Author: dev7

goodnight mom, goodnight dad, goodnight monica, good night casper in heaven, good night remi in heaven good night sara in heaven, good night everyone I love and like including stuffed animals, animals, friends, angels and good people in heaven. good night everyone.

We had just returned from St. John, USVI. The trip is long, with many modes. We rose at the crack of dawn. Drove down to the ferry to St. Thomas. A limo to the airport. Fly to Miami, and from there to Austin.
When we finally had made it home, we found some creature had somehow made it into our house, presumably down through the fireplace. What a mess! After that exceptionally long and involved multi-stage trip to finally arrive home only to find rodent shit everywhere, and broken glass, candy wrappers, tiny footprints on the toilet seat, and God knows what and where ever else?
Exploring from one disastrous room to another we soon found ourselves upstairs in the master bedroom, looking for the little fellow when I heard three simultaneous shrieks like banshees. “For God’s sake, what? Where did he go?” I asked at the top of my lungs. But they only screamed louder, “A rat! a rat! he ran right across my feet!” “Stop screaming, and tell me which way he went!” I shouted through the shrill chorus.
Anita pointed down the hall with a shaking finger. It turned out to be a squirrel, and I trapped him the playroom. After about half an hour of chasing the little fellow around the room with gloved hands, moving furniture, trying to catch him in a blanket like a doomed gladiator from Spartacus, during which he alternately jumped from above the doorsill halfway across the room, lurked under a dresser, and hurled himself directly at my face a number of times, I barely ducked out of the way in time, pitying the desparate little fellow even as I was enraged at the havoc he had caused in my house less than the annoyance of having to deal with this bullshit after what? eighteen hours of traveling? This may account for my slow realization that this chasing around a room full of furniture and obstacles was never going to work. I laughed at myself, as I actually pondered words I had read in the Art of War from the ancient Sun Tzu, General of Wu: “when the terrain favors your opponent, allow him a retreat which draws him into terrain which favors yourself.”
I wonder what the old fellow would think of the use to which his words would be put 2300 years after they had been written?
So I allowed the squirrel an escape into the much smaller and less obstructed adjacent washroom. It did not take me long to catch him then, thanks to Sun Tzu. Although he made a complete disaster out of the kid’s toiletries, fortunately nothing broke. Once I had him in my gloved hands, I made the mistake of not holding him quite tightly enough, out of concern for injuring him, and he wriggled around just enough to get his teeth into one of my fingers. And he chomped with all his might, no doubt believing his life depended on it.
Up until this point, I had planned to release him in compassion, and forgive the mess as inevitable, but with this bite, I must say he sealed his own fate.
It was deep and bloody, but I was sure a little soap and water, antibiotic and a band-aid would do. But Anita continued shrieking, “what if he has rabies? you’ve got to go to the hospital right away!” I stuffed the vermin into a box and thought how Jed Clampett might make a dinner, or at least an appetizer out of him. Anita and I argued for a few minutes, but my victory over rodentia was to be quickly followed by defeat at the hands of the weaker sex. I was too tired to fight, and allowed myself to be driven to the emergency room at ten o’clock with the box that was to turn out to be squirrel’s coffin in back.
Two hours and a $200 band-aid later, animal control had the now suffocated squirrel for perfunctory testing, and we were driving home with the new knowledge that squirrels were not known to have ever infected a human with rabies. I made sure the nurse practitioner repeated that fact as clearly as possible to Anita.
When we arrived home, we were pleasantly surprised to find that the girls had, on their own initiative, cleaned most of the house, vacuumed up most of the rodent turds and remade the beds, which promptly received two exhausted bodies lost in a fitful and restive sleep.

Christmas, 2000 St. John, USVI
Last night, up the hill, we heard sweet strains of brazilian combo doing impression of Jobim+Astrud as we danced under the bougainvilla, aromatic and colorful under the night sky, a gentle breeze blew from an indeterminate direction and toussled our hair gently as we danced this Christmas eve, every detail within this moment perfect, from crickets chirping to the stars above twinkling blessings on a family as awkward as a three legged dog.
He’s a game fellow, warm hearted and full of fight, but he misses that lost limb.
Everything still seems a bit off-center, BJ is himself inscrutable, and it is impossible to tell what he wants and what he’s choosing to do in deference to Pam, or if in fact there is any difference but something tells me that they want to treat today as just any other day — no traditional Christmas symbols, no tree, no festive decorations, and although Santa came during the night and left a few gifts for the good boys and girls under the bougainvilla, Pam admonished him gently, without much delight, on their morning walk to find the source of that magical music that last night wafted down the hill, scented and aromatic, carrying with it a sad romance that affected me strongly somehow and thankfully, once shown, Anita responded as well, that’s not too surprising, for who would not, given the alluring nature of the place, but somehow we’re all slightly disconnected, our gears spinning at different speeds, and it would not have surprised me at all if, instead of wishing to dance under the stars to the strains of bossa nova, she had rather sat and gossiped with the girls.
But we danced slowly instead, silently pondering the bittersweetness of this season.

Yesterday we took the boat out for perhaps the second time in several years.
We had been having a few problems with it, due to age and I’m afraid, neglect. The old battery still had some life in it, but I feel better investing a few bucks in a new one, a small price to pay every other season, considering the inconvenience a dead battery can cause you on a boat. Its bad enough going out to the dock, only to be disappointed — that has happened to us once or twice, but we like to get out to the middle of the lake and cut the engines — it would be pretty bad to get stranded out there…
So I broke down and bought a new battery a few weeks ago — months ago now, I guess. I also invested in a battery charger, just in case. I actually had a need for it not much later, but not for the boat. We had to move the old blue van — we call him Vincent, Vincent van Lowe — and discovered the battery dead, again. For the fourth year in a row, those stupid batteries we’ve been putting in him have croaked early regularly, too regularly.
But a weak battery wasn’t the only thing wrong with the old Sea Nymph. A few years up in the stacks, especially without a cover have really taken a toll on her.
As the New Year approached I resolved to clean up the old girl. I spent hours fixing the deck, ripping out the plywood rotting in the stern, repair the decking and glue down the old indoor-outdoor carpet falling away from the hull below the gunwale, repairing the deck seats, whose screws no longer hold into the deck disintegrating in places. I braced them up with old two-by-fours, screwed into fresh portions of the decking, this time with stainless steel screws.
But there was more to do, unfortunately. After hours, days of work, and checking out the motor and electrical systems, I was afraid, the transom was leaking.
She had sprung a leak some years before around one of the bolts holding the transom to her aluminum hull. I pulled her from the marina and had her repaired at a place that had been recommended to me — Action Marine. A poor recommendation, as it turns out.
After years in storage and a few years in various dry dock stacks, I’m afraid the crappy patch job they had done for me had failed and in more ways than one. Not only had they apparently used improper patching materials, it had cracked and the bolts had begun to rust.
The rusting bolts in turn had begun eating away at the wood of the transom. This was beyond me. I had to call in a pro.
So I had the mechanic at our current marina take some time out of his slow days in December to repair the leak properly, replace the rusting bolt and while he was in there, repair the running lights as well. What the hell.
The net effect was, that we now had a clean, trim, ship shape little craft, ready to launch at the flip of a cell phone. It’s nice just knowing you can do it, but it’s even better actually taking that chance.
Now yesterday was Friday, February 11, 2000. And I want to remember it for many reasons, but particularly because, for me, it was a watershed day — it was a breakthrough. Let me explain.
The sky was complex, a war zone of hue and color. A mass of scaly mackerel clouds fought with wispy mare’s tails for the right, the privilege of being closest, of doing the greatest honor to the rusty old setting sun, whose precious day was rapidly waning.
But those same clouds which had earlier been merely obstructions — gray masses punctuating the azure here aqua there, serene, rich metallic Mediterranean blue, pale blue sky — now positively exploded in crimson orange gold white then scarlet — no more than scarlet — reddish diamond white fire which sent the sun to bed with a clap, a bang, a Pow! Right in the kisser, stars in your eyes ka-boom! sunset.
But earlier it was much quieter, the final act begun with the anticipated bell of the Oasis high above atop the cliffs overhanging our beautiful lake, after zooming up and down the glassy water — so smooth we barely felt a gentle rise and fall as we played around the Sometimes Islands amid her main body.
In February, there was barely a soul out there, even on a fine Friday evening, oh, one or two sailors had made it out — much to my amazement, on this dead calm, but warm day unlike last Friday, which was a bit brisker (although not cold), but with a much more vigorous wind for sailors — one might think I suppose — but no that day there were literally none, and while today we still found few, there were one or two, perhaps those who felt, like I, that today would yield a remarkable sunset, but why?
Last Friday, Anita and I had come down here, she for the first time, me for the second time in as many years, and although we came in a bit cold, we were well lit from within, and the glowing amber light emanating from the granite shoals of Lake Travis in the unique light of a winter sunset did not escape us. We swore to return, if possible, the following week, this Friday — and I had urged Anita to leave school as early as possible, three o’clock perhaps and dash home before the traffic rush, where I would be waiting for her, and we would leave the kids however we could — in Barbel’s capable care, without if we must, but to return to the lake on a Friday night — it was meant to be a tradition.
And I’m glad I did, because she barely made it by three thirty, as I recall, even though she left illicitly early (two thirty, perhaps?), stealthily certainly.
I myself had taken the entire afternoon off — I’ve been in a very good mood lately, for reasons which I will get to in a moment, but I could not escape a few more hours of work, even work at home is work — but it’s a little less onerous.
A little paperwork, some finances, and aha! Anita’s here, let’s go, but no, there is a dance at the junior high, and I fight the gravity sucking us into our kids’ world — let them get a ride, let someone else deal with it, we are outta’ here! Let’s go!
And we leave the kids — with Barbel at first, later alone for an hour or two while we rejuvenate ourselves and sneak off for what would perhaps be the best date either of us would ever go on, the best date anyone would ever go on — even though the evening would not go flawlessly, as we returned to our lives later in the evening our daughter would once again intrude momentarily with her trivial needs, but for these few hours, stolen it seems, but ours by right — these hours alone with one another were like worlds away from our everyday life which, one must admit is not so bad at all, although frustrating and difficult sometimes, it is quite comfortable and satisfactory. But still, lacking in the enthusiasm I seem to recall from our youth…
But this day was for me a different sort of day. It was one for which I had been waiting some time.
Our company had been in the ditch for a while, but we had come out of it, come out swinging! I had been unhappy for a long time, but decided to hold out until a good number of my long-held and previously seemingly worthless stock options matured. “Who knows? They might be worth something someday,” I thought.
But I did not dare dream that they would increase more than eightfold in a year, and that not only would I be able to fund my children’s college (a responsibility I had shirked for some years, to my own shame and the perennial scolding of my accountant) but I would also be able to fund our (admittedly humble) retirement plan, entirely it would seem with some very conservative projections, we should be taken care of in just a few more years, well ahead of schedule.
With a little luck we may be able to live unconventionally well a bit sooner than that.
This had been preying on me for some years — since as soon as I had entered this phase of life marked perhaps most prominently in my memory by say, my thirtieth birthday — married, with a mortgage and children and a mediocre job and no investments, I had worked very hard to get this house in order — and in retrospect I don’t think I spent a day or a night as happy and rested as I ought to have been — on vacation or holiday, skiing or on the beach. I was always churning, there was always something gnawing at the back of my mind — a question really — “how long?” How long could I keep up this level of energy? How long before I was obsolete?
My industry is rich with opportunity, but also very demanding. For many it seems to me, our “clocks stop” sometime in our thirties and we are less able to absorb new ideas, less flexible, less adaptable and our ability to continue to climb the earnings curve begins to taper off if we stay in the same place too long — we are liable to be tagged — predictable — risk averse — and lose our ambition through frustration at our chosen professions, or distractions from the other dimensions of our lives cause us to lose our concentration.
Usually our families, our children and their activities, which so wholly consume young parents and become habits consciously or unconsciously tiresome ones to middle aged parents who are seemingly endlessly fatigued from work, for whom passion may be waning to a routine or a rare pleasure to be fit in when the kid’s schedules permit, or worse, lives entirely devoid of passion, lost totally in work or separate from one another in ways that somehow escape our awareness — so gradually do they enshroud us like ivy over a tree, choking out the sun, ultimately overcoming us in our desperate paralysis.
It was this sort of feeling, or gradual awareness to which I was responding — and many of us sense it in one way or another creeping up on us, even as we sink our roots deeper with children’s activities and homeowner’s responsibilities and husbandly duties…
But I resolved I would not let these worries own me. I would work hard not merely because it was expected of me, because it was the right thing to do, but to defend against this sense of vulnerability, this awareness of mortality, which became most pronounced for me since my father’s death. I remember the day, and how I cried in pity for the man and somehow for us all — how we work and struggle, and for what? For what?
That, and many more questions have nagged at me since then and I knew I could not rest until I had at least achieved some level of security for our retirement and we would at least not be destitute in our old age — because I knew I could not keep this level of energy up for many more years — it gnawed at me.
But today, this day would be by the grace of God my first day of freedom from that fear for a very long time. Not only had I survived long enough for a good number of stock options to mature and fill in this gaping hole in our financial plan, but to my great surprise, they had handed me a substantial bonus check today, two checks actually, exceeding my annual take home pay my first year out of college. This on top of a substantial and retroactive raise that amounted to an almost equal bonus last December.
To me this wasn’t just a wad of money, although it was certainly that. It was also a vindication of all that effort which I feared might have been wasted, and it finally put us over the top of the financial target which only six months earlier I thought might take us another ten years to hit.
Today we are there!
And we are packing up the champagne and running out to the lake, God bless us, only fifteen minutes away. Why don’t we come out here more often?
And we’re out here in the middle of the basin, confidently floating and cut the engines as the sun is still hand high from the storybook hills still warm in his transit as we chat and renew our avowals of love for one another, our eyes misting over with love — or is it the wine? Or the salubrious effects of the warm Texas sun in February? Or check me on this, but the sun-facing cliffs seem to emanate a mellow light, suffused against the darker background, distant, deep, western big sky country, our hearts positively singing, in an ecstasy of visuals, combined with a self-satisfaction of financial well-being, a mature, robust and satisfactory “high”, complete and perfect.
I have not felt this way in recent memory, and in some sense have never felt this way before, so completely, and God-willing, so well-justified.
Anita and I were beside ourselves with thankfulness. After all we’d been through so many wrong turns, and such seeming bad luck, that finally we had caught a break and that it’s not just enough to be in the right place at the right time, you need to know you’re in the right place at the right time, and as the Sometimes Islands played host to thousands of water birds from hundreds of miles away, as the thousand-colored and infinitely textured sky was backdrop to flocks overhead and if you listen quietly you hear beyond the gentle lapping of the water against the hull of our little honeymoon boat, the distant call of the grebe and gull, themselves saluting the departing old sun, warmth giver, praying for him to come again in the morning, and smell the evening breezes blowing cool now across the still waters if you’ve ever felt it, you feel it now, the warmth and righteous upwelling of two familiar hearts, that look in her eyes, the salt of her tears of joy, and who would not? For this perfect moment is now, is universal and is eternal.