Shem Creek and Sydni

Update: Okay, the original post is still below, but I find I need to apologize to those who know me and know my dog.  I am so sorry for scaring everyone.  Especially both my oldest daughters, my sister, and my former spouse.  Sydni is still with us and doing great for a 13+ year old dog.  But she's slowing down, can't climb the stairs by herself, is deaf as a post, and can't make it further than around the block before she's ready to be done with the walk.  Not that she isn't as excited as ever to get out the door--she's just done by the time you turn the second corner.  Still, she's as beautiful as ever (really, she looks better than she has in five years), and fuzzy and loving and she smiles.  Especially when she's sleeping, which is most of the time.  (I find I'm back to that stage I was in right after my girls were born, when I checked on them during naps and in the middle of the night to be sure they were still breathing.)  And all of that is why I said I'm going to miss her.  Both of Laura's old dogs passed this past year, and so I'm just hyper-conscious of Sydni's age and more grateful than ever for every day that begins and ends with nuzzles and husky-hugs from her.  That's all.  My bad.  So sorry.  Truly I am.  I expect better of myself when it comes to proofing my own work from a reader's perspective, but clearly I skipped that step entirely with this quick little post whipped off during the workday to capture a nostalgic moment.  Clearly.  When my ex called tonight she'd been crying, as I expect I would to think I was hearing similar news of her dog.  By the time she was laughing, after my profuse apologies, she summed up the gaff pretty well.  "That's the last thing I would expect from you, the Wizard of Words."  More like the Scrivener's Apprentice today.  Again, sorry.

For some reason, the smell of the ocean is strong to me today--possibly not a good thing, it being about 100 miles away.  But what has been nice is the flashback to all those morning and evening walks with Sydni in Charleston that usually ended on the pier jutting into the tidal marsh of Shem Creek, back in those days when the tide charts were part of my daily crosscheck.  I am going to miss my dog.

Snapshot: Two Falls

Eighty degrees in March is not a thing I'm accustomed to, nor the rattling of these leaves across pavement, a rattling that is like a second fall. Charleston's trees, like huskies it seems, shed twice a year or in shifts. And so, my mind and memory are lost this morning. The patio door stands open and the sounds themselves are conflated, conflicted, and confused. The birdsong wakens the sleeping neuron repositories of all the southern springs I've lived and all those I've missed in other lands and climes, but those leaves . . . those leaves, whatever they really are, my mind knows as the sound of water oaks' sheddings driven like horizontal cataracts down Stephens St as I sit in my Spitfire in my driveway in Goldsboro with the top down and sip dry sack sherry in the manner of that Falstaff whose discretion was no form of valor at all and listen to JT's Dad Loves His Work and have no inkling yet of the choices good and bad that will take my life from that more timely autumn to this second fall that is like, in so many ways, a second spring too, not outside that patio screen so much as within. And within, all time present in every moment, old ties renewed touch better selves only dormant. A squadron of phoenixes. And always, gratitude for and comfort in the harbor that exists, away from this harbor town, but within always. Days, and there again and whole.

Spend Some Quality Time with Random Thoughts

Busy weekend unplugged. At the DZ yesterday and this morning--spent the night in the bunkhouse. I'm gettin' too old for that.

Jumped three times yesterday and made what was probably the only load this morning before the winds picked up. Last night's excitement was the ladder truck coming out to get a jumper out of a tree. The jump before that, she was with me. She landed in the middle of the student pit and I have the video to prove it. Her jump on the sunset load was her final checkout jump. I don't remember there being a "tree landing" block on the A-license card, but if there were, she could check it off now. :-D She was bruised but still smiling!

When the winds canxed us today, I left early to swing by and say hello to my mother on the way back to Charleston. Watched a little of the race and heard the best line of the day. Originally, it was going to be the sole content of this post as the Quote of the Day, but then I was afraid of what it might imply without some backstory. At any rate, here it is, as heard during a commercial break:

"Spend some quality time with Viagra dot com."

Right. I didn't know you could have that meaningful a relationship with a web site. I'll just leave that there and head to bed. I'm still jet lagged from springing forward. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

Father-Daughter Night: Hooters, Taken, and Flat Aidan

Hooters

One of the advantages of living in Charleston is being able to meet my oldest daughter, a student at UNC-Wilmington, for dinner every few weeks. Last night we met up in Myrtle Beach at the Hooters that hooked the rest of my family on Hooters's wings. (I can almost hear the audible gasps: "You take your daughters to Hooters!?" Take them? We've had birthday parties there, graduation parties, informal gatherings. After the first time they tried the wings there, during a visit following a day of outlet shopping at the beach, a visit to the very place we ate last night, I had to be sure we got there in time for the afternoon specials to avoid breaking the bank. Trust me. No other wings like them.)

Taken

Following dinner, we headed to the mall next door to see Taken. If you need a Charles Bronson, Clint Eastwood, lone wolf sort of action thriller, this will fill the bill. Just be sure to pull the circuit breaker on your reality filter. It's not that any of the action sequences are over the top. No, they're well enough done. It's not that the whole kidnapping for sex slavery thing is overdone. No, that happens often enough to require an annual briefing on it to everyone in the Air Force. It's the other things that films like this consider unimportant that make such films utterly forgettable.

It opens with the obligatory "let's show who he is" scenes. He's a guy with close friends from his past life as a "preventer." These are guys who visit for a cookout and invite him along on a contract job, to remind them and us he "still has the edge." These are the guys he can call on to analyze the tapes once his daughter has been taken. The guys that will tell him he only has 96 hours to find his daughter and then wish him luck doing it all on his own. What?! Speaking purely figuratively, I have gay friends with bigger balls. In fact, my female friends have bigger balls. If anyone in that line of work called a "friend" and said, "They've taken my daughter. I'm going to get her back," the reaction from the other end would be, "Party! Rock and roll baby! Where should we meet you?" Not this movie. So long as that fairly significant break from reality doesn't bother you, you'll be fine.

And if that one gets by without causing any problems, you should be fine when he gets his daughter home. That would be the seventeen-year-old who's been kidnapped, drugged up, tramped out for auction, kept as a virgin for a particular type of clientele, but no doubt "schooled" in a few things, and then (spoiler alert) rescued at the last second by daddy, unlike the now dead girlfriend she went to Paris with. If you're okay with him having to run the whole op on his own, then you'll be fine with her arriving back in the states after her less-than-96-hour adventure all cheerful and bubbly like she's been away at cheerleading camp. I'm sure that won't bother you anymore than it did me. Even the man who gave us Rob Roy has to eat, and all that well-choreographed stuff in the middle that stretches incredulity so much less does somewhat satisfy every father of daughters' secret longing to run rampant through the entire high school or college male population of would be defilers of his princesses. Catharsis. Get some.

Flat Aidan

Lastly, remember Flat Jackson? Well, now it's time for Flat Aidan. I pulled him from yesterday's mail just in time to make the trip to Myrtle to see his cousin and get a money shot with the Hooters Girls. :-D


And my sister, Aidan's mother, thinks I mind this why? Looking back, I see a trend. I have a Chief Female Associate (CFA) beyond compare, so this new awareness does me no good whatsoever, but listen up guys: If you can't borrow a baby or a puppy from your friends who have one, get out the black construction paper and the white marker, and work on your back story. Trust me on this. And ladies, don't even think about giving me a hard time. We have to work with what God gave us. All you have to do is toss your hair.

Rush Fan?

Not so long ago, I mentioned that my canine companion was depressed. The changes in her behavior had come about gradually, but they had finally reached the point where they demanded notice. Despite being fed less than every guide said a dog her size should eat, she was still gaining weight. She was sad. She needed help to crawl up into the floorboard of the Jeep. She had no real interest in walks. A run was out of the question--she couldn't keep up for a hundred yards; whereas, she once drug me along for a mile or two. We'd had her on thyroid medication for a very short while a few years back, but my not-canine companion's verdict was that it made her crazy (the dog, mostly), so we stopped administering it. It was now clear though, that something had to be done.

So, last week I took her (the dog) back to the vet, confirmed that she did have a low thyroid condition, and decided to try again with the medication, but at half the dose of last time.

Wow. She's been on the meds for a week. Already she has more energy and less mass and seems to be converting one to the other at about the rate of a controlled nuclear reaction. She is still big for her breed, but every day she looks a little more like Dwayne Johnson and less like Chris Farley. You could have knocked me over with a feather the other day when I opened the door to the Jeep and instead of needing to help her in, she leapt from the ground to the seat. And on walks now, she's back to leading the way.

She's a little more hungry though. She's begun to show an interest in every Chihuahua and squirrel that she sees, but I realized this morning there could be another explanation for that. When I leave for work each day, I turn on the radio to give her the sound of human voices during the day. For a while it was NPR, then classic rock, then country. But a few weeks ago, I changed her daily radio diet to an FM talk station here in town. Now she gets a steady flow of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, some guy named Schnitt, etc.

This morning it hit me. She may not see those small animals as food after all--maybe she just thinks they're all illegals and tree huggers.

Snapshot: Marsh in Fog, Evening

Shem Creek. Short fishing pier, unfrequented. 6 p.m. The dark comes early now. Quiet but for the soft whrrr of heat pumps, the faraway sound of traffic, but all that muffled tonight by a light, warm fog. Someone's streetlamp visible half a mile away over pier or boathouse, but beyond that, the condos and hotel normally visible are shrouded. A tall crystal glass of some Aussie Cab/Merlot silhouetted against the grey. A conversation of canines across the creek. Mine rests silent at my feet. She likes the pier, I think--accustomed now to coming here, sometimes only to look out across the water and marsh grass and retreat, and sometimes, like tonight, to pause for a while. To listen to the occasional splash of something alive in the marsh. To allow the breeze, heavy with the weight of the fog to caress us. The crickets to stroke our ears.

I'm learning this place. Tides. So high this morning that I could almost reach down and touch the surface. So, to the chart: +6.9 feet, it says. Then +7.0 tomorrow, before a steady regression to more normal depths. Pull of the full moon.

Fog horn this morning on waking and again now. Took a while to believe it was what it sounded like. No idea where. Something else to learn. Less than three miles to the harbor from here.

Cigar tonight perhaps. Later. After dinner, some Addison, some Steele, a little Swift, and the ever pressing paperwork. Mentally recapping the day leading up to this quiet. Solitary office hours this morning. The afternoon at the Air Force base. Retiree ID card, finally. Register for TriCare Prime. Learn what it is to pay for my health care--a pittance really, compared to anyone else, but after so long at no cost, one more reality check. Ready to be done with that life, but not ready for this.

Walking back in, a conversation of fog horns in differing pitch, like a hearing test for the wide wet world. I press the button.

Snapshot: "I'm Not Dead"

A day at home, dedicated to the paperwork that ends a marriage. Funeral rites.

Coffee on the pier. Gray day. Sluggish backward flow of an incoming tide near high. Quiet trickle of leftover stormwater from a pipe hidden by pier planks. Brown pelican passing at medium height, winging lumberous down the upstream toward open water. Sound of slow wings. The egret beneath ingresses between marsh walls, stark white against muddy banks and brown reeds.

All the while a wake of buzzards holds congress, lining the siderails of the pier reaching from across the way, stacked on roofline and chimney next door, and nearest and thickest perched by the dozen in a dead tree stretched over dead water. All this under overcast sky. Darkly hopeful watch they keep. Fit weather and fit fowl for this day's labors.

And when one circles close to see what sits so long without movement, taking it all in, a flashback. Dark bird to bring such a light thought and true. Not dead. Not yet. Not hardly.


And clearly, I need to replace that lost camera.

Slàinte an Rìgh, na Bàn-righinn, 's an teaghlaich rìoghail!

Or, if, like me, you need that translated: Health to the King, the Queen, and the royal household!

I'm behind and likely to stay that way in my reading of friends' blogs, but I took a moment over cappuccino this morning to catch up a little, and I learned that good friend Jay, aka "The Piper," celebrated a birthday a few days ago. I promised him a toast today, and in fulfillment of that promise, I here submit the proof: my glass sitting on the pier that projects from my abode into Shem Creek, across the harbor from Charleston.


The quality's not so good, having lost my real camera on the trip west with my daughter back in May. But you get the point. Jameson, on the rocks with a twist of lime. While pipes are decidedly Scottish, I've reason to believe that the "King" in this instance, prefers his whiskey Irish, and has the good taste, I think, to lean toward the distillery who's work is melting the ice in that glass.

Were it high tide, all that marsh grass would be awash, but such is not the luck at my morning and evening walks just now. Give it a week.

I was trying to explain to a friend (in the flesh) the other day how remarkable it feels to now consider some of my best friends to be folks I've never actually met in the flesh. Such is the blogosphere. But Jay, I have met, and his family. And I'll have to concur with Wayman Tisdale, a fine family it is.

Happy Birthday, Jay. Better late than never.

The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, Now a Movie

What rock have I been living under?

On the way to the Charleston airport yesterday to drop off a good friend who'd had business in town, we stopped at Barnes & Noble for him to purchase a book for the trip. Walking the center aisle, I came upon a stand of books bearing this image

and promising that the film, starring Viggo Mortensen (that's him on the cover), will be out in November. I didn't even know they were making one.

And, according to most of the press on it thus far, making it well. For a really good read about the movie, the actors, the process of filming it, a NY Times article from this past May is about the best thing I've found out there.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about that article is the high praise is lavishes on the young actor, Kodi Smit-McPhee, who plays the son. "Lavishes" may be the wrong word. More accurately, it simply reports the near awe with which the rest of the cast and crew came to view Kodi,

an 11-year-old Australian who plays the son and bowled everyone over when he tested for the part, greatly reducing the anxiety filmmakers feel when casting a child. Some of the crew privately referred to him as the Alien because of the uncanny, almost freakish way that on a moment’s notice he switched accents and turned himself from a child into a movie star. Days after the filming of a climactic, emotional scene, people on the set were still marveling at Kodi’s performance. A couple said they had puddled up just from watching the monitor and needed to sneak a tear-dabbing finger behind their sunglasses.

With luck, this movie may prove as rewarding an experience as No Country for Old Men did. It will be interesting, though, to see what nods go to the screenwriter on this one. The Cohens won an Oscar for Best Adaptation of McCarthy's novel. I thought that particularly ironic, given that McCarthy originally wrote No Country for Old Men as a screenplay, nearly three decades ago. One can't help but wonder just how much "adaptation" they had to do. This time around, Penhall likely faced a more significant task.

The script for “The Road,” by Joe Penhall, is for the most part extremely faithful to Mr. McCarthy’s story of a father and son traveling alone through this blighted landscape and trying to keep alive the idea of goodness and civilization — the fire, they call it. The script does enlarge and develop in flashback the role of the man’s wife (played by Charlize Theron), who disappears quite early from the novel, choosing suicide rather than what she imagines will be starvation or worse. And of course the script lacks Mr. McCarthy’s heightened, almost biblical narrative style.

Some of that could be suggested by the look of the film, Mr. Hillcoat said, but mostly the nature of the bond between the man and the son, who in the script, as in the book, speak to each other in brief, freighted moments, would have to come out in the performances.

There are few movies I care enough about to attend on opening night. But this may be one.

Provided, of course, I get out from under my rock often enough to know it's happening.