courtin´ mortis, mucha nuthin´

wow, i haven blobbed in a good long while. was deathly ill for a month, tho no covid. we went to a funny, dadaist place called omegamart. quite a good one for two who grew up on mad mag. and we tramped thru an abandoned motel. there´ve been other events. mostly i am spending moolah like a madperson. tis the season.

this sat

for our 3rd set, we have batted around the idea of doing the entire first blasters album from start to finish. oh, would that be cool!!! we blew thru it a few weeks ago. we both know it so well, it was like magic, like the stuff i was reading about this morn in the forbes interview with sir roger penrose, like clairvoyance & memory & the uncanny & the time loop. today's haunted house was such fun for all. i barely made it home & fell in bed. then home was the hunter, home from the hills, the sailor home from the sea. he needed a flyer, so i made the above. i reposted my weird interpretation of the weird song sinner (on this blog, october 2015). was gonna watch a horror flick. guess there still might be time. blegh. happy howloween!

i hate

adulting.

spooky, gooey, oogyboogy, wrestling for rory

last night was spooky, reminding me of that scene from night of the hunter where lillian gish waits on her nighttime screened porch, shotgun across her lap, while the evil rev. harry powell (robert mitchum) lurks outside, singing a gospel hymn in a sonorous baritone that echoes eerily in the darkness. he´s trying to get in, he's trying to get at the kids in the house, he wants to kill them all in the name of the lord, he´s a scary, sexy, southern gothic boogyman. the version here, far less sinister, from last night, was something that happens just occasionally, james said he´s surprised not more often. someone came up the road playing an eery harmonica, then planted himself across from the house and played and played and played that harmonica in the direction of our place. someone was beckoning james to come outside, to get james´s attention, but james wasn´t in the house, so it spooked me. he´s here now & says ¨someone´s gonna get an a**whipping.¨... am home from work today bc of pink eye, which is a gross, gooey condition, if you´ve had it. and i feel drained, weak, awake but submerged. the immune system must be ebbing.... james´s friend tattoo mike just arrived & they are going to level the tiny home. yaaaaaaay!!! meanwhile, i will grade papers & rest... sister angie´s double-nickel bd is this weekend & for her bd, she gifted herself by having her book be kindle-published that day. (later will come paper tomes for those who prefer the physical read.) angie has been long-obsessed w/pro-wrestling, & her novel novel combines that subculture w/early hollywood woman film-makers, california indigenous people history/ways, punk references, & romance. attached is a pic & a link. :) angie always has been a highly capable, talented type-a person, as you can see; she labors hard & with creativity, always producing much!... back to work news, the school haunted house & after-school ¨spooky slumber party¨ play are going well. my little group of theatre/drama girls is weird & talented. they will put on a great little show. that is all. as you were.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CJVSJCCR?ref_=cm_sw_r_apin_dp_7B6KDBQEPYWBN869TZ29&fbclid=IwAR3OZGcJeo8yq6dN0fhBR4uUiSlijFl5xEQe76u5fea67O0d_I1uBril8Y0

sunday morning (not) coming down & a country founded in genocide & slavery

yesterday i chauffeured james to his show. decided i won´t play with this band for a while. but now kidá´s back from hawaii & james likely will be able to expand his repertoire again, which means a lot more variety, happier band, happier james. the timing of my resignation was off! argh! but james told me i have an open invite to re-join. :) i am a lucky person. we are supposed to practice the stompers wed & i hope we just slam thru the first blaster slash lp because it´s in our cells. i asked if we could learn a lot more bob wills, chuck berry, & blasters. and i´d like to do some weird old rockabilly tunes of my liking. he told me that bob wills started playing in bands when he was a child & by the time he was 16 or 17, was fronting his. he only knew break downs, rags, waltzes, two-steps, & square dances, so he would improv his songs around those. and such a beautiful, stomping, happy, brilliant legacy blossomed from that! the old recordings of him & the texas playboys have been our #1 listen in the past year, along with for me zydeco. wills was a virtuouso fiddle player, delightful singer, nimble, funny lyricist, & fantastic band leader. every single player was top-notch, & the instruments dance & weave & harmonize & speed along with such joy. it would be heaven on earth to be able to have even part of that experience, tho for me, it would have to be without the go juice & bennies & bop pills. james had a terrifically successful show last night, & his friend eric sardinas (sardinias?) showed up. james told me many times on the way home that eric is ¨really famous¨ in spain. he was high on happiness talking about his friend, a guy handsome up close & gentlemanly, the latter which i really appreciated! such a guy could be a snake! he must be a songwriter, i think, since he told me, ¨your eyes are mesmerizing¨ as well as that james is ¨an outside cat, but one that will always come home.¨ :) while james played his butt off, i went across the street to the lakewood center & thought, this is so novel for me from lily-white kern county, all the black teenagers having fun, no gang-banger-looking kids, just teenagers enjoying the mall, but there were a lot of them! and constant from outside, audible behind the soothing shopping musical soundtrack, was the sound of police helicopters & sirens. it was unsettling, all that sound of cop activity, but i didn´t think much of it, just it´s part of being in the sh*tty city, mebbe. so i kept walking, looking at the kids & all the clothing & shoe stores, then came across - gasp! - a book store! yes, there´s an amazing book off in that mall! emerged hours later with a bursting bag for me & james, family, & a bunch of k-pop music for maddy, who is a really expert on it. k-pop music is boxed in swanky style. i guess new the music sets are quite expensive, so they seem to partially justify it with fancy packaging. i walked out with treasure-loaded arms to a sea of sirens, squad cars & cops. truly, these guys looked like sterotypes of big, fat, pink-faced, ultra white cops. cruisers were circling the mall & surrounding shops at snailś pace, lights flashing, announcing, vacate the premises now; leave this place now; get off the sidewalks & leave. inside was lively, happy mall; outside was armageddon. i have never seen such heavy police presence. it looked like footage of mass shootings. what was going on?!? oh god, i thought, this is bad, whatever happened! more & more law enforcement was arriving, more & more sirens. i beat it back to the club & waited for james, looking on my phone for info. all i could find was the kids were doing a flashmob. a flashmob?!?! wtf were all the cops doing there???? a father posted, ¨get your babies home. they just children they don´t know these cops got heat.¨ mike harden finally showed me what he´d located: the mall had been closed due to ¨civil unrest.¨ the source: law enforcement. a member of james´s band told me he was glad the cops were doing what they were because ¨things can escalate quickly.¨ i know james has said the same when he was in the military & had to deal with large crowds that turned into riots. but on the way home, he also told me the town we were in is notoriously racist & the sheriffs dept is a bunch of a*sholes. they are the ones that always cause him problems & try to majorly assault him (instead of minor, which they always do) when he tries to get home or to a gig, even still, over 20 yrs after... ok, back to the subject. he said the white town doesn´t like all the young blacks coming to their mall for the weekend. so the SD sends its battalion to harass the kids until they leave. horrible! how could this be true?!? isn´t this a major civil rights lawsuit? how could this happen in america?!? well, then i found out the kids were setting off firecrackers & jumping on cars. so it was a little more than nothing they were doing. but still... this did NOT justify all that pork. america. these could be its last decades, don´t you think? we shall fall, as did rome. as a teacher, iḿ saddened by the idea bc i was raised in a family that identified our country with democracy, ingenuity, hard work, compassion, & a desire for fairness. but the reality has been a steady worsening of this land due to greed, inequality, & people kept deliberately ignorant, distracted, & sick by endemic screen culture (producing solipsism & narcissism), poisoning fake food, & corporate consumerism. plus it´s a country founded in genocide & slavery. i have to admit: how can such an evil entity truly last? & why should it? it really makes me sad. this country is beautiful, & so are many of its ideals. but look what has happened. just look. ... ... ... well, i don´t know why the coconut went there, but think i´ll leave this screed in place. ... ... ... just 20 mins ago, we were playing music, & he still is. i could learn from james: DON´T LET THE COCONUT RUIN A GOOD TIME! so i´ll just post some pix: one, a little painting i found yesterday for $3 when wonderful mom & dad came to see the new little house; the next two from last night as we had late-night chicken & beans; and the final one from this morn, with dear james loudly singing ¨one woman man.¨ (i was so tired, i fell into bed & didn´t take off my makeup, but don´t think anyone here will tell my mama.) i sure love my husband. he is a dear soul, when it gets down to it, tho like i wrote in a song, ¨he´s so sweet, meanest muther humper that i ever seen.¨ he´s both as well as much, much more. he says part of why he must´ve met me was so he could meet dad, & that dad is one of his best friends, & he loves mom & dad so much, & that´s the kind of thing james says, but nobody else ever has, & dad told him, when me & james were having tough times, ¨i´ve never seen my daughter so happy.¨ so in short, as usual, been down so long, but looks like there´s a way up & out, yet again. here is to still living.

inhale, exhale, repeat. rest in peace, ben.

sinus arrythmia, i just learned, is normal: your heart rate will vary between inhalation & exhalation. cause for alarm is when the resting heartrate overall & steadily (more than 7 days) is outside the normal range of 60-100 bpm. my sister & i each were born with mitral valve prolapse. as kids, we took meds before dental work. she maybe still does, but mine cleared up or maybe originally was a diagnostic mistake, a more recent md said. but i get palpitations, & it´s worrisome. we did a show saturday in lakewood ca at a place built for 50-60 ppl, but there were hundreds of bodies packing the place. i was set up in the walk-through with maybe 200 ppl breathing on me thru the course of the afternoon & i left there really sick. and been sick since. it has felt like covid-light. back when i had covid, i realized, this is really serious: this could take me out. i jumped on getting meds asap. this has brought similar symptoms, but not as severe, so i´ve just been lying around the house like a limp noodle, not doing much of anything... i posted today´s attempted natural remedy on facebook, & many responded that it could be a covid variant, so i keep taking at-home rapid tests, but they´ve all come out ok, so i´m gonna stop. btw, heart palpitations are very common w/¨women of a certain age¨ (iḿ now in that group). and iḿ the daughter of a hypochondriac, ergo prone to unraveling imagination, so i just gotta keep remembering: the human suit wants to be in a state of equilibrium. until it is finished... james was there saturday night when ben passed away. james was singing songs for ben & the loved ones & gatherers, & mid-song, he noticed his dear friend had perished. james knows what that looks like. he finished the song before he told everyone else in the room what had happened.... ben loved & adored elvis, so maybe, & i hope this is the case, he now sees elvis again. i want to believe that could really be; the fancy makes me happy, & i guess that´s all iĺl ever know... i just really had begun to see & understand what a cool & interesting person ben is, just this past yr. but nick still is here, & nick is worth getting to know better. we will make that happen.... iḿ supposed to be at work for extra yearly-planning stuff, but iḿ just not well... school´s about to start, & maddy is now on our staff, & so much is happening, but i gotta get better.... since this is my blog, here are pix from the show taken by krystal kozak as well as a flyer for another upcoming. james continues to be the maddingest, bravest, strongest, biggest-heartedest, amazingest & infuriatingest love of my life. that is all; more rest now.

upcoming show, bd, etc

i made this poster for james - nice and bold and plain, as he likes it. my bd is upcoming & the family has asked me what i want to do, but what i really want is a tiny house here so that they all will visit and feel how much cooler it is here than in bakersfield, how much cleaner the air is, & how peaceful it is. then they will want to be here more. but since the 2nd tiny house was sold out from under me two days ago, i don´t guess i´ll get that wish. but my god, what a golden problem. as part of mama´s bd yesterday, i sat w/her & listened to rachel maddow, her favorite pundit. usually the truths that maddow reveals & connects are too hard for me to stomach. i cry & get mad. but mama is strong & watches her nightly so ¨sheĺl ¨never get caught off guard again, like i was in 2016.¨ maddow spoke last night about the emmett till federal memorial dedicated today, her point being that we don´t give up in the face of violent hate. (3 memorials to the little boy brutally murdered by pieces of human dogsh*it over the decades have been vandalized & destroyed -- inexplicable!!! how can such blatantly violent racism still exist????? -- but this latest one weighs 500 lbs & is made of titanium or some other indestructible material & now it´s a federal crime to deface it, so go ahead, racist dogsh*t subhumans, vandalize it now & go to prison!!!) i was reminded by that bright, brave woman´s commentary (rachel´s, tho mama fits that description, too) that my life is a piece of cake & always has been, so i´d better do something to make the world a bit better every damned day. most immediately, that means making my husband´s life better & easier. we talked just now about moving the music room to the main floor of the house. i hope we do it. soon. hereś to getting to get old, getting to keep having life, getting the chance to become better. too many in this beautiful, horrible world don´t have those luxuries.

mama, tex-ass, the complications of family, bad cops, ¨the planet isn´t going anywhere... WE ARE!!¨ (geo. carlin)

mama said she doesn´t want anything for her birthday so i got her a groupon for 2 spa treatments. i phoned dad to tell him to ask her to check her email for the surprise. he said, maybe i will go with her! so that will be double-plus-happy-making for mama. :)

cousin mary frances, a devoutly progressive roman catholic, is going to texas & i might join her. she needs another lefty to be there in support. plus i love mary fafa and i love my tx family... & i love texas bc it is so beautiful. i love the forever skies and the land for days and the sighing seas of oaks and the endless roads... even the 10-gallon hats & blue jeans & boots & the twangy music & that drawwwl... but the trumpism, the redneckism, the hate, that makes it tough each time. i love my cousin so much, tho she always has baffled the bejeezus out of me... tho not really, bc sheś always been a bigmouth outsized personality, the star of the show whatever room she enters, ¨rita junior,¨ dad sez, tho aunty rita would die twice if she knew what rednecks her two children have become. my cousin jumped on me last time i was there, yelling: just cause i didn´t go to COLLEGE doesn´t mean i DON´T KNOW ANYTHING!!!! and blasted me for some minutes before losing steam.

i had asked her where she got her information. whoops, my mistake. how dare i ask her where her outlandishly xenophobic & kneejerkedy-law-enforcement-loving ideas came from. (i think she was defending the latest bad cop murderer of a black civilian. my cousin, like her dear mother did, loves & adores jeans-&-boots-wearing, gun carrying, drinking & chawing Men; she worships at the feet of the Toxic Male, but she´d never call them that & would call me weird for doing so. as for me, my paternal grandparents were law enforcement. my dear step-grandpa, i have had to admit now that i´m a grownup, was a big hunk of a man, so good to all of us, but in his line of work a life-taker & a neck-breaker. james says in mp school & the military in general they get waaaay more training than those who go to cop school. he sez that´s why there are so many of them who are dangerous idiots. even my cousin´s brother was involved in so many shootings, he got HONORABLY RETIRED from the cop shop... with pension!!!! so just knowledge of my family causes me to know james is right... not my cousin. we need law enforcement. but THEY NEED MORE TRAINING!!! my cousin´s brother, with whom i grew up, was/is a small, iron-obsessed [weapons, weights, motorcycles], fearful boy who was abused in childhood... shouldn´t such a person, who might be looking to get even with Life, get more training than a soldier does before he is armed & sent out onto the streets?? so why am i a skeptic about all of this & my cousin believes that cops are de facto right, that guns are de facto the way, w/o compunction? she is bright, but she seems to consider the examined life to be the mark of a snob or a weirdo, i.e., me. :( and maybe until college becomes affordable for all, it will continue to be seen as the realm of the elite, instead of a place for those who want to build their brains & souls & help the world... isn´t that why ppl go to college?? oops. maybe not.)

more: my cousin is brown as a peanut & was named after a ¨little [black] doll¨ her parents had when she was tiny. it had umber skin and black curly hair, like she does. my cousin does not look white. but she has aligned herself w the philosophies of ppl who 100 yrs ago would have hanged her, but more likely would have had her as a servant.

there are many ppl in just our own family that are like this: they revile ppl who question the 2nd amendment, law enforcement, & who´ve gone to college. but if college now reeks of elitism & exclusivity, what about their criminal wanna-be-mob-boss millionaire hero, the orange stain???? apparently the questionings i mentioned indicate disloyalty to the united states of america... yet ignorance of oneś own government, misogyny, hypocrisy, unchecked privilege, & bullying are just fine!!!

dad and i were emailing this morning about the whole confusion, & what he sent was worth repeating, i thought:

subject: interracial rednecks

dad,

i was thinking about what i said re sitting under confederate flags with shotguns and realized all those family ppl have interracial relationships!! so what IS their objection to liberality??? why is there such hatred toward intellectualism and inclusion????

i still tend to think itś racism somehow.

the white men control the brown ppl (spouses, significant others, children). the brown woman obtains power by being with (controlling) the white man. is this colonialism 2.0, contained within oneś own household?

i just don´t get it!!!

dad´s reply:

It is fearful, tribal behavior and not entirely limited to the uneducated.

The naked apes survived because they were fearful. Watch your cat.

www.HistoricBakersfieldAndKernCounty.com

the heat lately has been uncomfortable here, but quite worrying elsewhere: 130 in death valley. 130 in las vegas!! 123!! james sez, ¨thatś as hot as it was in saudi arabia.¨ (and then i think, he was in saudi arabia? then out leaks another snippet of james´s life. i think i know more now about his life than my own! yet i know hardly nothing about him, i think at times. the experiences heś had are never truly knowable to a citizen like me.)

¨the planet is fine...the people are f**ked!!!!¨ (george carlin)

now iḿ just blablablaing along bc iḿ in front of a fan and it is 80 degrees in this house and i am so comfy in my hot pink muumuu (ha! how the pinup manque has sunk! a muumuu! but what a wonderful sink it enables!!!) yes, dear gawd, my human suit is so happy in this house & temp, but to bakersfield i now must go w/the dog children, for dear mama´s bd. so that means extreme heat. so wherever you be, stay cool, you´ll.

blablablablablablabla

am driving myself nutty looking at tiny houses and trailer hitches.

think i need a chill pill or some other way to release adrenaline!!! here are some pix. after this, more piano!!!!

blogger no longer gives the option to caption individual pix, so these will have to remain inscrutable, or annoying, or unknowing, or whatever.

sometimes peanuts, sometimes shells. -uncle henry

...i thought the neighbor was a nice male, but he neglects his dog, a sweet giant of a bear having the same name as my older stepson. the dog is almost as big as i am but affable, friendly, such a good boy. the male underfeeds the dog & leaves it alone constantly. he is blase & uncaring when others (i´ve done it now 3x) have to go retrieve the dog when he gets out repeatedly. ...resentment is when i drink poison and expect you to die.... (i posted this on facebook because my week has been nothing but shells.) 28 years ago today was the last time I drank alcohol, so tomorrow is the anniversary of my first day sober, July 4th, 1995. Life keeps happening, but thanks to sobriety and adopting a program for living, my reactions are generally improved. Thank you to everyone I've met in this life. Everyone is a teacher -- how to be as well as how not to be, with, of course, much to be learned in the middle. One thing for sure is now I feel like I have a life instead of an existence, which is how it felt before. In general, my sober life has been one of purpose, with some serenity, which I never felt before. Even with life's certain ups and downs, I can be useful and have peace. A good Independence Day to all, Jenny Page.... i went to a teacher conference last week w/the hurricane named corey (talented hyper hilarious brainy principal of our school) as well as other colleagues. we all were upgraded; ¨the room´s larger than my apartment!¨ exclaimed our young history teacher, one of those guys born an old man, adored w/o comparison by our student body, deservedly so. the room featured an entry lounge w/large sectional & tv; a full kitchen; a separate bedroom w/two plush beds, tv, feather pillows, all of it perfectly temperature-regulated. large bathroom, everything built-in, everything new, everything nice. i was swallowed up by the vastness, the silence, the city-fied aloneness of the place, tho some nights i slept like the rock you might´ve heard about. the hotel gym featured sturdy cardio with video screens: i skiied across the grand canyon, biked in reims, france as well as villages in the alps. four of us females sat in the jacuzzi one night while corey regaled all, including strangers, w/her wild & hyperbolic comedic stylings. fireworks boomed from disneyland, their reflections sizzling across the brightened nighttime hotel windows nearby. full breakfast each morning. delicious, of course. busy busy important mentally-taxing info all day at the convention center, brain crammed with school stuff, school stuff, school stuff, then finally home, back to the mountains, back to the birds, the breeze, the blue sky, the pet children.... circling back to resentment, at the conference a little birdy told me that you can mail someone ¨a box of sh*t.¨ ¨what?!?!?!¨ i sputtered. that can´t be real; that´s something you only see in early john waters. ¨here, check it out,¨ the person said, whipping out a phone & proving it. ¨you have to pay more to send human sh*t,¨ i learned. i couldn´t stop gaping. in this world of mind-boggling technology, people can pay to mail boxes of excrement to a**holes -- totally anonymously.... when james is not here, i work inside & outside til i can´t move anymore. i not only love it, it needs doing. i learn about stuff. i eat weird combinations of food & watch subversive, avante garde art, foreign, cult & grindhouse movies i´d otherwise never. last night, a particularly gruesome & brutal flick kept interspersing footage of glenn gould. what keyboard facility! what clarity of tone! startling! i read up on him this morn & so from that awful film learned a new piano technique, ¨finger tapping,¨ taught to glenn gould & others by the famous piano teacher known -- cher & prince-like -- by the single name guerrero. i hope it will help these slow phalanges move along a little quicker.... how does it all relate? it takes fertilizer for growth. from crappy experiences -- inadvertent, intentional, unavoidable, whatever-- can come a message, a wisdom, a betterment. humans are messaging-making machine, i know. from the luxurious aloneness of the hotel experience came a conference bringing fellowship w/other educators, pedagogical goodness. from the brutally ugly film came increased piano possibilities. from the frustrations of my life i (much of the time belatedly) discover character defects, practice patience & take positive action. sometimes i step in sh*t, but that is human, & i know now not to roll around in it, like i did in younger years. i learned that i can pay to have a box of caca shipped to some a**hole or another via u.s. mail, & how is that positive except as a means of revenge? well, by writing about it here, i not only squash any chance i might do it myself (& then feel guilty forever), but now you know. and you, my friend, well, do with it what you will. https://www.shitexpress.com/ https://poopsenders.com/

zzzzzzzzzzzzz

sore, owowow, sore sleepy old age

hello. stomp stomp stomp. and a tiny house. and travels.

don't know if anyone reads this blog anymore, but i still like writing on it @ times. i think i'm finally getting a pretty nice tiny house for the hill above the house. we'll see; fingers crossed. and maybe the vintage trailer will go for a good cause. pingers crosst. school is winding down & i'm actually home today due to being lately fairly ill in the head (physical, not mental). hope i'm not becoming allergic to frazier mountain, like i was bakersfield! btw, been traveling a bunch. dad became 82 years young & we had a family party. he asked for unshelled peanuts as a gift. when he goes on his walk each morn, he shells & eats them as he ambles. mama celebrated another year being our mam. we ate chicken with rice, beans, & tortillas & she immediately donned the lovely blue blouse i was able to find for her. & if you're in colton, go to viva vegan. wow! james said, of jackfruit, which i told him i'd had in a viva vegan taco, "tastes like meat. that stuff's good!" i shoulda known he'd know about it. the hotel that's good around there is the best western plus arrowhead. i left my stuff in the room like an airhead & it's coming back to me via u.s. mail. so the staff is honest. and the breakfast was really, really complete & good. and in san bernadino, you can see the original mcdonald's (all decrepit & creepy & retro-looking) & go to a wonderful thrift store, eco thrift. and in anaheim the other day, i did 3 miles on the anaheim cove trail, surrounded by noisy city but also the flowing santa ana river, then had han's ice cream: animal cookie with caramel milk tea flavors. sticker delishissness. then, thank god, we left the city & got home to the hill. i think i like this flyer, so here it is. come over to sue's sat night for some fun. mro latre.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

oh boy, so tired. realized that since before easter break, i've been home 24 hours only 3x. need more rest!! here are the pix run & the article from cesareo, published in the bakersfield californian newspaper about last night's show. we had a great crowd, & this article was partially why. mare see, c!

The Stompers, 6 to 8 p.m. Friday, Pour House Bar & Grill, 4041 Fruitvale Ave. James and Jenny Page, aka The Stompers, are a guitar and piano duo specializing in incendiary rock and roll, country, and rhythm and blues — with a heavy emphasis on the blues. "We named our band because we both start songs by stomping our feet," Jenny said. The pair will perform a rare local 21-and-over show Friday at the Pour House Bar & Grill. Expect a lot of uptempo rock numbers featuring some Jerry Lee Lewis-style piano work by the excellent Mrs. Page and a harmonica solo or two by Mr. Page, who goes by the stage name "Whiteboy James." His brooding intensity is bookended by his wife's effervescent smile and personality. Some couples make beautiful music together. These two — from their respective and combined originals, to their covers of Americana ranging from Bob Wills to The Blasters — make music to burn the house down. "We're going to be playing some blues and some hillbilly stuff," James said. Jenny added later, "To quote Big Manny (Manuel Gonzales from the East L.A. rock, Latin and blues band The Blazers): 'When in doubt, play more Chuck Berry.'"

stompstompstompstomp

saturday at the doll hut, james was in highest form, a god on the stage, a superhero, an icon! he was a big whoaaaa. we made it back to kern county for easter with the family. we were home today on frazier mountain working on the house. i put up the patio again & took a little sauna. tomorrow school resumes. as does the music. now here we go! our combo renamed & restamped! i hear pour house has good food. yessss! we are going to stomp stomp stomp!!!

what i did during the bizzard

last thurs we left work early bc the blizzard was said to be incoming. fri was no school, only some snow, but the roads here get icy & the buses can't roll. all students in our district are bussed unless parents take them via car. no buses = no school district-wide. one route is a 45 min ride to-from school, to an alpine mountain "club." its only in-out access (unless folks want to go around, taking 2+ hrs to campus) is a twisty, windy, 2-lane road varying from 6 to 9k in elevation. that's the kicker, the one that usually has our district calling school for the day - it's quickly impassable. one time, an entire school bus nearly slid from the drop-off into the pines. i don't know quite how they got it out, only that more than one piece of rescue equipment was involved. anyways, no school. then the wkend hit & with it, the blizzard, hereafter known as "the great blizzard of 2023." the icy downpour seemed first like a christmas movie of old, soft & lovely, then after a while permutating in all the ways snow can, settling into a viciously icy deluge from hell (if it was a place of freezing). i woke on the 3rd morn to turquoise sky & thinking it had passed wrote a poem. even went out in mid-thigh snowpack to clear the driveway, a plus-2 hour task. we snuck out to bakersfield when the i-5 opened, had italian sandwiches & ice cream, drove a box of torrones & pyrenee's bread to mom & dad at their retired teachers meeting. felt the sun on our faces. magnificent! but back home that eve the snow returned with seeming vengeance, the sky black, the winds bansheeing, the white sheets freezing, the house ever-colder, even with fireplace blazing. where were the roads? our cars? nothing but whiteness, a blank blanket almost evilly sub-freezing, melvillian. what to do? there was little. cook. read. hot tea & coffee. check the weather forecast & road conditions 3 times per hour. some exercise, tho it was too frigid to put aside the blankets. call family. a thousand thoughts passed through my noggin & came out the other side. i think james hoped to sleep away his time, but eventually he got up. we didn't practice any music bc he said it was too cold, & i guess it was. we watched chopped then made food in our air fryer. watched films on tubi, that freely-streaming treasure box of cinephilia: gilbert (about gottfried; we had to turn it off twice, sobbing for different reasons); the wolf house (eerily beautiful, creepy, desolately sad, stop-animated parable of south american nazi-ism); & others i already forgot. on pluto, another freely-streaming tv service, we found an i love lucy channel! let the dogs out, in, out, in, out. cancelled gigs. contemplated new ones. watched & rewatched & recited dialogue with the office. played stupid phone games. began obsessing about real estate in places w/o winter weather, ones we couldn't visit bc every road out of frazier mountain was closed. with the deep, deep cold permeating the house & our bones, & nothing warm seeming possible, i thought a lot about gene taylor, how evil the universe & Fate can seem to be, but what to do? the past isn't changeable. say a prayer, put on more clothes, & try to turn thoughts to something positive, try try try.... now here is the good part: through it all, we realized we got closer. james dryly told dad, "i've been in much worse, much smaller quarters, for much longer, with much-less desirable companions." i read a book about a man who lost his spouse to illness & realized how lucky i am to have my james. each day, we wake up. he is handsome, silly, smart, brave, & like all couples, we get on each other's nerves at times, but he is my person & i am his. for what was i complaining? a little ice? i have a roof, my health, & love... family members wrote books this past year: brother-in-law, dad, sister. not sure about bro-in-law's, his memoir about being a drug addict turned preacher & human traffic victim-rescuer, however i've been editing dad's, an exhaustive history of the kern county fair. he's been putting the finishing touches on it for months. he & angie (dear sister) were neck-&-neck to the finish line; angie won, declaring her book, a "cozy romance about pro-wrestling" (and more) finished. dad now says he will send me his entire book via docs so i can complete the edits & he can call his done, as well. meanwhile, in the last days of the storm, i've been reading & editing angie's, marveling at her imagination & how she has taken threads & chapters of her life & wrapped them into a fiction. i cannot do that & never will, but it's gratifying to see the painstaking care & craft that has gone into both her & dad's disparate works. i hope they both publish. i hope her's becomes a bestseller, because it just might-could. well, i think that is it for now. goodness & gratitude bless the sun at this moment shining, our giver of life, our golden, warming source. the little animals are cavorting, tweeting, chirping, hopping, & flying in the warming tundra outside & now, six days after it started, the storm has ceased & this life now is gooder than ever.

foe toes & follow-up

for some reason i have to log out, log into work account, open google photos, screenshot, THEN i'm able to upload pix here. cumbersome. i'm sure it's bc my work account has swallowed up my pc. i don't care much except it's a p.i.t.a. when i want to post pix to this blog here ... to follow up on below's crazy-lady entry, the trip to sf wasn't all horrible. the hotel was really nice & should've provided us a good time except for non-compliant coconut action. i loved the coat shown in the pic, which my sister had given to me (she didn't want it) & that particular pic shown here of my dear husband in a happy moment. i can't even remember the hotel's name, so completely have i blotted away the rest of that part of the trip. and amtrak was nice, providing lulling motion, endlessly interesting landscape, & endless snacking for james via the dining car. and we went to the musee mecanique, one of my fave places on this earth. and the halal guys was a great food find. and it was good brain & body relief to chug out all those miles on all those unending city streets. and afterward, it was great to leave the city, got to get away, all that fussin & fightin, you know i sure can't stay... the other pic depicts penny petunia page & joe louis page (facetiously now named joe louis jordan prima page) venturing into the emerging weather sanity as well the other one showing the turquoise sky of heaven mentioned below.