Maudlin is not Morose

17, 16, 15. Off Route. Recalculating.

Waking relatively late, dark in the bedroom because the door was closed into the back room where the router light shines and the modem lights blink wink blink. Which means my SO left for her snore room on the far corner of this old American Foursquare. What we added doubles the size of the house but spoils the foursquare design. If I were doing it all over again, it would be completely different, but I'm not, and it isn't. And won't be. No longer ajar, the door is closed on that.

Walking out to get Linda's PCNH this morning, not raining, but in the breeze coming off the Bay a slight mist that I thought was sprinkling. Gutter still dripping and the ground is freshly soaked. To the west the distant rumble of thunder. In my yard the loudest cricket I've heard, usually the crickets are in my ears but this cricket is real and drowns out the treefrogs. They do that with their legs? OK. Not so much how as why?

To the south across the Bay, yep, the flashing light is still there. Directly off Calhoun Avenue and the closest buoy, it looks like a one second flash. One thousand, flash, one thousand, flash, one thousand, flash. Not red. I have NOAA BookletChart 11389 on my computer desktop and I'll keep looking for that light on the page for the Bay in front of my house, but I'll never be a ship's navigator. Crypto officer, yes.

The thunder getting more persistent, seems closer, and the breeze feels wetter, even wetter. Robert and I walk Tuesday mornings and Thursday mornings, but the weather that kept us from walking Tuesday may strike again.

Yep, here comes the rain again. If humans weren't here there would be nobody to comment on the weather we are having, which actually is just a cycle of Mother Nature who couldn't care less whether we're here or not.

That is Thursday morning. This was Wednesday afternoon.

Linda was right, I can have this time to myself. No sermon to write. No yard work, as it’s storming rain. I love a day like this, I’m in charge of myself. But not really, other is in charge, something other whom I cannot name and who is not always warm and friendly. Front porches too wet from windy rain, but dry out here on the back screen porch at the northwest corner of my house, as the eave gutter pours water to the ground. I can sit here all afternoon, into the evening. Mug of coffee. Or wine. Glass of wine, a beer or glass of scotch. Too cool and damp for beer, cold beer's for hot afternoons. How would I have the scotch? Two fingers of Islay single malt and an ice cube in a short glass. It sparkles beautifully in a cut glass. More likely the wine, though Linda says it makes me snore. Bubba has lived here 57 years next month and never heard nobody snoring, I wants to see the evidence, not just the footprints.

Off route, recalculating.

Read if I want to. Write. Blog. Watch a movie. Click Youtube and watch a Carol Burnett episode. Listen to music or a song, country music, or maybe a hymn. You know a nerd by his long white socks with sandals. You know you're a creepy old man when you listen to hymns. Maybe an old love song. How old? Billie Jo Spears, “What I’ve Got In Mind.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ3i8x7RrtU

Olds Cutlass Supreme. My second Oldsmobile. When I bought it from Wayne Haughey it was green. My daughter creamed the drivers side driving down Route 50 outside the Washington Beltway in the snow at 35 mph and sliding into a traffic sign. “Why were you driving so fast?” "Dad! the sign said speed limit 35." OK, teen daughter logic, it's just a car. I took it to Earl Scheib to have the left side straightened out, and told them to paint it yellow.

Truth, I quit listening to country and western music years ago, because it’s as much a depressant as scotch or wine, always took me down at heart. Wine, sunset, and a sad song. Always down, never up, always a tearjerker about the girl who found someone else. Or died. Or vanished into the mists of youth.

Remember Ira and Charlie the Louvin Brothers? Oh man, could they whine out that harmony, ain't nothing like hillbilly tenor and a banjo. They came to Gainesville once when I was a junior at UFla, part of Grand Old Opry night in the auditorium at Alachua High School along with Hawkshaw Hawkins, Ernest Tubb's nasal, “Aw, Billy Byrd now,” and "Aw, pick it out, Billy Byrd," and Little Jeannie Shepherd. I think Webb Pierce was there that evening too.

The Statler Brothers singing “Do you know you are my sunshine?” ... border to border and ocean to ocean, I still look for her every place ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHwLpMao18I but if you know country music, you know the search is futile. They weren't brothers, that was just the name of the group, and membership changed.

Everly Brothers, “All I have to do is dream.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTYe9eDqxe8

Saturday night favorite, 1976-77 season, Dolly Parton, “I will always love you.” It’s there if you look for it. Truth, it may find you even if you're not looking for it.

Have done Youtube this afternoon, Carol Burnett episodes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vZybR_qsdM but degenerating mostly to Youtube rides in cars from the twenties and thirties, Pierce Arrow Sixes and Eights, Packard Sixes, Eights, and a V12, a "twin six." Jay Leno’s 1948 Chrysler Town & Country convertible, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHTwpiojzKY . Rode in several Cadillac V16s this afternoon. GM offered two V16 series over the years, both straight eights working a single crankshaft. The first one was flat head,

the second series was OHV. All you have to do is dream.

Also lots of country and western along with the remainder of a bottle of Allegria Carinena 2011, Spanish red opened last Sunday. Sunflower, there goes the mood to sappy, but the wine will go stale if I don't drink it today. I must try wine in boxes with the tap, keep it in the refrigerator, I don't think so, chilling robs red wine. Boxed wine seems fairly new in the US, even trendy, but it's not new, I had it in Australia in 1978. For lunch at church Noon Wednesday, Linda fixed a chicken salad that, stuffed into croissants, made lovely sandwiches: my early supper is a leftover sandwich to which I added avocado and had with the rest of that 2011 Spanish wine.

Rain has stopped. Another song?

I can see clearly now, the rain has gone

I can see all obstacles in my way

Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind

It's gonna be a bright, bright sun-shining day

I think I can make it now, the pain has gone

All of the bad feelings have disappeared

Here is that rainbow I've been praying for

It's gonna be a bright, bright sun-shining day

Look all around, there's nothing but blue sky

Look straight ahead, nothing but blue sky

I can see clearly now, the rain has gone

I can see all obstacles in my way

Gone're the dark clouds that had me blind

It's gonna be a bright, bright sun-shining day

Gonna be a bright, bright sun-shining day

Gonna be a bright, bright, bright sun-shining day

I can’t. It isn’t. It hasn’t. They haven’t. They aren’t. Pardon my Greek: σκύβαλον. Raining again and Holy Smoke the tree frogs. With wine, 78 becomes 18. More music: Don & Phil https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKOxbA_W_5Q "On the wings of a nightingale." In the album, they drive away in a 1957 Chevy Bel Air convertible but Youtube removed it.

I never had a Chevy convertible, but man, would that Olds Cutlass run. In time I gave it to Malinda and bought myself one of these after lusting for it sitting on the Lincoln dealer's used car lot:

Back to Thursday, and raining like the BeeJaysus.