This morning at Sachuest the force, a wild cousin to the one of which Dylan Thomas wrote, that in this case "through the brown scraggy stick or gnarly stunted trunk drives" was manifest in a profusion of new growth ... from honey-suckle, milkweed pre-pod, the first blooms of beach roses in both scarlet and white, the promise of raspberries, Queen Anne’s lace, tall buttercup, and crab apple flowers, to the oily slick hedges of poison ivy along each side of the western trail. There were blackbird here for the first time this spring though I’ve seen them elsewhere for weeks, as well as a pair of house finch, doves, a large brown bird I thought might be a thrush, gypsy moths tented in a tree or two, and a lone deer in the hidden meadow off the trail toward 3rd beach ... fishermen perched noisy and expectant on boulders every 50 yards along the beaches ... one jogger, and two other walkers including one who seemed perfectly outfitted by Queer Eye directly from L.L. Bean for the backwoods of someplace much more remote than here. After last week’s rain and numerous visitors kicking, scuffing and dragging along, the stone dust path has even begun to show a character that’s much easier to live with. My walk has made me hungry for french toast with maple syrup and peaches.

Clay Shirky's essay "Nomic World: By the players, for the players" might be brilliant but how would I know. I was with him all the way through where he writes that "there are some societies where not wearing white shoes after Memorial Day has acquired the force of law " ... I thought that was when you were supposed to start wearing white shoes? What am I supposed to do this weekend especially since I don't actually have any white shoes? I got even more confused when he quoted a former student as saying "the reason academics like to talk about play but not about fun is that you can force people to play". Can you force people to play? I don't think so. Isn't this where Kobe may have gone wrong? Can you force people to read Clay's essay? I doubt it ... but some of you might and then might also take a quick look at Blognomic. Yikes, let me know if you saw anything fun there ... as for me ... I'm thinking that for fun I'd rather tru-scale bowl where my average is now up to 74 with a high game of 115. And if you're really interested in reading about players controlling the game I'd suggest getting a copy of "Crack in the Cosmic Egg" or "Biology of Transcendence" by Joseph Chilton Pearce.

CheapSeats43 has returned with more hoopla ... alleluia to that ... was thinking I’d have to survive the NBA playoffs without hearing from my favorite basketball pundit. Hmmmm, this boy is no slacker ... he's looking way beyond the payoffs to player development:

"DAVID STERN is going to ask the PLAYERS UNION to expand the NBDL from 6 teams to possibly 15. This would be good for the LEAGUE. The NBDL should be used as a "farm league" for the bigs. Hockey has the AHL and the IHL, and baseball has AAA,AA,A to help develope their players so why shouldn't basketball. Teams would be able to draft players on potential and not ... "

Does CheapSeats have any idea what he is saying? Get the "View From The Cheapseats" now and let Cheap know what you think.

[Not just foggy but rainy as well. Don’t need to go to Booth Bay or Damariscotta for this ... I can get fog and rain at home ... where I am now ... and happy to see that 24 south of Fall River has finally been resurfaced. Wonder who Tony Soprano had to whack to make that happen?]

[Audio blogging has a purpose, yes? Something more than what I’m doing here I’m sure, but I’m still wrestling with how I might use it best. I’m thinking to start I need a few more features than audioblogger.com currently provides ... among them would be the ability to enter a short, maybe prepackaged text, from my phone with my recording so that my post could get indexed. And I’d like to be able to choose between "store for edit" or "publish" from the phone, as well as a choice regarding which blog I’m recording for. Finally, in this post I have no choice ... my only access from "away" is by phone ... but for routine blogging I’m wondering if hearing a "real" voice means all that much in the face of loss of indexing as well as the slower and very linear information rate.]

Wake up and smell the content. Navigation within your web site, something I used to focus on, may mean less and less with each passing increment in search indexing. It may have never meaned much. Philipp Lenssen certainly thinks so:

"There is no navigation. There is no structure to your website. People don't care how you categorize what you have to offer. They can not list your web site's sections. They do not care for hierarchies, do not care to get your metaphors. All they care about is getting what they want. They don't care about the where either. Mind you using Google, they might already be there ..."

Some how I may have subconciously realized this and avoided the "categories" trap in this blog. We can all relax because website design just got a whole lot easier. Believe it and read more ...

If you follow New England Sports, and sports writing, you can't get a much better quick summary than that provided at Boston Sports Media by Bruce Allen. Just the first paragraph from today, a "Busy Off Day", follows:

"Nomar's agent said last night that he expects the shortstop to stay with the Red Sox beyond this season. Bob Hohler looks at the thawing in the relationship between Arn Tellem and John Henry. Whether the words by Tellem are just agent-speak remains to be seen, but for the fans of Nomar, this has to be positive. Byung-Hyun Kim is headed back to Korea. Joe McDonald and Jeff Sullivan report on the Sox pitcher seeking treatment back home on his injured back and hip. The A's are in town for the first time since last fall's ALDS. Michael Silverman examines whether there are lingering bad feelings between the clubs, especially involving Derek Lowe. The stability of having Keith Foulke in the bullpen has meant a lot to the Red Sox. Jim Donaldson and Tony Massarotti look at the closer's impact on both the Red Sox and the A's. David Heuschkel looks at how the Sox have managed to stay on top of the division despite all the mounting injuries. Paul Kenyon looks at the noise and crowds of Fenway which make it such a special place for the Red Sox players. Karen Guregian has a look at Bronson Arroyo and his hobby of playing the guitar. Dan Shaughnessy strings together a decidedly mediocre series of "thoughts" mostly on baseball, but with some Ty Law, Stanley Cup finals and Rick Carlisle items. The Globe Red Sox notebook says that the Sox could have some interest in outfielder Raul Mondesi. I cannot envision that happening. Silverman's notebook reports that with eight more plate appearances, Kevin Millar will trigger his option year .... "

Like it? Go there now.

Wish I were going to the Chelsea Flower Show this week instead of mucking to Maine. The web site for "the world’s greatest flower show" ... this the 82nd at the current location ... says tickets are "sold out" but I see they can still be found on EbayUK. Maybe next year. Anyone else interested?

Beaten. Licked. Abused. Mina is clearly the better Tru-Scale bowler ... as she proved in last night’s free-wheeling head-to-head competition under the glow of the 177 party lights in a tru-scale alley atmosphere of Sutter Home White Zinfandel in mini-bottles, Cluny highballs in shot glasses and bone numbing WKKB metal from the repainted Fisher Price boombox on the kitchen counter. We finished the last string just as a thunder storm knocked out the power ... but guess what you can do without electricity ... more tru-scale bowling of course ... if you wanted. Some fun ... must be why I love her ... well all this and the fact that she was thoughtful enough to bring over French Vanilla bread for toast in the morning and that she actually invented television ... wait, that wasn’t Mina, that was Ruby Sunrise ... which would have been what my weary eyes would have seen if I'd been around for it ... but, in this case, Ruby is a girl inventor in the play we saw today at Trinity. So much better than West Side Story ... no, duh, not the "real" West Side Story but Trinity’s sort of mini-PPAC version of it which has even been held over to feed the frenzy ... not that Trinity couldn’t have done a great WSS, they proved they could have with what they did to Merry Wives of Windsor ... but showing new plays under development, such as "Ruby", is where Trinity absolutely excels ... and since "Ruby" is still under development I’m thinking they might consider rewriting it to maybe have Ruby’s friend Henry invent tru-scale bowling while Ruby is working on her TV?

So is 67 really such a bad average after my first 3 strings on the Keystone Manufacturing Tru-Scale Home Bowling Alley that I picked up today at a yardsale? I think not ... this is some tricky stuff ... maybe better suited for tiny Elvis than me but what else is 7 feet and so much horizontal fun ... OK maybe 3½ foot twins might work for some of you, someone like Gene, but not for a clean cut guy like me. And you could never get those twins for what I paid for the "Alley" ... could you?

Who needs Playstation ... hey, who needs electricity ... not to enjoy this polished plank of pain you don’t. I’m looking forward to my first candlelight hot wax alley slam with Mina. Bring it on sweet thing.

Oh, and I’m also looking to hear from anyone who had an "Alley" of their own "back when" or maybe from some neo-luddite who owns one now ... looking to get some information on when these were made ... a few years before PACMAN and even Electric Football ... I’m thinking the 40s but you tell me.

Were the friendly folks who sent this nasty little email really thinking I would foolishly click on their bogus link, ending up at http://ns31046.ovh.net/paypal/ and, ignoring the non-secure non-PAYPAL URL, then execute a form at http://www.i-st.net/cgi-bin/web2mail.cgi which seems to send an email, presumably with what ever PAYPAL name and password I provide, to faktap@excite.com ? Even without coffee and freaked out at the thought of two-headed turtles I'm smart enough to ignore this nonsense. You?

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There's a lesson here somewhere, right? Trust no one?

Folks at DARPA looking into battlefield uses of regeneration as called for in Self-Regenerative Systems (SRS) Proposer Information Pamphlet BAA #03-44 might want to have Scully and Mulder check out Redneck, the two-headed turtle then maybe bottle some water from Lake Moultrie in Cross, South Carolina. Yikes, how will I be able to nap this morning while my car is in for repairs with this on my mind.

Today I decided to walk in the neighborhood ... along the street checking into yards to see what’s blooming ... and then back by the beach. Still no cicadas ... wonder if there is a time and temperature threshold required for them to emerge that hasn’t yet been met here? I know I have a trigger like this, and thankfully it fired several weeks ago on a morning much like today's.

Wireless from Sachuest. Hungry. [OK ... so this proved I can post with my phone ... so what? I noticed that there was no comment capability attached to the original post but that I can add it in editing.]

The mushroom pizza with the curiously bubbled crust could have been just what Evan needed when he dragged himself back out of bed at 1:30 in the afternoon. After making an early trip to the post office where he mailed off a copy of Henri Cole’s Marble Queen, there hadn’t seemed to be much to do with the rest of the morning. He realized that this wasn't the right week for a spring trip to Provincetown. There was also apparently the chance that he might get attacked by cicadas if he simply went out hiking. Not that he’d seen any cicadas... or would even know a cicada if he did see one ... was it even likely to see just one?

Evan had lain in bed not really sleeping and not really listening to a bewildering mix of music ... Sibelius, Beethoven, a raucous Mozart power symphony ... that was this morning’s relentless arts and culture barrage from WGBH and the soothing sound of a lawn mower weaving around trees at the house next door.

Evan wanted to get back in touch with channeled Andy. The Gray Zone report by Seymour Hersh that had come out in New Yorker only a day after Andy had made an offhand remark about a Rumsfield connection with prisoner interrogation might mean that Andy, or the Greek ... Evan wasn’t too sure he believed the channeling routine was real even after the cute trick with the Polaroid ... the Greek might know things ... things that it could be very interesting to also know ... things that even the folks at Wonkette didn't know.

Panagiotopoulos ... the name of the Greek who had channeled Andy Williams was Panagiotopoulos ... George Panagiotopoulos ... or so April had told him yesterday. She also told him that George had been an engineer who was working in Home Land Security and was now retired, or maybe laid off. He had actually stopped into the OB looking for a job as a chef. He didn’t get one. April had no idea where else Evan might find him other than maybe back at the OB and she had promised to text him if George showed up when she was working.

The pizza was good but it hadn’t been the answer. Now that he was finished there didn’t seem to be all that much to do with the rest of the day either. Evan flipped through his mail ... an offer from At&T to provide local service and a Performing Arts Center flyer ... more technology, more culture ... just what he didn't need ... he crawled back into bed. Hopefully Mimsy, who was back from vacation, wouldn’t be banging on his door looking for a ride to softball practice. He turned on the radio and pulled the sheet over his head. With any luck he would sleep through the night and miss American Idol.

Evan's dreams were of horses ...medicating, grooming and mucking them. It was a little blurry in spots but it sounded interesting. Maybe he needed to look into a move to the northwest and a life as a horsewhisperer. He remembered Ryan Seacrest handing him a sheet of paper that read:

A WESTERN WASHINGTON PRIVATE ESTATE is looking for an experienced horseperson to care for two senior horses, canines and estate maintenance. Job description: feeding, medicating, grooming, mucking, cleaning, general building and grounds maintenance/repair. Requirements: familiarity with equine health care. Assessment, prevention of illnesses, injuries, etc. Experience with farm equipment, ability to perform minor repairs, to be organized, work with minimal supervision. No riding or training. Non smoking/drinking, drug free. Clean driving and criminal record, debt free. Recent verifiable references, face to face interview and/or short try out. Will provide: serene working environment on idyllic 150 acres, surrounded by mountains, creek, woods, wildlife, yet close to everything. Separate living quarters, utilities, local phone, satellite TV. Salary commensurate to ability and responsibilities. Please call: (360) 474-1875, Fax: (360) 474-0776, email: juliarott@att.net or write: PO Box 356, Silvana WA 98287

For lack of any better ideas on how to proceed, Mina and I went looking for Adrienne at the OB. I suppose there was very little chance of finding her there but it was a good place to sit and enjoy a drink or two. April, who had recently moved in with Paul in the apartment directly over mine, was working the bar. A large man in a very loose yellow and red tank top was sitting at the end of the bar near the kitchen where we usually settled in. No problem ... there was plenty of room elsewhere.

April waved and broke off from a conversation with the large man. She gave us the usual ... a martini for me and a house merlot for Mina ... then went back to the end of the bar. I couldn’t help overhearing that she and the man were talking about Greece ... and Andy Williams. Greece? Maybe this was a break for us. I eased myself into the conversation. It turned out that he was from Greece and very sympathetic to problems associated with hosting the Olympics but claimed he didn’t know Adrienne. I hadn’t really heard all of what he had been saying about Andy Williams earlier and he surprised me by offering to channel Andy and ask him for help with my search. I ordered a second martini. Channel? Like in "Crossing Over"? And Andy Williams? Was it even ethical to channel someone who wasn’t dead? I didn’t know. Or maybe it was just someone claiming to be Andy Williams ... how could I even hope to know.

April assured us it really was Andy that the Greek could reach . She suggested that he ... I never did get his name, or if I did, chose to not remember it ... show us what he could do with his Polaroid camera. I looked at Mina ... she shrugged and ordered a second merlot. It was a public place ... it seemed safe ... what could go wrong?. While I was turned towards Mina, rolling my eyes in an “OK, let’s get out of here” way, our Greek medium had leaned down and pulled a Polaroid out of a plastic grocery bag tucked under the bar at his feet. When I turned back toward him he was holding the Polaroid up to the side of his head very much like it was a gun and he was shooting himself. He pressed the shutter then passed the dark undeveloped image to Mina and I. We watched over the tops of our drinks as a recognizable picture of Andy Williams appeared . You don’t see something like this every day ... and if you did you’d get tired of it quickly ... but the trick was enough to convince me that maybe the Greek and Andy could help.

I was wrong ... it wasn’t going to work ... apparently the main thing that channeled Andy was interested in discussing was a project he and Ann Margaret were involved in with some new construction in Branson Landing, Missouri. I was ready to give up when channeled Andy offered some wild suggestion that Donald Rumsfield had been the impetus behind a secret plan for dealing with military prisoners in Iraq that would soon come to light, then Andy offered an equally wild theory on the Scott Peterson case. Mina, who had drifted into a discussion of Tony Blair with April, was suddenly very interested but I’d had enough. I gave the eye roll again and we left for Mina’s where we planned a night of pizza, champagne, piano and cigars. It took all that, including 6 times through Unchained Melody, and more to get channeled Andy out of our minds.

Weetamoo ... it means "sweetheart" ... or so I read somewhere ... maybe in one of Ken Weber’s Walks and Rambles books... or maybe I picked it up from a Randolph Scott movie on a tape that Mina made for me from the Western Channel. I’m thinking what it really means is "bugs". My plan was for a quick hike around Weetamoo Woods. The trail circles a swampy area that I imagine to be every bit as foreboding as the Grimpen Mire ... there are a number of promising paths that quickly lead into impassable bog. On the main trail there is an old sawmill site that apparently dates back to the 18th century. Stones used in the foundation as well as the stone remnants of the race-way and dam along with cellar holes from millworker’s houses remain. The walk through the woods, when it is not bug season as it apparently is now, is very enjoyable. Another attraction here is a rocky crest not far from the south entrance that overlooks the woods ... and a TV tower or two.

I normally save the crest for the tail end of the hike but not this time. I went there almost directly but since the only way to escape the bugs was to keep moving I spent very little time atop the crest ... in fact I decided to abandon my trek in the woods for a meal at Gray’s Ice Cream where, after explaining that they didn’t do "sit-down" meals, someone in the kitchen decided they would make a cheeseburger for me anyway.

I took the cheeseburger to go and ended up picnicking not far away at Pardon Grey Trust, a 230-acre working farm now owned by the Tiverton Land Trust. I walked through the open fields surrounding a copse of trees sheltering a small cemetery. The breeze was sufficient to keep bugs away and I decided I would begin rereading the Hobbit when I got back home.

Got the interview ... well sort of. With some help from friends at the Pay Phone Project I was finally able to contact the man with the knit cap and the mini-sub shown in the photo I posted earlier through a number on the back of the print I had which turned out to be a payphone outside an Aromatic Fish Oil and Candle shop just off the Stravanger beach where the little yellow submarine was found. Lars Larson turned out to be a student in his third year of taking a correspondence degree in art therapy who was finishing up the last few days of his spring break back home after some time in Greece when he found the sub and the "famous" photo was taken.
177: I’m glad you’ve taken some time to speak with me about the submarine.
Lars: Ja, who is this again?
177: That’s not important. I’d just like to ask a few questions about the submarine.
Lars: Is this an interrogation? Do the rules Major General Geoffrey Miller used in Guantánamo Bay apply? I read in last October's Atlantic Monthly that it’s better to take a friendly approach. So, you'll be friendly right?
177: I'm friendly. I'm friendly. And I'm 4,000 miles away on a phone. You have nothing to worry about. This isn’t an interrogation. Just a few simple questions.
Lars: So I don’t have to tie this reindeer sweater over my head?
177: No.
Lars: And I don’t need this bucket of cod?
177: No, no. Why do you have the cod?
Lars: I don’t know .... I thought maybe ... well I heated them in oil just in case.
177: Wait, wait. Let’s start over.
Lars: I didn’t really know her.
177: Who? Didn’t really know who?
Lars: The girl. The one who took the picture. She was a Greek entertainer ... that’s what she called herself ... OK, she's a sex worker ... her name was Adrienne ... she came back with me from my vacation. She was interested in seeing Norway as she expects the Greek authorities to clamp down on her business during the Olympics. And she's worried about significant increased competition from criminal foreign workers who may have technological or physiological advantages that poor Greek girls like her don’t have. She was thinking maybe she could set up shop here. At least I thought she was only a sex worker ... until I saw that tattoo.
177: What tattoo?
Lars: It was a ... [A burst of static on the line made it impossible to hear what Lars had said.] Kinda' spooky but still way cool.
177: Huh?
Lars: Now I think maybe she was some sort of secret agent investigating the Odinesh Jihad. But I’m no longer associated with them since Kurt left the program when he won World Idol. At least I think he left the program. Actually, his World Idol tour could be a perfect cover for Odinesh operations. Oh ... maybe I’m saying more than I should.
177: Can we get back to the mini-sub?
Lars: What is there to say? I found it on the beach. If it really was a US Navy submarine maybe it was here to gathering intelligence on the O-Jihad movement? There was a meeting last week ... but I wouldn’t know anything about that. Or maybe looking for oil? Anyway Adrienne took the sub from me right after snapping the photo and I never saw her again ... or my camera ... I had some great photos too .... there’s a topless section further along the beach near the casinos.
177: Casinos?
Lars: The whole area here was developed by American Indians descended from some "entertainers" brought back by Leif Ericsson. If the art therapy thing doesn’t work out for me I may just ask for more hours in my job at the Neo-Narragansett Club.

At this point the line went dead. I have been unable to contact Lars since. I may need to give up on this and spend more time looking into the plight of the Greek sex workers. I’m thinking I could start with finding Adrienne ... and her mysterious tattoo.

This exclusive photo of the lost mini-sub found on a Norwegian beach just showed up. As far as I know I'm the only one outside of the Pentagon who has this picture though to be honest I don't even know if they have it. Looks to me like Apple Corporation may have some interest in the design that the Navy chose for their secret minehinting autonomous submarine.

And I had no idea the fijords of Norway looked anything like this. I may have to rethink my plans for a trip to Monhegan Island the end of May and try for Stravanger instead. Sorry I can't reveal where I got this photo ... but I can say I'm hoping to also get an exclusive interview with the man who found the sub.

When a runaway U.S. mini-sub gets found on a Norwegian beach by a man going for walk less than a week after its mother ship, the minesweeper USS Swift, gave it up as lost for good, you can't be too surprised that Navy is considering some serious cuts in submarine fleet and submarine research.

Change is good ... or in this case not only good but necessary in order to take advantage of comments now being directly available from Blogger. Yes ... this means the old comments are gone but ...
Everything passes, everything changes
Just do what you think you should do,
And who knows maybe, someday baby,
I'll come and be crying to you

Hmmmmm ... what were the chances I'd click on this link and send off my credit card and ATM numbers? Maybe you could try it and let me know what happens. Please no ... I wouldn't recommend that at all.


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Another beautiful morning and I am up and out early once more .. to Sachuest Point again ... this sure beats working for a living. This time I was, if not officially birdwatching, at least looking at the birds as there were so many as to be pretty much unavoidable.

Gulls of course, cowbirds, catbirds, enough American Goldfinch to make several pies, could have been a yellow warbler mixed in there too, some very pesky barn swallows, two geese, tree top robins, a cardinal, and a house sparrow here and there. Quite likely there were other varieties ... I really wouldn't know. There were also ants ... or at least ant hills, numerous small white butterflies, rabbits ... including one that accompanied me for about a quarter mile, and then there were the three half-inch slug-like creatures that I'm going to call softshell snails I spotted crawling across a portion of the trail where it has been rock-dusted. I carefully avoided the snails(?) while continuing along enjoying the new postcard green with morning blue on the eastern half of the ocean loop, kicking my toes into the dust and dragging my heels to accelerate the return of the trail to the muddy and deeply rutted state I prefer.

Mary sat and stared out the window ... she still had no electricity ... hadn’t had any since Thursday when the power company had shut her service off. Bastards. After David, the landlord, learned about this on Friday he had assured her that he would get the account for her apartment opened back up ... this time in his name ... and get the power back on but it couldn't happen until Monday. Mary would have spent the weekend in the dark if she and Lorraine hadn’t broken into Dennis’ apartment across the hall and snaked an extension cord far enough to feed Mary’s TV and one lamp. At least Mary had been able to see the end of Survivor and with the lamp she could see well enough to read her pill bottles. Reading the pill bottles was becoming an increasingly burdensome chore. Just this week she had added Lipitor to her morning banquet.

Dennis was away in Vermont with his uncle from Newport ... shooting fish from a blind overlooking Lake Champlain ... some people do this sort of thing ... Dennis had ever year since he was boy. This year he fully expected to net the five-a-day limit on pike so there would likely be a fish or two for Mary and Lorraine after Dennis’ cousins took what they thought was their share from the killings for providing the guns and shot.

When Mary saw Lorraine pull into the driveway she slowly recited one decade of the rosary to calm herself as well as give Lorraine time to get around back and inside. Then she dialed Lorraine’s number. After hearing that Mary still had no electricity, checking in the cellar to see if the breaker for Mary’s apartment was on and still having no luck, Lorraine went around to see if Evan might be any help. In explaining the problem to Evan, Lorraine mentioned that she had noticed several pornographic magazine pages on the cellar floor near the oil tank. Evan listened disinterestedly, went back inside to turn off the Peter Cushing "Hound Of the Baskervilles" DVD he had picked up at the library and went with Lorraine around towards the cellar. He had no theories regarding the magazines.

A quick look at the meters showed Mary’s was still shut off. Evan called the power company, confirming that the account had been reopened and that a work request had been put in to turn the electricity on. He wasn’t sure why Mary couldn’t have done this but he wasn’t surprised that she hadn’t. In less than an hour the problem was solved ... well at least the problem with the electricity. Mary had her own power. She was happy. She had plenty of other problems but they could keep. The visit to the cellar, where he had banged his head in the dark, had given Evan a headache. He wasn't happy but as far as he knew he didn't have any problems. Lorraine went in to feed her Oscars and wondered what would happen if she fired into their tanks with the gun she kept hidden in her bedroom ... the gun Carl had left behind ... the gun that she just knew was going to be a big problem. She didn't know if she was happy or not. (/4/ to be continued ...)

Daphne paced back and forth in the tiny kitchen area in her new apartment waiting for her tea to steep. She was thinking about Nabeeh, wondering what he was doing, and she was thinking about the war. What the hell were those soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison doing? Why would they be doing those things? Were these incidents interrogations that got out of hand? Was it simply about getting the Iraqi prisoners to talk about terrorists? The reports by the International Committee of the Red Cross and others were giving her nightmares. Nothing the President or Defense Secretary Rumsfeld had said so far was making her feel any better about what was going on. She didn't understand any of it ... not the war now that no weapons of mass destruction (whatever those actually were) had been discovered ... and not the torture and the torture photographs ... and not what had happened between her and Nabeeh.

She squeezed the tea bag carefully against the side of the cobalt blue cup she had bought just last week when she was furnishing the apartment ... she had wanted everything to be new ... she wanted to leave the 6 years with Nabeeh completely behind.

Daphne would be driving up to her sister's house in central Massachusetts with their mother later this afternoon, staying overnight, and coming back Sunday night. It meant a total of 5 hours alone in the car with her mother. Oh well, it is Mother's Day after all. She was looking forward to seeing her sister’s family and their new dog - a older West Highland Terrier. They already had a puppy Cairn Terrier, and Daphne was not sure why they got the second dog, but with 4 kids and the puppy maybe it didn’t matter. Daphne was very glad that she and Nabeeh had not had any children ... or any dogs.(3/ to be continued ...)

Evan began Friday morning with a few quiet moments spent reading the morning prayer from his recently acquired copy of Shorter Christian Prayer. It’s likely his reading from the second week of ordinary time was not the proper one for that particular Friday ... Evan had abandoned any effort of trying to track the exact specific liturgies proscribed for recitation on any given day just as he had abandoned getting the readings online at Liturgy of the Hours Apostolate ... he was more comfortable with the nearly pocket size Four-Week Psalter and was also comfortable that his efforts were sufficient for his purpose.

From his seat, a deck chair he had bought last summer at a yard sale which was now tucked in behind a keyboard among the plants in front of the picture window, Evan looked out at the lawn and trees below. It looked like it was going to be a nice day ... it had certainly been a nice night ... the party lights from the Cinco de Mayo party with Mina were still strung around the window and plants ... or at least most of them were. Cinco de Mayo ... Evan thought maybe it had something to do with Mexican independence but all he knew for sure was that it was a holiday that they had picked up from a Seinfeld episode. Mina’s visits frequently had a theme and her favorite TV viewing ... Seinfeld, Family Feud and the Western Channel where she made tapes for Evan ... was very often the source for those themes. The visits were always a delight.

Evan put down the prayer book, rearranged the party lights and thought about what he might do today. His neighbors wondered what it was that Evan actually did. One of the theories was that he was the recipient of some sort of government grant ... the paintings he had hanging in the walls of his apartment ranged from very nice copies of N.C. Wyeth to abstract landscapes based, or so Evan said, on nearby potato fields but no one thought he was getting a grant for his art work. Another theory, and this was the current favorite, was that he was receiving some sort of disability from a medical accident.

After a quick breakfast of toast and fruit Evan drove to the North End Garden Shop to pick out some more plants for the garden at Mina’s house. Plants were always more work than it seemed they should be ... this batch was a mix of perennials that included Bee Balm, Day Lily, Tickseed and Sea Pink ... chosen after carefully weighing sizes, shapes, shades and sun needs ... as well as a rose ... Evan couldn’t go to the garden shop without buying a rose to go with the others he had already planted on the southwest side of Mina’s or for a container to go on Mina’s deck or on his own front steps. This, an Ambridge English rose, had a tag that claimed it was good for cut flowers and had an excellent fragrance ... what more could you ask for ... Evan certainly didn’t know.

While at the garden shop he also took another look at the River Birch ... it could be what was needed to replace the dogwood Mina and he had planted in the swampy corner of her yard near which had not survived the winter. Something other than the Pussy Willows cuttings taken this spring from the shore below Evan’s apartment were needed there. Later during a break from his planting, Evan sat on the lawn sipping a Vanilla Pepsi into which he had poured a generous shot of Jim Beam and thought some more about the Birch as well as other things.

While Evan was busy in the garden Mina was seated at her desk in coat and gloves to ward off a chill from the air-conditioning. She was scowling at the screen in front of her. Something was just not right with the logs from last week. She would need to look into her latest findings a little more deeply but not right now. It was impossible to concentrate on the patterns she thought she might be seeing with all the noise coming from outside her office. Pushing away from her desk she opened her purse and looked at the two cigars she had there. Mina smiled, then, closing her purse, putting it down and leaning back to her desk, she opened a new browser, logged into her Yahoo account and sent Evan a short email with several lines from a poem by E.E. Cummings. Tomorrow she might send him something from the Cure ... or maybe something she herself had written ... it would very likely depend on how things went with the logs. (/2/ to be continued ...)

Time for a new direction ... I’m thinking there’s a lot more that could be done here beyond endless bloggle about IT and coffee. Others seem to be thinking the same and have let me know.

The house at 177 _____ Street sits atop a crest of land that runs along the west side of the river ... though how that body of water which is clearly a bay fed by no freshwater other than runoff from the surrounding shores ever became known as a river is a mystery ... or maybe not a mystery at all ... but it’s something I’m not going to research as it is unlikely to have any bearing on the stories I am intending to relate regarding myself and my neighbors living at 177.

I’ll not concern myself with the history of the house either beyond observing that it seems one of the oldest dwellings in the area ... certainly older than the ranches built twenty or thirty years ago, or the condominium complexes from ten years back and the mammoth Disney-like cottages wrapped in verandas being built currently ... but not so old as to have any particular historical significance ... certainly the house does not date back before revolutionary time though there are some rooms in the cellar with a certain "agedness" where times even earlier seem just out of sight in the dark corners past the cobwebs ... that last seems just a little too much like I’m setting the stage for something that Stephen King might imagine ... I’m not ... the lives of the people at 177 are pretty much ordinary ... well almost ... or at least as far as I know they are, though as I discover and reveal them in the next few months maybe we will learn otherwise ... unless I am distracted by other amusements and fail to follow through with this project. ( to be continued ...)

You are probably wondering if anyone has been doing concurrent beta testing of Gmail and Rimonabant, yes? Were you? Really? Well serious people are ... honest ... well maybe not serious people but Barry Bonds is not the only person with friends in the pharmaceutical business and this is the kind of connection you'll need unless of course you are actually part of the legitimate clinical trials because even though EBay shows listings for Gmail there are still none for Rimonabant.

When ABC evening news "outed" this drug developed by Sanofi-Synthelabo as the cure for everything I was surprised to see that they did not mention improvements in singing among r-users ... yes, that's right ... some of us have adopted the term "r-users" to describe our little community. Anyway, I suppose this failure to mention remarkable improvements in vocal tone and range was done out of some misguided loyalty to folks at American Idol ... Peter and Paula go way back ... or so I've heard. It's pretty clear to me that John Stephens never got any of this action ... action with Rimonabant I mean ... action with Paula is something I don't want to speculate about. Or maybe the French were trying to keep this aspect of the drug under wraps until the next World Idol competition.

Read more of what the main stream press is reporting if that actually matters to you ...

Ana Marie Cox is "gossipy, raunchy, potty-mouthed ... a foulmouthed, inaccurate, opinionated little vixen ... plying gossip above all, eschewing serious debates about politics and policy ... the newest, funnest blogger on the block ... a quiet victory for creeping National Enquirer values."

And the selfproclaimed "foul-mouthed spawn of a fantasy coupling between Joan Didion and Jon Stewart" who is also the author of Wonkette seems pretty much completely irresponsible, frequently just silly but can also be pretty funny ... OK ... she can be somewhat funny. You might try her blog when you're safely sequestered at a PC where the wrong people aren't looking over your shoulder or reading the network logs that track your browsing habits; or maybe start with today's relatively sane Washington Post chat .

West Side Story or Vital Therapy Copper? You'd think it would be an easy choice. I may be one of only 17 people east of the Mississippi who has a TV without cable so the choices are pretty slim on a Sunday afternoon. Yesterday the clearest of my 3 channels was asking "have you ever stopped to think how important copper is to the performance of your body?" Well, I didn't know the answer but I'd seen what magnets had done to some of my friends and it wasn't pretty so I have my doubts about copper cream.

OK, I could have gone in the other room and watched the rest of Tuck Everlasting, which is another variation on Romeo and Juliet, but I decided I'd try West Side Story at Trinity Rep ... it had to be better ... oops, wrong. I don't think you could have cast Maria any more poorly than Trinity did. OK she had a great, wouldn't an American Idol die for this, voice but not much else that would keep you focused on her while Anita the PR hottie (or just about anyone else and that includes the orchestra hidden in the back) was on stage. Possibly she had been exposed to magnets before the show? Sure the theater was sold out and the run has been extended ... it's West Side Story after all ... but I'd have never survived the rumble if it hadn't been for the Vital Therapy available in the lobby in the form of a Sakonnet Vineyard Red.

What album is John Lennon carrying as he walks into Abbey Road studios for the Sgt Pepper sessions? This may be something you haven't spent a lot of time wondering about but now maybe you should. Theories at I Love Music page that poses this question range from Adam Ant The Basement Tapes to something by Peter, Paul and Mary.

I'm thinking that maybe Philip K. Dick could have somehow given him a copy of Kurt Nilsen's I. Your thoughts?