Occasional Jots and Tittles

There was a time when very little got past me.

I’m not sure when that time was, any more, but the change got past me, and a lot more since (apparently). My best guess is that as we hit our 30’s and 40’s, our brains just stop accumulating a lot of the smaller detail that fills our memories when we’re younger. For one thing, I guess there’s less room for it – or at least, adding too much more makes the brain’s index just too cumbersome to navigate the memories.

And interests change. So whereas 20 years ago, I’d still would know maybe 3 out of 4 of the top 40 pop artists, today I probably couldn’t recognize the names of 3 out of 4. Of the rest, I might have heard the name but wouldn’t recognize a picture. Or a song title. I’ve almost certainly never heard the songs.

Heck, at one time I could tell you if there was anyone new who’d shown up this week at the gay dance club in town. Today, not having been in at least five years, probably closer to 8 or 9, I probably couldn’t identify ten people there. I barely notice when someone new moves in on my block, and if the move happens in my busy season at work, I probably won’t know it for months.

You’d think, though, that I could keep track of who connects to my blog. Only a couple of friends are regular commenters (thank you, Mick and Brett) but I know that there are at least a few others who read it, based on the logs for the webserver–after filtering out the indexers and so forth. Apparently, there are gadgets you can install in Wordpress which will show you where the traffic to your blog comes from, and even (if you want) display that as part of your website.

I noticed this on Tony’s “West of Mayberry” blog recently–the most recent ten “hits” to his blog are listed, along with the (approximate) location of the viewer — in my case, my “hit” shows correctly as “Baton Rouge, Louisiana”. More interestingly, I noticed that it shows I arrived at his page from my own blog (because I use my blog’s links as a way to catch up on the others I read most often). Cool feature – I may have to include that somehow on mine.

But what really bowled me over is that I hadn’t noticed Tony’s updated blogroll. On his previous blog, he’d listed the blogs he reads most often on his “Large List”, and a longer list below of others he looked at as “Rolling Along”… neither of which included mine. Which I understood, because lord knows, I’m not that diligent about posts. I didn’t comment much on his old blog, either, at least not in comparison with his recent, revised edition.

Now, however, on the Mayberry blog, there I am: right on the list under Brettcajun (which, if anyone knows the history between Brett and me, is totally appropriate). I’m flattered that he noticed the posts I’ve made there, enough to come at least check out what little I have to say here. It makes me glad I still notice some things.

After our little barbecue soiree a few weeks ago, I figured we’d take it easy for a bit, especially since we’d had it primarily to show off the work we’d been doing in the back yard. Today, however, was another “let’s tackle the world” day, with Jonathan first mowing and edging the entire yard (mowing doesn’t take long, but edging is a bitch with all the beds we’ve put in). Then he decided it was time for us to act on his idea for rearranging the living room.

We have a good-sized living room, but it’s hard to arrange. For starters, it’s long and (sort of) narrow, so a full-size couch won’t really fit across the narrow dimension easily. With the couch thus restricted to the longer walls, that means the TV has to go opposite. Which itself is okay (it’s a flat-panel set) but Jonathan has two large speakers for the stereo it’s all hooked into. Make that huge speakers. Giant ones. To be effective, THEY have to be balanced on opposite sides of the TV, preferably far apart. Throw in some other living room pieces, including some bookshelves, and add in the fact that there are four windows, two doorways, a big archway into the dining room, and a wall panel gas heater to work around, and it becomes almost impossible. When you factor in the window unit AC that cools the room…. well, the fact that we came up with any sort of workable arrangement at all speaks well of our three-dimensional space aptitudes.

Did I mention that we undertook this changeover while there were still big totes full of Christmas decorations that needed to be put in the attic? Or that, since we live in the upstairs half of our duplex, we can’t bring stuff out the front door temporarily to make room?

Again – kudos to the boy for figuring out how to make it all work. I added a few details, and verified some measurements, but most of the work was his.

We had a party Sunrday.

It wasn’t to celebrate anything in particular, officially; we’d spent a good part of the weekend finishing adding another bed to the gardens and on the spur of the moment, Jonathan suggested we have a cookout and invite several of our friends, and even a few of our neighbors.

To understand why this was momentous, a little background is necessary – most of which you couldn’t glean from reading my blog, spotty even though it is. Jonathan and I have been partnered for a little more than four years now, and the last year, in particular, has been very tough for him. He’s been profoundly unhappy in general – not grumpy, just increasingly unhappy, manifesting itself in all the classic signs of worsening depression. Work, in particular, has sucked for him – he endured a three-month furlough at his office last year, was brought back primarily because his office knows they can’t function without him, and yet since then has been mostly treated like a red-headed stepchild.

Finally, a little over a month ago, he agreed to see his doctor and seek help. I’ve fought depression at times myself, and always managed to fight my way back to happiness on my own, but even I know that’s (a) not always possible for everyone and (b) a lot more work than it has to be.

Jonathan’s doctor gave him a screening test which showed – no surprise – serious depression and anxiety, and he prescribed some medication for him. It kicked in almost immediately, but after a week or so, it seemed to “plateau” in his system, and it wasn’t helping much any more. I pointed out that he was on the lowest dose of the medication, and perhaps it needed to be adjusted, but when the doctor didn’t return a message left for him with a nurse, Jonathan – again, no surprise – decided he was through dealing with the doctor. He stopped taking the medication altogether.

Luckily (or thanks to divine intervention, or serendipity, or something), he realized that even though the low dose wasn’t helping as much as it did initially, it was obviously still working – because going off made things worse, not better. On the second visit to the doctor to discuss his dosage level, I went with him, and was able to describe the changes I saw in his behavior – and the doctor agreed immediately that a higher dose was probably necessary. (In further discussions, he also (praise the Lord) agreed with me that if Jonathan improved his diet from the junk-food-dominated meals he was having, his body would feel better, and he’d feel better about it – something I’d been telling him for years but which he ignored.

He even agreed with me that Jonathan’s irregular sleep schedule – napping from the time he gets home after work until mid-evening, staying up till past midnight, then trying to sleep again until 5:30 AM for work – was not conducive to good health, physical or mental. And it’s funny, but when your doctor tells you the exact same things your partner’s been saying, and all of a sudden you listen…

No matter. I don’t need the recognition, really; the important thing is, Jonathan listened, and he takes his doctor’s advice. That was Thursday. So two new prescriptions later (one for a higher dose of his antidepressant/antianxiety medication, the other to help him sleep at a normal hour), Jonathan’s already almost a changed person again with a new lease on life.

So, the suggestion for a party was a sign, to me, of just how far he’s come. Two months ago, if I’d suggested having people over, the idea would have been met with an almost sullen, “I don’t wanna”, “please don’t make me endure that” attitude. Now, he’s suggesting it himself. This, in short, is the man I fell in love with.

What a wonderful way to begin Spring.

A bit late posting, but last week I saw my 400th ABA-area bird.

For the handful of you still reading who don’t know, the American Birding Association “area” includes, basically, the United States and Canada – or put another way, North America north of Mexico.

Somewhere over 900 birds have been seen in the ABA region, many of them only a handful of times, some only once or twice. So I’m probably pretty close to having seen half of the regularly occurring birds in the area.
My goal is to add 50 more to that this year; I don’t know if I can make it, but I can certainly have a lot of fun trying.

Oh, and that 400th bird? Long-tailed Duck, formerly known by the politically incorrect name “Oldsquaw”.

So, this morning, I met my parents and my sister at the funeral home where my aunt’s body will be cremated. Her three younger children were all there as well; the funeral home asked if we wanted some private time for the family to see her one last time before the cremation, since the funeral won’t be until Monday.

All in all, this funeral home has done a good job for us in the past, but I had a mild beef with them. Granted, we weren’t having a full-scale wake there, so I didn’t expect a big fuss. Because of the cremation, they didn’t have to buy a casket – so there wasn’t one. I can understand that. But the funeral home had laid out the body on a hospital-type gurney, with nothing draped over it to cover the chrome metal legs or the wheels or anything. And her body was just covered by a plain white hospital-type sheet. If it weren’t for the fact that the private viewing was held in one of the “parlors” in the funeral home, I’d have thought we were in a morgue.

Granted, my aunt was a simple woman who liked simple things. She wanted the cremation and she wanted no big fuss. But I honestly think the funeral home could invest in a simple black tailored drape to put over the stretcher for situations like this.

Afterwards, my parents and I went out to check on my mothers’ parents tombs and her other siblings’ graves nearby. All were in good condition although (naturally) flowers had been swiped from one of the graves. My aunt’s ashes will be buried in the grave with one of her nieces, who’s also in this group. My parents and I have graves across the cemetery.

You’d think, with a family like mine, we’d have a family vault or a big family plot somewhere. And we do. One of each, in fact. But the vault is across the river and down about 20 miles, where my great-grandfather was the last to be buried; after his death, the family picked up and moved to Baton Rouge, where they purchased a large family plot. Buried there are my great-grandmother and five of her 11 children. But the remainder of the plot is empty, due to a dispute between some of those children (when still alive) and my grandfather, their brother-in-law, as to the ownership. He and his oldest sister-in-law had pooled resources in 1945 to buy the plot, when Great-grandma died, so that there would be ample room for all the unmarried sisters as well as his wife (their sister) and their kids. Naturally, of course, the transaction was only recorded in my great-aunt’s name, and after her death, the sisters insisted that the plots all belonged to her.

My grandfather basically said, using far more polite language, “Fuck you” and bought their tombs in another cemetery. So to this day, the remainder of our family plot in the old cemetery here sits unused. No living member of the family really wants to be buried there. So I’ve suggested a solution dripping with poetic justice; the old aunts buried there were dear family, but also typical for their era – racial and ethnic bigots from day one, where no person of color could enter through their front door. The gravesites are now owned by my mother and some of her cousins, nieces and nephews as inherited property, so I suggest they donate them to the church for the burial of indigent black people, leaving them side-by-side for eternal rest. The churning should produce enough power to light a small city.

We haven’t eaten out in a long while, for a number of reasons – chief among them that Jonathan has mostly wanted to hibernate at home lately. But he felt more outgoing this evening so we went out to eat. Since I’ve eaten out on my own a bit lately or with friends, I let him pick, so we ended up at Macaroni Grill – which, by all rights, shouldn’t be a bad compromise between my preference for local eateries with distinctive cuisine and his hankering for predictability.

But this is Macaroni Grill we’re talking about, and it’s often a comedy of errors to eat there. Tonight was no exception. We’re seated, our waiter writes his name upside down on the paper on the table, and takes our drink orders. He returns with the drinks and takes the meal orders – we each get a “Trio”, which includes a salad, a slightly smaller portion of one of several entrees, and a dessert.

We then watch as others are seated and their waiters (including, sometimes, ours) bring them the standard bread and olive oil. When our waiter returned to refill my drink, I asked about the bread. He surveyed the table and for a moment gave us that “OK, did you eat the plates as well as the bread?” look before realizing I meant we hadn’t gotten any yet. He apologized, took my glass, and said he’d be right back with it.

30 seconds later, he’s back with the bread, but no drink. Next pass by the table, Jonathan asked him about my drink. He looked at me, snapped his fingers, and went back to get it.

About five minutes later, he comes out with two steaming hot plates of food. What he put in front of me was clearly meant for Jonathan, so he swapped the plates, and left. After about three bites, Jonathan commented, “You know, this is the strangest tasting salad…” Yep, he’d forgotten the salads. And the plates looked suspiciously large. And mine, while tasty, was awfully spicy for the fettucine alfredo I’d ordered — and I’d never known that recipe to use sun-dried tomatoes. Not to mention that mine had big penne pasta in it instead of flat noodles.

We stopped the waiter again, and asked if there was an issue with the salads. He gets that familiar “oh shit” look on his face we’ve come to recognize, and we pointed out that we think our plates are probably the full entree size, not the “Trio” reduced size. He agreed. Then as I was pointing down at my plate, he said “And I think you have the wrong dish, that’s Penne Rusticana and not Fettucini Alfredo.”

By this point, we were almost laughing at him, because he was clearly flustered (he later mentioned he’d been working since early that morning and he was a little spacey). But the bigger dishes of food, as far as we were concerned, outweighed the lack of salads, and I was just as happy with what I got as what I’d ordered. So we told him to just leave it all, and we would be happy with it.

A few moments later, we overheard a waiter at another table nearby, who’d brought out four of five entrees for that group, tell the fifth person “Your Penne Rusticana should be out in just a moment. It takes a little longer to fix than the other dishes.” Nice cover, but bullshit, I’m sure that I got her dish when our waiter grabbed the wrong one.

Still, we got our desserts, and considering the entrees we did get should have cost more than the Trios we ordered, we came out considerably ahead. But as I tell people, you never know what your’e going to get when you order there.

Once, a group of eight of us went there for my birthday. The waiter brought out the food – seven entrees. He served them around, disappeared for about five minutes, and then came back to see “if we needed anything else.” I raised my hand, pointed at the empty table in front of me, and said “Yes, food.” That dreaded “oh shit” look came over him, he scurried to the computer, and realized he hadn’t put my order in. They hurriedly worked up mine, which was marginal being rushed, and then had the gall to charge full price for it.

This time, at least, our waiter was apologetic at every step, and I know what it’s like to work when you’re exhausted. And as I said, we came out ahead, with more food and less salad, plus (essentially) free desserts, so we gave him my usual full tip.

My mother’s last sister died this morning. She was six years younger, but with the slough of health problems she’s had over the last fifteen or so years, she looked at least ten years older. Worse, the last time I saw her, at my cousin’s funeral last fall, she had that look of death about her – she just looked gray all over.
She was my godmother, and when I was younger, she did several things for me that I still remember. As she got older, she weathered a late pregnancy, a divorce while raising a very young child, financial collapse, and then, as things were looking up for her with a new job and a new home, kidney failure and two bouts with cancer. I know she was in discomfort most of the time, and considerable pain sometimes, but she really didn’t complain very much.

Her passing leaves my mother as the sole member of her generation in her immediate family, and the oldest in her generation across her extended family. What makes that hard to imagine, I suppose, is that being south Louisiana Catholics, she and my father both come from generations of big families. Her parents were each one of 11 children, and my dad’s mother was also one of 11 (his father was raised Baptist so there were only four in that family). My mom was one of four, my dad one of seven, and in my generation alone, I have 31 first cousins. I can’t begin to even count the first cousins once removed, the second cousins, and so forth.

My father’s also the oldest in his immediate family as well; his three older siblings and one younger sister have died, leaving him with only the two youngest, who are much younger than he is. Both my mother and father are in excellent health, and we have no reason to believe they won’t be around a lot longer – but they’ll be 75 and 74 soon, and at that age, “a lot longer” becomes a relative term.

Later this summer, in June, my parents will have been married fifty years – a first as far as we know in either line of the family, not because of divorces but because very few couples among our ancestors lived that long. We’d originally planned to have a big get-together with all our living relatives but we’re leaning now towards something with just us four kids, our families, and the cousins who are fairly close by, given how many closer relatives we’ve lost in recent years. It’s a sobering thought.

A friend has a tag for posts he calls “snarky”, which I translate roughly to mean “OK, I’m being a little bit of an ass here, but you can see it’s deserved.” You can imagine, in dealing with people in general and with gay people in particular, it could be very useful. I’m adding it as a category here.

So I’m online the other day, on Gay-Oriented-Service-1, and I see a profile for someone I remember from Gay-Oriented-Service-2. Part of me was a little hesitant about contacting him, because I’d eventually deleted him from my friend list at Service-2, but I couldn’t remember exactly why. I did remember, though, that he enjoys big pickup trucks. We have an F250 Crew Cab (Powerstroke Diesel) so they don’t get a lot bigger, and I figured it would at least give us something to chat about. Bad move.

As I soon remembered, one of his huge fetishes is getting a truck like that stuck in mud. I mean axle-deep, spinning till you’re almost buried, stuck. Odd fetish, but I’m not one to judge, as long as nobody gets hurt, right? I just figure it’s not something we’d want to go do on purpose, as the truck weighs about 9,000 lbs and isn’t easy to tow out of a “stuck deep” situation.

So I told him no, I wasn’t interested in getting the truck stuck in the mud for him, so as to not incur a towing charge. No problem, he says – I’d pull you out, you wouldn’t need to pay anything!

Mind you, he’s in Houston, 4 or 5 hours away. What am I supposed to do in the meantime? (Don’t answer that; I already know what his answer would be, and it would add an interior detailing job to the tab.) No, I said… I’m not going to do that.

Let me call you and talk with you about it, he says. Now, I know what that means, and you know what that means. You don’t call someone to discuss a fetish, when that person has the object of your dreams and doesn’t want to let you use it the way you want, unless you’re going to (A) try to talk him into it, or (B) get off online talking about it, or (C) both. None of which interested me. Struggling to be polite, I told him so, point blank, because I was getting a little tired of this whole line of discussion. And here’s the response I got for my trouble:

you fucking little inbred white trash LA coon ass….I’ve been wanting cuss your little nellie ass out your fucking QUEEN worthless piece of FUCKING white trash or whatever the fuck you are, I’ve never met anyone from LA that was worth a fucking piece of shit, so why don’t you go fuck yourself you piece of faggot shit!! I put you on ignore…haah your screen name almost reads cowboy in bra is more like it !!!! FUCK YOU!

No good deed goes unpunished, it seems. But at least this way, once I blocked him on Service-1, I made a note to block him wherever I saw him. Still, you have to wonder about someone who can come that unhinged over a simple turn down – and hope he doesn’t have access to firearms.

January can sometimes seem the drabbest month here. It’s not about the cold (our snow day was a once-in-a-decade event), but the overall gray cast to everything. Once in a while we have blue skies and sunshine, but even our warm days have a kind of dreariness to them. Even our winter birds, for the most part, are in their drabbest colors.
For some, though, drab colors are still fairly bright and eye-catching, especially on birds that don’t normally winter this far north. A few years ago, I had an adult male Baltimore Oriole show up in January – something we don’t often see in Baton Rouge. Today, I had a young male show up (one hatched last summer). We know this because of his plumage; once he’s reached his adult, breeding plumage, he’ll keep that year-round. But you can already see hints of the brilliant orange and black he’ll turn out to be, by about March or April.

(with apologies to Norma Desmond)

Christmas, and the post-Christmas weeks, were incredibly busy this year, so apologies to my hordes of fans (all three or four of you) for the lack of updates recently.

Jonathan outdid himself again this year with the Christmas lights.

We spent most of the Christmas week driving back and forth to my sister’s and my parents’ houses, for one event after another. Between the driving and the overflow of children (whom I love, but really….), and the time demands, we’ve already decided to cut back on family events for next year.

In the midst of all that, I did two Christmas Bird Counts this year. I’m the compiler for the count in Baton Rouge, which is usually a well-attended but not particularly exciting count. However, this year, I found an Ash-throated Flycatcher, which was only the second of this species ever recorded on our count (another party had the third, in another section of our circle). Unfortunately, no pictures of this bird yet.

Jonathan is now off at MAL, assisting good friends at their vendor booth this year. I’m sitting here freezing, as Baton Rouge has finally had a couple of sub-freezing nights, which have largely frozen back most of the hummingbird plants. However, that’s driven what may be a new hummingbird to the feeders; I say “may” because she (a female Rufous Hummingbird) appears to be banded, and there’s a chance that she’s the bird I’ve had since Election Day, but having lost her color mark. Or she could be a returnee from some other point in the past. We won’t know unless we recapture her to check her band number.