Over The River And Through The Hoods; To Howard's House, I Go
The Patriot's game kicked off at noon, our time, which is Central Standard Time.
This kind of sucked, because I had woken up, refreshed and ready to sit and stare at the wall with a blank mind, at a bright and early 9 AM.
Immediately, I began to perceive a rising feeling of apprehension in my chest.
This was due to the fact that, had the Patriots game been the late one, and not the early one, I would have been at my leisure in getting over there.
This might have translated into my stopping for a shot of kratom and to check a nearby ashtray where a guy puts out half smoked cigarettes of hand rolled American Spirit tobacco.
Then I could have arrived at Howard's with my mind focused by kratom and with at least some tobacco to step outside and smoke after having had food encouraged upon me by Berta.
But, a 12 minute bike ride to the hub of bus activity that is Elk Place brought me face to face with a 101 that had just pulled up with an empty bike rack, and then about 15 minutes later, I was dropped off 3 minutes away from Howard's.
I had made the trip just about as fast as it can be made.
I gave Howard the information that Berta is worried about having to bury him in a pauper's grave should he somehow pass away.
I did this by writing it out, so I wouldn't have to yell the sensitive details of the conversation to him, and the rest of the house.
Howard has a good chunk of money, but is tight with it.
He has never given me any details about just how much he has in the stock market, but he let slip once a story about how he had had a premonition about taking his money out and moving it into a money market account at a certain point in the Obama presidency, but had not followed his gut.
It had ended up costing him about fifteen thousand dollars, he said.
A check of the market at the time of the crash he was talking about yields the data that the market dropped 28% on that day.
So, my eight grade algebra tells me that Howard must have had about fifty three thousand in the market at that time.
Since the market has rebounded since then and yadda yadda, I come up with the educated guess of him being worth about 80 grand these days.
This accounts for the money he used to take the cruise to Alaska last year; one that he hadn't enjoyed very much, partly because he saw only one eagle.
You have to go live out there in the woods, Howard. The eagles will get used to you and come closer and closer....
.
That has got to be at least a passing thought for Berta and Ken; to wonder about whether or not Howard is going to leave them any money in his will. People can't help but think of such things.
They, of course, would have to factor in their odds of even outliving the stalwart Dutchman. Maybe all the Cheetoz and Pepsi and Jack In The Box sausages that haven't killed him, have made him stronger.
So, I passed the note to Howard while we were watching the game, after having asked to borrow a sheet of paper and a pen.
I was aware that he was probably thinking that whatever I was writing was something that I was trying to keep from the ears of Berta and Ken.
I joked about them worrying about him being hit by a car because he is so deaf "as if people honk their horns as a warning and then run you over if you don't heed it," I wrote.
"OK."
He is going to get some kind of will drawn up, stating his desire to be cremated. And, I guess will show them a copy. And so my job there is done.
Leaving that cheerful atmosphere after watching a satisfying Patriot's victory, I met with my 21 year old friend, Jacob back at the apartment.
He didn't want to have to buy something at the Uxi Duxi just to sit and hang out with me, and so that is where I am now, having made the minimum purchase of a half shot of kratom in order to get what wound up being an hour and a half to do this.
Jacob and I didn't talk about wills at all, but rather about our latest recording project. The music just keeps getting better and better; which makes me wonder what degree of room for improvement it started out with. LOL
20 Years Ago Today, cont...
I guess, twenty years ago today would have been my second day of driving the Yellow cab in Phoenix, Arizona.
I would have already begun excavating the cave that I would live in, up in South Mountain.
The temperatures in mid January would get down to the high thirties at night, but would always hover around fifty degrees by noon.
I would find that the smallest of fires would keep my cave just under eighty degrees, and that any dead wood that I might gather from the surrounding area would be extremely dry and would burn clean and hot.
The wind at night came from a consistent direction, so it was easy for me to figure out which end of the cave to drape the heavy blanket over to buffer the wind and which end to put the fire pit in. The blanket/wind combination provided just the right carburetor to keep the fire, just right, as Goldilocks might say.
Squirrels became my friends. I ate a lot of peanuts in the shell; they ate a lot of peanuts in the shell.
So many did they eat, that my knees were cushioned, as I crawled out of my tunnel like entrance by a mat of pulverized peanut shells.
This had the unwanted side effect of attracting the mice that only came out after dark, and within minutes of it falling.
Because there is so little moisture in the atmosphere in Phoenix, there is hardly a period of dusk at all. The sky just offers a pale reflection of the setting sun, and then it is like pulling the cord attached to a lamp.
There is a bit of the silhouette of the horizon right around the area where the sun has just sunk, but mostly just darkness and suddenly appearing stars.
And suddenly appearing mice, after whatever peanut crumbs the squirrels might have dropped in their haste to fill their cheeks then run off.
This is what made the 4 foot diamondback rattlesnake decide to move to under the rock not far from my entrance, and not far off the path that I walked.
But, there is a difference between someone who lives in a place, as I did, and someone who might just be blundering along the trail, just passing through, and the rattlesnake seemed to know this and have ruled me out as a threat.
My dropping corn chips in front of the rock so that it could snag a mouse might have earned me brownie points, and the thing stopped even rattling when I went past at 4 in the morning, or whenever I had gotten off my 12 hour cab shift, bought provisions and then arrived at my condo.
One cool thing about the cave was that there was about fifty feet of solid granite between me and the sun during most of the day. I was on the shady side of the rock.
On winter nights when the temperature outside would drop to an uncomfortable chill, the heat from the sun hitting the other side of the rock would have radiated through the rock and would be exuding through the wall of my cave on that side, keeping it about 12 degrees warmer than it was just a few feet outside the cave.
I can remember going out to tend to some food on a fire and feeling a dreadful chill that made me want to put on a jacket, but then crawling back inside the cave to be comfortable in a tee shirt.
That would have been in late January, early February.
The first rattlesnake, I saw on February 18th, which was also the first date that the temperature had gone over 80 degrees since the previous fall.
I would enjoy staying up in the mountain for a couple, or three, days at a time, working on the cave, doing watercolor drawings, or just sunning myself. I had no guitar, but got myself a recorder, so I could be "a guy tooting away on a recorder in a cave" -which is its own reward- a cave that was once inhabited by the keeper of the calendar for the Hopi Indians, and had the artwork in the form of petroglyphs to prove it.
This would be a great life for me.
Ironies
Meditating in the sun, living on fish and sauteed vegetables done over a fire with a bottle of red wine to wash it down, and hauling heavy rocks up a mountain to use in the construction of the cave all conspired to bring me a blessing of health and vigor.
I was picking up a lot of young ladies in my cab who seemed attracted to the healthy vibe I exuded or maybe it was the scent of rattlesnakes, and who would invariably ask me what part of Phoenix I lived in.
This might have been a test for what my station in life was, what kind of neighborhood I could afford to live in, type of thing.
I always would tell them, honestly, that I lived "on the South Side, near South Mountain," and wouldn't elaborate more, but would have left them, perhaps, with an impression of the mansions and ranches that I overlooked from where I sat outside the entrance to my cave. South Mountain is an affluent part of town...
The irony was that, when I finally had women interested in me taking them home, I had no home; finally.
I would say finally, because my "decent" into homelessness started with me going from my own apartment to renting a room in a house owned by friends to living in my car that I delivered pizza in also, to getting the job driving a cab that I had to turn in at the end of the night and couldn't sleep in.
So, the cave was my first foray into sleeping outside. Under a beautiful display of stars -there is a reason the best telescopes are often set up in deserts- and a million dollar view of Phoenix.
Coming Next:
It gets just too damned hot, even for sleeping in a cave by the end of July, plus I lose the cab driving job when the tourist season slows down, and so I take the 11 hundred dollars that I have to show for the five month frolic, and head for the hills (of Flagstaff).
The Patriot's game kicked off at noon, our time, which is Central Standard Time.
This kind of sucked, because I had woken up, refreshed and ready to sit and stare at the wall with a blank mind, at a bright and early 9 AM.
Immediately, I began to perceive a rising feeling of apprehension in my chest.
This was due to the fact that, had the Patriots game been the late one, and not the early one, I would have been at my leisure in getting over there.
This might have translated into my stopping for a shot of kratom and to check a nearby ashtray where a guy puts out half smoked cigarettes of hand rolled American Spirit tobacco.
Then I could have arrived at Howard's with my mind focused by kratom and with at least some tobacco to step outside and smoke after having had food encouraged upon me by Berta.
But, a 12 minute bike ride to the hub of bus activity that is Elk Place brought me face to face with a 101 that had just pulled up with an empty bike rack, and then about 15 minutes later, I was dropped off 3 minutes away from Howard's.
I had made the trip just about as fast as it can be made.
Maybe all the Cheetoz and Pepsi and Jack In The Box sausages that haven't killed him, have made him stronger.
I gave Howard the information that Berta is worried about having to bury him in a pauper's grave should he somehow pass away.
I did this by writing it out, so I wouldn't have to yell the sensitive details of the conversation to him, and the rest of the house.
Howard has a good chunk of money, but is tight with it.
He has never given me any details about just how much he has in the stock market, but he let slip once a story about how he had had a premonition about taking his money out and moving it into a money market account at a certain point in the Obama presidency, but had not followed his gut.
It had ended up costing him about fifteen thousand dollars, he said.
A check of the market at the time of the crash he was talking about yields the data that the market dropped 28% on that day.
So, my eight grade algebra tells me that Howard must have had about fifty three thousand in the market at that time.
Since the market has rebounded since then and yadda yadda, I come up with the educated guess of him being worth about 80 grand these days.
This accounts for the money he used to take the cruise to Alaska last year; one that he hadn't enjoyed very much, partly because he saw only one eagle.
You have to go live out there in the woods, Howard. The eagles will get used to you and come closer and closer....
.
That has got to be at least a passing thought for Berta and Ken; to wonder about whether or not Howard is going to leave them any money in his will. People can't help but think of such things.
They, of course, would have to factor in their odds of even outliving the stalwart Dutchman. Maybe all the Cheetoz and Pepsi and Jack In The Box sausages that haven't killed him, have made him stronger.
So, I passed the note to Howard while we were watching the game, after having asked to borrow a sheet of paper and a pen.
I was aware that he was probably thinking that whatever I was writing was something that I was trying to keep from the ears of Berta and Ken.
I joked about them worrying about him being hit by a car because he is so deaf "as if people honk their horns as a warning and then run you over if you don't heed it," I wrote.
"OK."
He is going to get some kind of will drawn up, stating his desire to be cremated. And, I guess will show them a copy. And so my job there is done.
Leaving that cheerful atmosphere after watching a satisfying Patriot's victory, I met with my 21 year old friend, Jacob back at the apartment.
He didn't want to have to buy something at the Uxi Duxi just to sit and hang out with me, and so that is where I am now, having made the minimum purchase of a half shot of kratom in order to get what wound up being an hour and a half to do this.
Jacob and I didn't talk about wills at all, but rather about our latest recording project. The music just keeps getting better and better; which makes me wonder what degree of room for improvement it started out with. LOL
20 Years Ago Today, cont...
I guess, twenty years ago today would have been my second day of driving the Yellow cab in Phoenix, Arizona.
I would have already begun excavating the cave that I would live in, up in South Mountain.
I would find that the smallest of fires would keep my cave just under eighty degrees, and that any dead wood that I might gather from the surrounding area would be extremely dry and would burn clean and hot.
The wind at night came from a consistent direction, so it was easy for me to figure out which end of the cave to drape the heavy blanket over to buffer the wind and which end to put the fire pit in. The blanket/wind combination provided just the right carburetor to keep the fire, just right, as Goldilocks might say.
Squirrels became my friends. I ate a lot of peanuts in the shell; they ate a lot of peanuts in the shell.
So many did they eat, that my knees were cushioned, as I crawled out of my tunnel like entrance by a mat of pulverized peanut shells.
This had the unwanted side effect of attracting the mice that only came out after dark, and within minutes of it falling.
Because there is so little moisture in the atmosphere in Phoenix, there is hardly a period of dusk at all. The sky just offers a pale reflection of the setting sun, and then it is like pulling the cord attached to a lamp.
There is a bit of the silhouette of the horizon right around the area where the sun has just sunk, but mostly just darkness and suddenly appearing stars.
And suddenly appearing mice, after whatever peanut crumbs the squirrels might have dropped in their haste to fill their cheeks then run off.
This is what made the 4 foot diamondback rattlesnake decide to move to under the rock not far from my entrance, and not far off the path that I walked.
But, there is a difference between someone who lives in a place, as I did, and someone who might just be blundering along the trail, just passing through, and the rattlesnake seemed to know this and have ruled me out as a threat.
My dropping corn chips in front of the rock so that it could snag a mouse might have earned me brownie points, and the thing stopped even rattling when I went past at 4 in the morning, or whenever I had gotten off my 12 hour cab shift, bought provisions and then arrived at my condo.
One cool thing about the cave was that there was about fifty feet of solid granite between me and the sun during most of the day. I was on the shady side of the rock.
On winter nights when the temperature outside would drop to an uncomfortable chill, the heat from the sun hitting the other side of the rock would have radiated through the rock and would be exuding through the wall of my cave on that side, keeping it about 12 degrees warmer than it was just a few feet outside the cave.
I can remember going out to tend to some food on a fire and feeling a dreadful chill that made me want to put on a jacket, but then crawling back inside the cave to be comfortable in a tee shirt.
That would have been in late January, early February.
The first rattlesnake, I saw on February 18th, which was also the first date that the temperature had gone over 80 degrees since the previous fall.
I would enjoy staying up in the mountain for a couple, or three, days at a time, working on the cave, doing watercolor drawings, or just sunning myself. I had no guitar, but got myself a recorder, so I could be "a guy tooting away on a recorder in a cave" -which is its own reward- a cave that was once inhabited by the keeper of the calendar for the Hopi Indians, and had the artwork in the form of petroglyphs to prove it.
This would be a great life for me.
Ironies
Meditating in the sun, living on fish and sauteed vegetables done over a fire with a bottle of red wine to wash it down, and hauling heavy rocks up a mountain to use in the construction of the cave all conspired to bring me a blessing of health and vigor.
I was picking up a lot of young ladies in my cab who seemed attracted to the healthy vibe I exuded or maybe it was the scent of rattlesnakes, and who would invariably ask me what part of Phoenix I lived in.
This might have been a test for what my station in life was, what kind of neighborhood I could afford to live in, type of thing.
I always would tell them, honestly, that I lived "on the South Side, near South Mountain," and wouldn't elaborate more, but would have left them, perhaps, with an impression of the mansions and ranches that I overlooked from where I sat outside the entrance to my cave. South Mountain is an affluent part of town...
The irony was that, when I finally had women interested in me taking them home, I had no home; finally.
I would say finally, because my "decent" into homelessness started with me going from my own apartment to renting a room in a house owned by friends to living in my car that I delivered pizza in also, to getting the job driving a cab that I had to turn in at the end of the night and couldn't sleep in.
So, the cave was my first foray into sleeping outside. Under a beautiful display of stars -there is a reason the best telescopes are often set up in deserts- and a million dollar view of Phoenix.
Coming Next:
It gets just too damned hot, even for sleeping in a cave by the end of July, plus I lose the cab driving job when the tourist season slows down, and so I take the 11 hundred dollars that I have to show for the five month frolic, and head for the hills (of Flagstaff).
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