefore the good liberal people lining up and crowding around the booth are attractive.  They have style!  They have panache!  Sadly it seems it will be a long time — in a galaxy far, far away? — before you will be able to say that about conservatives again.

So there you have it.  You can go see it for yourself.  Why are liberals sexy and attractive?  Because they have style.  And why do they have style?  Because it is all about smarts and good thinking.  Go out there and be sexy today!

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Thursday Night…

Storms looming and a splurge of nice wine in a glass…crickets, crickets, and still more crickets…a good book and a gentle breeze coasting by from an open window.  Is this a nice way to enjoy a late summer evening?  I think it is.

Earlier I had a chicken thigh and a talk with a good friend.

Before that I took a nap and noticed bats flying against the sunset.

Earlier still I sought late September reservations for a weekend cabin.  I have a wedding to attend.

So even earlier  I checked on having a jacket made for my fall wardrobe.  I might order a shirt, too.

Just letting good things fall into a sequence, that is all.

Writing Other Things

I woke up this morning full of ideas.  In fact I started writing bright and early.  Email mostly.  I even felt on my game writing thank yous to clients.  Midday I listened to an inspiring Ray Bradbury interview.  It was a good day.  I felt on pace for big things.

Then I got a notice from the State Department of Revenue.  Remember them?  I don’t…or I should say I didn’t remember; I forgot about them.  Well, hell…it is summer for crying out loud.  A guy goes on vacation.  Prior to my vacation I wanted to know why the State of Minnesota thought I owed money.  They sent some  information that I quickly figured out, then went on vacation, came back…and forgot about it.

The State of Minnesota Department of Revenue, however, forgets nothing.  With the help of some laws, they will get what they need from my next two pay checks!

Actually, this isn’t such a bad thing.  It is a relatively small tax levy and I do in fact owe the tax.  But what a shock…At one moment I’m light as a lark and even thinking I might flit about tweeting like a lark, then I get this email from my payroll manager:  ”Hey, uh, do you know anything about this?”

That will take the wind out from under even the most light and nimble lark, trust me.  In fact, an email like that is to a good mood what a shot gun is to a little song bird.

As an aside, what is a lark anyway?  I will have to consult my Sibley Guide.  I can’t say I would know a lark if I were one.

This post needs more sex appeal and it will be great.

Anyway, the bank account will cover my legitimate tax bill and I quickly recovered…but only after giving the collections department a piece of my mind.  (I understand why men grow cranky as they age.  It is fun!)

Sadly, however, the writerly spirit that awoke with me this morning never returned after that.  It is out doing some flitting about of its own somewhere, leaving me with a hot laptop purring on my thighs.  That’s not quite what I like purring on my thighs, or on my anything-else for that matter.  So I looked for inspiration.  I read a little Thomas Merton (The Seven Storey Mountain), Moby Dick, and a short  novel by Stefan Zweig, Journey into the Past.

None of it did anything to inspire me.

Next I tried an essay in Sunday’s paper by Molly Ringwald.  She wrote about parallels between writing and acting.  While I can’t say I didn’t like the essay, it reads like my blog posts, i.e., it reads like a first draft.

Who am I to cast stones, right?  For the most part I don’t proof and edit here either.  I keep an eye out for typos as I write and that’s about it.  Molly’s essay read like someone else kept an eye out for typos.  I don’t mean to be mean (should that be edited?), but her essay appeared in the New York Times and I feel that it should have a bit more depth and polish, suitable for the New York Times.  I get the gist of her essay, though; it makes sense and I guess that’s key.

At last inspiration.  I thought being a bit more careful and polished might not be a bad idea for my stuff.  Working and reworking some of my writing might even help get something finished.  (I benefit greatly from deadlines, by the way.)  So I pulled out some writing I have done recently, found a clip board and a red pen, and sat down to read, edit, and think a little.

First thing I notice, if I may say so, is the writing I picked to edit isn’t all that bad.  Second, it is a lot of fun to read and rework stuff; as long as I don’t overdo it, a little tender loving care might actually help.  And the third and final thing I’ll admit to discovering…I write very differently when I write other things.  On this blog, I think I write as if I were composing a quick email asking you to join me for lunch.  I just put it all out there, like a chatty seven-year-old, and thus not very efficiently.  (That’s a nod to you, U No Hu.)  Seven-year-olds have such a nice economy of words, don’t they?

So tonight I have had the red micro Sharpie out and been stroking like a mad man.  Wait a minute…certainly that should be edited, but true to my blogger form…nope.  Broad red PEN strokes — Sharpie strokes, to be exact — have been good to me tonight.  That’s what I meant.

What about you, have you done anything good for yourself tonight?

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Tackle Something Big

 

A Picture of Me.  Dopo Spaghetti.

I have been told my post titles mislead people.  Really?  Well, pish posh to that!

I am indeed in the mood to tackle something big, really big, something like a big plate of spaghetti, meatballs, and tomato sugo.  I might even go out on a limb and add extra meatballs, big meatballs.  I have to admit, too, that I might prefer it as a serving of pappardelle rather than all-too-American spaghetti.  Pile it on and giggle!  Be happy.  Tackle something big…

 

Alas I had a friend who would join me for dinner — and, yes, if you think it is you, it is you — and we would laugh and talk and eat.  Most nights I would get her meatballs.

That  isn’t quite as perverse as that sounds, by the way.  Just meatballs…your standard high-end (as if!) meatball fare, made to the scale of baseballs, waiting politely beneath a smothering mound of pasta and red sauce.  Rare was the night some of these didn’t end up in a meatball sandwich the next day.

Sadly I discovered that if you laugh and talk while dining alone, the restaurant staff is less likely to open that second bottle of Brunello di Montalcinio.

Perhaps tonight I should keep it all to a quiet whisper.  Or payback the old guy at the end of the bar who talks too much and too often.

 

There is a lot to tackle.  I am not misleading anyone.  Facing a bowl of pasta can in itself can be a big thing and more, with each ribbon of al dente pasta acting like a cord stretching back to memory’s cheerful past.  (Drink a little wine and the image becomes much more convincing.)  It is hard not to sigh, even if sighing isn’t the manly thing to do, especially in the face of something big.

 

 

 

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I Should Be Here

I Should Be Here

This has been a mostly good summer, even if it isn’t quite the summer I expected earlier this year.  Still, it hasn’t been disappointing.

However, as the summer comes to an end, I have been thinking more and more about being at the lake.  I have a beautiful piece of land on a small clear lake to enjoy and here I sit.  An uncle and cousin are there now, just down the road at their cabin.

I am thinking back — way back — to when I was quite young.  We would spend the last week or two of August at the lake.  Days were still quite nice and the nights brought a comfortable chill to the cabin.   It was a very cozy place.  Wool blankets, thick cotton sheets, and plentiful food fit the late summer days.  The scent of coffee, baking, and roasting always lingered there.

I don’t know why, but we seemed to undertake serious meals in the simple cabin.  Roasted chicken, cakes, stews.  My favorite, though, was humble spaghetti.  Even this was usually a bit fancier than what we had at home.  Sauce made of crushed tomatoes, fresh onions and garlic, and plenty of basil and oregano.  I’m not sure we ever followed any specific recipe.  On a cool evening with the sun setting across the lake, a large platter of spaghetti steams nicely on the picnic table.

Back then we didn’t have television at the lake, at least nothing reliable.  Even the radio was somewhat unreliable.  So most often the cabin was quiet.  If a radio did play, it played music softly.  At night this would be especially soothing.  If there was noise to be made, it was made by the crickets outdoors.  Comic books, Mad Magazine, and puzzles kept even my nosey brothers quiet and busy.

Now when I go to the I am likely to sit more.  Just quietly sit and gaze out across the water.  Or go for a short walk back in the woods and hope to run into a bear or something.  (I have been looking for a bear for years.  The only ones I ever see are hanging  at the DNR’s big game check in station at a local bar.)

I enjoy an especially luxurious wine and maybe a snack of cheese and fruit, unthinkable when I was a  boy, while I sit in the woods looking at the lake.  Nothing seems quite as remote as it once did.  For one, nothing is as remote as it was.  In so many ways city life has spilled into all corners of the outdoors.  But I still enjoy the juxtaposition of a little luxury when “roughing it.”

I think that was the appeal of all those great lake meals as a kid.  The idea that we were miles from town and stores and still had the presence  to spiff up a decent meal from inside a tiny cabin kitchen…that appealed to me.   Perhaps not quite at the level of something like New Scandinavian Cooking, but leaning toward that direction.

Yeah…I should be up there now, roasting a duck or something.

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