Tag: dailyprompt

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Whizzz, Whrrrrr, Click!

Daily writing prompt
How has technology changed your job?
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Sorry, I’m not going down any rabbit holes for mostly egregious discussions about how technology is screwing with my job ( I’m sorry, Lou. I can’t do that anymore…turn on the AI dehumanizer first…). No, I was thinking about summer relaxation! With the gardening season starting I was looking for things that would do the heavy lifting in the garden while I enjoyed a nice iced tea on a summer afternoon. It didn’t work out as well as I planned.

So let’s see… There were the automatic weed burners and weed hackers. Some company sent me an ad for. But on exploration, I found out that it would probably eliminate every wildflower in the garden because it recognized it as a weed. That’s out! Then there was an automatic garden bug killer. But it had a tendency to eliminate beneficial insects too. Nope.

After exploring those options, I was glum. Surely there was something that would ease the burden of work in the garden? Then I found an AI device to water the garden while keeping the pesky squirrels and rabbits from my spinach and lettuce. I hooked it up to the computer, connected the Bluetooth, and away it went. About an hour in, there was not a squirrel, mouse, rabbit, or chipmunk to be seen. On my inspection tour, I found all the raised beds well watered. Then I noticed the whirring sounds. The nozzles on the system whirred, swivaled, and then targeted me. I found myself running for the gate as high-pressure streams of water sought me out.

After I stopped dripping, I went to the office and attempted to disconnect the system, but it wouldn’t let me in. I had to call the service number, be issued a one-time passcode, and key that in. That did it. It wasn’t pretty, but I ripped every bit of that darned system out. At last, my garden was my own again.

For the time being, I have sworn off tech in the garden. The watering system was the last experiment, and costly too. Before I had defeated it, it had soaked my wife and a week’s worth of groceries, made the cats look like weasels, and drenched the dog. Dealing with the Teamsters local that the cats and dog have was pretty easy, lots of treats for three days. But my wife has suggested some more expensive ” retreats” and dinner dates that might cost me more than the watering system.

Nope, back to the old days of rakes, shovels, and hoes.

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Distractible

Daily writing prompt
How often do you say “no” to things that would interfere with your goals?
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I’ve always been a bit distractible. It was an issue for my family, in school, and socially. In high school, my girlfriend broke up with me because I was distracted by a blonde in a blousy ensemble. And teachers eventually wouldn’t let me sit by a window – traffic, infinitely more interesting than a quadratic equation!

Out!!!

I regarded my adventures in distraction as a bit visionary, but authority figures at the George Washington High School regarded them as rebellious. They resolved the conflict of opinion by expelling me. I grabbed my guitar and took the subway line to Greenwich Village.

In the Village were coffeehouses where young aspiring folksingers, like myself, learned our trade. The audience rewarded us with applause and put money into a basket that was passed around. Being rewarded for being distractible with greenback dollars! I liked it.

Useful

Maybe that’s why I began to associate my distractibility with creativity. At one point, I had a patient girlfriend ( who remained a lifelong friend!!) who would prod me and gently remind me that I had drifted off. In my mind, perhaps, I had been working on a resolution for a chord progression. Eventually, it progressed to thinking about carving, writing, and other things. Over the long run, I’ve made this tendency to drift off into an advantage. Some good ideas and projects have originated with my drifting off.

Do I say no to it? Yes. As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to realize that I need to put limits on it for the sake of getting other needed, and often creative things, done. If I over control, though I grow resentful, and rebel against myself.

Ahhh. Self-rebellion. I’m still young at heart.

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Playing In The Garden

Daily writing prompt
What’s a secret skill or ability you have or wish you had?
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Sshhhhhhh! Let’s not tell anyone. And especially not the lawyers…they’d never understand!

Well, OK, just between you and me then. My secret ability was adaptability. I was often thrown into situations by life and sort of asked to “make something of it”. You know, being given a box of random parts and creating something from them. Not so much mechanically, but in terms of the sort of applied anthropological jobs I was given.

In my first professional job after grad school, I was hired and promptly told that there was only six months of funding, and I was on my own for resources. I had been hired to create cultural programming for a diverse urban population. The expectations seemed to have been that the Italians would never come to a Polish program, or the Portuguese with either of those, and the Irish would ignore the others as well.

I started with simple programs and did sneaky, basic ethnographic field research. I was looking for something that either bound them together as a community or that they shared. I found it in gardening. It was a small community within a larger one – only a square mile in area, but it was a fecund area for a cultural anthropologist to be thrown into. “Oh No! Please don’t throw me in the briar patch!” I found what I needed in the neighborhood gardens. Each ethnic group had different gardening traditions, and they frequently coexisted right next door to each other. Mrs. Gelowtsky discussed her garden with Mr. Fabrizio across the fence. And garden products were shared.

The Hidden Countryside

The Hidden Countryside was what I called the program. It did a lot of comparison and contrasting of the different ethnic gardening traditions in the neighborhood. I was a bit sneaky in my tactics. I was in one person’s garden one day, and then the next-door neighbor was asking if I might be interested in visiting theirs. By September, I had a large slide presentation ready. The gardeners decided to hold a large Harvest Festival at my Heritage Center, and the centerpiece was the slide presentation called the Hidden Countryside that featured all the traditions. Additionally, the gardeners, male and female, did not have a gender predominance. Everyone was represented.

It was a huge success and a hit with the Ward’s City Council member, too. He was influential in making sure that our funding was extended.

At The Movies and More

The next summer, I received training in video and used the data gathered for the Hidden Countryside to create a video. In those pre-digital, pre-Internet days, we “bicycled” the tape around to neighboring Public Access television stations, had another Harvest Festival, and showed the video presentation.

Eventually, in 1987, the Smithsonian Institution became interested in our work (mine and the community members!) I was hired to do extensive fieldwork for the Smithsonian, and in 1988, many gardeners were featured as part of the Smithsonian’s Festival of American Folklife on the Mall in Washington.

Onward

So that’s pretty much what I did as an applied anthropologist. I’ve applied the skills and techniques pretty broadly through the career. Although I am not currently working in that field, the approach is applied to whatever I do.

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Spring? Ice Out!

Daily writing prompt
What is your favorite type of weather?
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I had to laugh a bit at the weather when I peered out the window this morning. Snow. Mind you, only a bare covering. But the temperature outside makes walking to where my sap buckets hang a futile journey. It’ll be too chilly for the sap to run. No syrup making tonight. It’s Traitor’s Spring. You won’t find that one in the search engines, I don’t think.

Traitor’s Spring

I learned the phrase on an island along the coast of Maine, and like many old things, I learned it in my “Salad Days”. And it was an antique saying then. So why would I put it among the favorites? Sure, won’t find the cheer squad out there doing happy songs, no cheerleaders doing routines. It’s just old Father Winter trying to restore his failing hold on us.

Well, to be fair, I didn’t exactly say it was a favorite. But it wouldn’t be spring in New England without a bit of Traitor’s Spring. It’s in there with the Ice Out Party, Making Maple syrup, and other antique Yankee Idiocies for spring.

Ice Out?

Wait. You never heard about Ice Out? You poor deprived…you ever heard about an ice out party? It’s when the ice finally breaks up on the lake or pond. By then, every sensible ice fisher has their shed and gear off the lake, or they’ll be sitting on the bottom. But when the ice is out, it’s time to have a real blast out party. But wait…there’s more. Sometimes, after everyone is blasted, there is a spontaneous drift towards the icy shore. Now in remote areas the ice out party happens on the shore. It’s not tropical out there by any means. Everyone strips to bare, goose-pimpled skin, and the brave ones dive in. A veritable maelstrom of frozen flesh, screams echoing across barren frozen wastes of ice and water.

Of course, there are those of us who merely watch, snicker, and laugh, that to is a part of the party.

So next time you drive past a frozen pond or lake this time of year, think about those wild rites of spring, and shiver.

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Not All Teachers Are Human

Daily writing prompt
Who was your most influential teacher? Why?
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First published on March 25, 2023.


My most influential non-human teacher was my gray cat Clancy J Bumps ( don’t ask what the J was for, he didn’t like to be called by it and would attack madly). Among the nicknames he earned was – The Grey Menace. The Menace loved to fight. But he almost always won through strategy and intimidation. Few cats or dogs dared actually to engage him in full combat.

The Hound

An enormous German Shepherd learned this lesson the hard way. He thought the kitty was a handy snack. The Menace was tied on a leash in the yard. The dog did not know that the leash had a breakaway section for times just like that. Clancy mewed piteously and lured the dog into our yard. He then snapped the lead, assaulted the dog, and sent it into a hurried attempt to clamber over an eight-foot palisade fence. Afterward, the Menace sat there licking the blood of his claws. The dog’s owner was furious. I pointed out that the dog was collar and leashless, outside his yard and in mine. The dog also had attacked my poor, innocent cat. I refused to pay the dog’s vet bills.
Although the Menace tried to lure the dog back into the yard again, it whimpered every time it saw Clancy in the yard.

On Da Nip!

An excellent example of a teacher you’re thinking? Well, he tended to make friends with his foes after fights. Seeing four or so cats basking in the sun was amusing. With catnip growing as a weed in the garden, the afternoons often turned into catnip nap sessions.
The Menace was fiercely loyal to his friends and would threaten to tear you up if you threatened them. He also knew when to make a face-saving retreat and take credit for a victory.
He was a gourmet who loved chile, roast beef subs ( with hots, please), and relished a good dance party.

What did I learn from him? First, you should attack fiercely when attacked, make peace afterward, and enjoy life to its fullest.

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So Long White Evil Stuff!

Daily writing prompt
What do you wish you could do more every day?
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It’s the second day of spring, and you want to know what I’d do more of? C’mon! I’m a gardener and a carver. Not necessarily in that order, I want to get on with my garden chores and clean out the workshop so I can get back to carving.

The evil white stuff, bane of my existence, is just about gone, and as soon as I finish the four cords of wood I am stacking, I can start raking, picking up all the dead fall branches, and get to work on the garden. Today I loaded a bit more than a cord of wood, started the raking, and began to move a garden trellis. So far, we’ve stacked about three and a half of the four cords. As soon as the wood is all stacked, I’ll move on to the workshop.

In the workshop/ greenhouse, I have to, at last, remove some of the shelves designed for plants and put them in a large rolling toolbox. Trying to store, order, and keep ready for action carving tools on shelves designed for plants finally irritated me enough to do something. If you’ve seen shots of my shop, it’s a chaotic mix of projects and tools. Well, chaos and creativity, or even productivity, have a limited tolerance for each other. Yes, the shop looks, and is lived in, productive, and full of potential. But after you’ve searched for the specific tool you absolutely need for an unproductive hour, chaos stinks. When I first moved into the greenhouse, the casual approach to the storage of the tools worked well. But now I just need a bit more organization.

So it’s time to bid adieu to the book club, get out the rake, and get physical.

Oh, by the way…I’ve been doing a lot of physical therapy this winter. My PT has been busy getting my “core engaged” with exercises. So I’ve gotten increasingly aware of that. I’ll tell you that after loading wood for a good bit of the week, my core is definitely engaged. I still have some core engaging quarter cords of firewood available to be stacked. Through April 1st, I’ll offer a special price. Get that core engaged! Get healthy. Get my wood stacked!

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Ink?

Daily writing prompt
What tattoo do you want and where would you put it?
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Heavy metal, or the memory of a voyage? The reasons I’ve heard for some tattoos. My family, seamen by trade, always warned me off getting one. ” If you didn’t like it the next morning, you’re stuck with it.” and, “police use them for identifying marks, they’re looking for a thief with an eagle on his arm, and you have one too.”

These were the reasons that warned me off inking my skin. But there are some other very legitimate reasons for inking. I first learned about them during one of my wanders as a Pius Itinerant. My buddy and I were wandering around a harbor area one evening, and we walked by a tattoo parlor. In the window was a sign saying, “Black Eye Work, a Specialty.” And no, this didn’t refer to tattooing the eyeballs black, that came along years later. This sign referred to what we now know as medical tattooing. Using tattoos to cover blemishes, hide scars, and the like. Maybe you know someone who had it for scar concealment, or to blend the pimentation on a skin graft.

So the next time you think about tats, expand your horizon to include the valuable work of medical tattoo practitioners.

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Creative Confabulist!

Daily writing prompt
What is one word that describes you?
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Last year for this prompt, I took a historical view, rather than view it as a contemporary item I explored it as prelude. Here is a bit of what I said:

“Yes, I know. Most likely, you think the words I’d choose were suave or sophisticated. But too many friends, and not friends have chosen, hellion, bastard, devil spawn and such. They just don’t know me.

It is true that in my younger days, I did a bit more than my share of raising Cain, tom-catting, and “going to see the varmint. But, in the words of Saint Augustine, “It was wicked, but I loved it.” Well I don’t know, about the wicked part…after all we were all consenting adults. And you know, as the good saint also said, “No one can be a saint without first being human.” And I am very human!”

I still stick by that, but it falls flat for today. Why? Well, few people who know me today recognize me from those passages. They’ve never been exposed to the wandering Pius Itinerant with guitar named Wes Carson. These folks never even knew that that part of me ever existed. Diabolical, you say? Just practical. They have only been exposed to a sedate, dare I say it? Professional Presentation of me. Boring, I know.

How do I know this? Someone who I know, who thought they knew me, happened across this blog. They assumed that the story they read about my life on Boston’s Beacon Hill was total fiction. They were kind of shocked when I assured them that it was a fictionalized version of things that had actually happened. Yes, I jazzed it up for fun, but I actually did live with a bunch of nutcases who did weird and crazy things. They looked at me and said, “bullshitter!”

So, yes, that one word could be used to describe me. But it’s so crude. It’s so much less interesting than say, confabulist …creative confabulist!

So there you are. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

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Not a One Size or Occasion Item

Daily writing prompt
What was the best compliment you’ve received?
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Compliments are not a one-size-fits-all sort of proposition. It depends upon your needs. Many days, the best compliment I’ll receive will be from my cats snuggling at the end of the day. A high approval rating for a fun interlude of petting, hugging, and play. It’s a very direct form of appreciation without any form of innuendo associated. Other times, it’s the hug from my wife, I’ve gotten it “just because.” No beguilement.

Doing boat shows and craft shows, the most sincere appreciations came from your peers and even competitors. Above all, they appreciated what went into crafting an obstinate material or an effect difficult to achieve. Sometimes a stroll through the show could send you back to your own booth to rapidly hunt for your pad of paper to write down the ideas you’d come away with.

No, compliments are not a one-size or occasion item. And we are lucky that that’s the way it is. If it were not that way, we’d rarely get what we needed.

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This is a bad one.

eagle weathervane
Daily writing prompt
You’re going on a cross-country trip. Airplane, train, bus, car, or bike?
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This is a bad one. The night before last, I had a dream about this. No it wasn’t in the old days with either of my old road buddies, Bill Null ( Captain Zero) or Billy Pebbles. It was solo. And it was the last thing I ever wanted to do. in the background the sound track was provided by Bob Segar:

Here I am, on the road again
There I am, on the stage
Here I go, playing star again
There I go, turn the page

Well you walk into a restaurant all strung out from the road
And you feel the eyes upon you as you’re shaking off the cold
You pretend it doesn’t bother you, but you just want to explode

I had tears in my eyes. I had a wife, home, kids, pets, a garden, and here I was on the road again? I had turned that page.

On the Road Again?

Yes, I had my old pack, and Charlie, my guitar, was in its case by my side. But I was no young man, not a Pius Itinerant on a rip through Amerika. I didn’t have crash pads in Boston, Baltimore, and New York. I wasn’t infamous in thirteen states and jurisdictions.

This was not fun. It was a tragedy.

Reassuarances Needed

When I woke up, I needed immediate reassurances that I was indeed in my stable, sane, and secure world. Make the coffee, feed my cats and dog. Make sure the dog does not steal the cat’s food.

I looked over at the melting snow to where my garden was emerging from the winter, and I looked towards the maples beyond the fence that I was tapping for syrup. My wife should be home soon. I was not sifting through shifting sands for some makeshift stability that might come if I got a steady gig.

Dreams can linger, a muffled echo of bad times. Or like the aftertaste of a poorly brewed cup of coffee, its sour taste clings. But I pet the dog with renewed attention, stroke Sabrina with special care, kiss my wife with increased attention, and plan the garden with renewed pleasure. Sometimes we get these unsavory reminders of how things could be. It’s up to us how we react to them.