Things That Go Bump.

It’s different in the city. There’s all that noise in the air. Every writer that ever wrote at one time or another mentioned “the hum of the city,” or some like metaphor. Once you’re used to it the white noise backdrop becomes a comfort. I’ve seen offered for sale white noise generators designed to aid the onset of sleep that reproduce the sounds of air conditioners, traffic and so forth. The hum of the city indeed, in such a context perhaps it does approach musicality, eh?

It’s different in the country as well. For all that soothing noise in the city there’s much to be said for the silence of the country. Of course, it’s only silence for the first wee bit you live out here. There’s the soughing of the breeze through the pines and junipers, in season there’s the crickets and frogs. With the dawn comes the birdsong that changes with the season, larks, martins, swallows of the summer, chickadees of the winter and with the addition of ducks and geese a happy mix of all in the spring and fall. Of an evening in the winter if you listen close you’ll hear owls talking in the trees behind the house. Then there are the ravens, crows and magpies croaking and screeching all year round oft times joined by their quieter jaybird cousins. Oh, there’s the occasional hum of traffic on the unpaved county road out front but it seems to fit with the rest. Sirens are rare enough to cause you to go look make sure it's not a neighbor in distress.

Of course that’s all outside. Once inside a well-insulated house--and yours had better be or you’ll either shiver all winter or propel the children of propane or electric company execs through college--things get a lot quieter. Well, in winter that is. With a lack of air conditioning up here in the altitude—Denver may brag about ‘Mile High’ and all that but they’re all flatlanders to us here at a mile and a half and up—your windows are open all summer letting in the gentler hum of the country. 

Still and all when things quiet for the night, just the frogs and crickets providing a soft ambiance, all those noises masked by the city creep into consciousness. Yes, stolen by the hum of the city, here in the country they still exist—Things That Go Bump in the Night.

It’s amazing how much noise there is when the refrigerator stops, the fans are off, the TV quiet. If you sit quietly, perhaps reading or just drifting, the sound is deafening. Clunk. Thump. Crash-tink-whump. Scritch-scritch-scritch. BANG. What the hell is making all that noise? 

After my wife died the kids, family and friends all went home. I sat in the living room all alone and listened not to the hum of the city but the symphony of an empty house. Some you could identify with practice—the dog scratching while in his crate, creating a whump-whump-whump noise with overtones of rattle-rattle-rattle. The soft scurry and scritch of mice and voles you understood. The romance and battles of the barn cats outside—terrifying when first heard but merely annoying once understood. The bump and hum of the refrigerator singing its measured song. All these things are accustomed, perceived, understood and ignored. Oh, you might put a mouse trap out now and again or throw something handy at a cat in a moment of pique, but by and large, like the hum of the city, you just don’t really hear it on a conscious level.

The other though. Sometimes there’s a bang as loud a slamming door out in the garage. So you go out there with a bit of trepidation, bear maybe? Probably not a mountain lion—they’re too solitary and people-phobic. Oh, shit, not a skunk I hope! You think, "how did they get in there?" All the windows are closed, the doors latched . . . thinking thusly out you go to find . . . nothing. There’s no animal foraging. Nothing seems moved; everything remains in its place. What the hell made that noise?

It’s not the only one. There’s bumps and bangs, thumps and thuds, crashes and creaks from upstairs if your down, downstairs if you’re up, elsewhere from where you are, all in the amazing talking house. What the hell is making that noise!

So then. Is this the genesis of the scary stories that we’ve heard? Ghouls, zombies, the sidhe, changelings, ghosts, nightwalkers, skinwalkers, banshees, vampires, werewolves-werebears and werewhatnots (Hm. Are there werechickens?), well, you get the idea. The human imagination that harnesses fire, invents the wheel, the lever, pickup trucks and ultralight jet-packs also invents all that scary stuff. Sorta gives credence to the eastern concept of yin and yang. Yep, it’s like, “Come to the Dark Side, Luke, we have cookies.” Ok, maybe the cookies are a bit much and it should be, “. . . we have scary crap.”

Then too, there’s the Original Slick Willie’s take in Hamlet, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” I cannot remember if all these noises have been a part of this house since we came in August of 2000. Honestly I cannot. In addition I am not so jaded in my aging view to think that creation exists only in corporeal form. Even in the birthplace and converted habitats of that most logical of religions, Buddhism, are there legends of spirits unbound that wander the earth. I do suspect all that we think we know of spirits and their kin are, to again quote the Bard, “. . . a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury. Signifying nothing.”

Maybe one of the things investigators of the paranormal talk about is accurate. Maybe spirits do hang around where they died and try with little success--unless you believe in mediums--to communicate with us. Maybe the clunk, thump, crash-tink-whump, scritch-scritch-scritch and BANGs are someone trying to say, “Hey! How’s it going? I’m here!” My wife Beth maybe? I don’t know. But you know even if all the noises are just the odd creaks, groans and bumps of a twenty-four year old house, somehow that thought that it could be Beth makes them a little less scary. 

New And Improved My A$$

I’m going camping in a week or so. Been a while, over a year due to the unpleasantness a while back. So I was inventorying my camp gear and got to thinking about sleeping bags. This got me to thinking about “improving” products of course.

Many years ago I bought a Cabela’s “Adam and Eve” sleeping bag. This was a good item: It breaks into two single bags, one for warm weather and one for cooler. When the two bags are zipped together it forms a double bag. If you use a decent pad you can put the heavier side down for warm weather and the lighter side down for cold weather. The outer cover and inner liner are both of nylon. The only downside is the outer cover—if you’re not sleeping on the level you tend to slide to the low side of the tent. Not that big a deal but kind of annoying.  My wife and I used this bag for some thirty years to good effect all around.

Thirty years being thirty years, I thought maybe it was time for a new bag. So I got one. It’s kinda like a giant mummy bag. It has a nylon outer cover and a flannel liner. I know this sounds like a good idea, flannel liner’s got to be an improvement, right? All toasty warm and such? Uh, no. Problem is, when you get into this thing, unless you’re nekkie or wearing silk PJs (While camping? Really?) there are issues.

See, I like to sleep in undershorts and a long sleeve t-shirt when camping for several reasons. If I flail around a bit and my arms escape the confines of he bag, I don’t freeze. If I’m called upon to tend to natures needs or fight off a marauding raccoon or bear or something, I don’t have to fiddle around searching for something to wear. Don’t get me wrong, nekkie with a significant other in a sleeping bag is great fun, but at some point practicality must be served.

So. When you try to get into a flannel lined bag, you don’t slide in like on nylon. Oh, no. You have to grab the edge of the bag in death-grip, force your unwilling beyewtocks down into the bag, grunting and cussing. Finally once in and after your partner fights her way into the bag you settle down, toasty warm to a blissful night’s sleep. Oh, no. I toss and turn a bit. I’m side-sleeper and switch sides a few times during the night. This is not optional and I will be switching sides.

So first time I do this, I go to roll over. Nothing. The flannel has me trapped. Oh, no. I’m doin’ this! So I gather myself up, roll over with a mighty heave and flip my wife over the top of me onto the hard, hard ground with a whump. She is not well pleased. Well, I'm pretty sure that, "You &%$# idiot! What the ^%$& are you doing! Don't even think. . . " signifies displeasure though I'm not sure what my parent's marital status had to do with anything. The night continues until un-rested and bedraggled we fight our way out of the sleeping bag prison to glare at one another over coffee.

Now you see, the problem is they have “improved” the sleeping bag. I know how it came to pass, some designer slept on some flannel sheets in a regular bed and was toasty warm and he/she/it thought Yreka! (Yes I know that’s a town in NorCal but haven’t we used eureka enough?) I could line the sleeping bag with flannel! Just like they did in the ‘50’s! Hot Rats! (Apparently the designer is a Zappa fan.) Well, mister designer person/thing, there’s reasons they quit using flannel as sleeping bag liner material in the ‘60s and they’re amply demonstrated above. Foolish mortals!

So, here’s what they should have done: 

• Line the bag with nylon in you slide regardless of what you’re wearing, still toasty warm and still great fun if you and partner are nekkie. If you're not you can roll over without sling-shotting your lovin' partner onto the hard, hard ground. It's an important consideration.  
• Make the outside cover of—no, I know what you’re thinking, not of flannel, not durable enough but cotton canvas is and the whole damn thing doesn’t slide down to the low side of the tent. 

Seriously, am I the only person in the world that can think of this stuff? Why don’t they just call and ask me?

Oh and by the way, talking to the goddam sleeping bag didn’t help at all, It still clutched us in a death grip every time we used it. I think I’ll go back to the ol’ Adam and Eve and give the new one to one of my kids. They don’t fight enough anyway. Fighting builds character. 

It's a Mystery

I find it fascinating that people don’t find the things I find fascinating, fascinating. 

There are people in the world that don’t know that you can tell the bed of a buck deer from the bed of a doe deer by where the puddle of morning pee is—bucks pee in the middle and does on the side, think about relative anatomy.  

There are people in the world that don’t care about what causes a mountain stream to follow a particular course down the hillside or bother to look at how the glaciers created it’s path. They don’t want to know why a songbird one tenth its size can chase a bald eagle away. There are people that don’t like poetry or music or foolishness. 

How is it that people can be so different from me? 

I mean from where I’m sitting I have everything figured out. Exactly. Except of course for the stuff I haven’t figured out yet. But why do people not see that I’m completely right? Well, right on the stuff I’m right on? 

Ok, so maybe I’m not right all the time, but still why are people so different? Don’t we all spring from the same source in some ravine somewhere in Africa? Yeah, maybe wandering around and evolving in small groups for 200,000 years could have created some differences but geez! This much difference?

I mean why is it when I tell people I drink the water out of the tunafish can everyone goes, “Eeeewwwww!” Come on, I can’t be the only one? Can I? 

Aside: After I had done that the first time my wife came home and kissed me, then in an outraged voice said, “What the hell have you been doing?! I said, “Drinking the water out of the tunafish can.” She said, “Bullshit! . . ." Then, "No, wait, no one could make that up.”

There was this movie called Shakespeare in Love. Great movie. It had this recurring line—whenever someone asked the theater owner something he couldn’t answer he would say, “It’s a mystery.” 

I agree. It’s a mystery. 

The Continuing Saga of Workin’ on the Goose

If ever you want to prove the notion of a comedic universe, get you an ol’ car and work on it. I’m pretty sure you don’t need to actually fix it, just fiddle with it. You know take this thingie off, put that framazamus on. . . that sort of thing. Of course in my case I am building a trail-worthy expedition vehicle that exemplifies the sturdy, reliable, go-anywhere, adventure-laden spirit of the first Goose, the Grey Goose. Therefore I can’t just randomly take stuff off and put it on. There must be purpose in my fiddling! 

That doesn’t mean that I don’t take a lot of stuff off or put a lot of stuff on that doesn’t need done, just that I don’t randomly do it, ok? So, I put the 3” lift kit on, in part because the old springs were shot and in part because FJ60’s need to be higher to compensate for a bit of excessive overhang in the rear (the truck, not me, dammit) and in part because they look so very much cooler if they sit higher.

And so I did, after which there was this mild vibration in the front end. Naturally I assumed it was the front axle and since there was snow on the ground and since I don’t really know doodly-squat about front ends I took it to the shop. They determined that it was all ok except for the bad birfield joint in the left axle, the rear motor/tranny mount was gone and the alignment was all screwed up. They fixed all that plus rebuilt the knuckles on the theory of while we’re here, might as well spend all the money we’ve got. Still vibrates.

So, off to IH8MUD.com where I find out that if you’ve not got a double cardan (AKA C/V) joint in a drive shaft, in this case front drive shaft and the angles at which the two u-joints operate are not very close to the same you get vibration. Which I’ve got.

So I find a guy that will put a C/V joint (AKA double cardan) in the shaft if I pull it and send it to him in Stockton CA. So out I go to do this. 

First the driveway’s all muddy so I scrape and hose that off. Then it’s all muddy at the end of the concrete so I’ll track all that back on if I pull the Goose back in, so I back it out onto the dry dirt, get my workin-on-the-truck foam mats, pull the airhose out which doesn’t reach, find the other airhose, hook it on, get the air ratchet and a 14mm deep socket, crawl under to find I need an extension, go back into the garage to find that Mikey has probably accidentally put them in his tool bag, grab a couple 14mm end wrenches, go back out to find you can’t get on the nuts with ‘em unless you pull the crossmember which is also the rear motor/tranny mount which would mean the tranny, transfer case and probably the engine will fall on the ground crushing the life out of me, thus solving all my problems.

So I went to Lewis Merc, the hardware store, and bought a couple extensions. And a 3/8” socket set that turned out to be SAE instead of Metric so I’ll put it in Hank the Cow Dodge and get a Metric one for the Goose. But I digress. Then I came home, stabbed myself with my knife while opening the socket set, went inside, got a bandaid, made a cup of coffee and sat down to ponder my sins. . . Ok, that’s done, I’m going in! Cover me, cover me!

Naturally only the first nut came off easily, for the others on the transfercase end I had to crawl under the truck, rotate the driveshaft so I could get on the nut, crawl out, lock the hubs, crawl in, pull a nut and repeat. The front was a little easier, only had to lock the hubs once and pull ‘em all after I got the two foot breaker bar on ‘em. I only lost two washers—they felt the need to dive into the tubular crossmember, there to reside in caked grease forever—of the eight and didn’t lose any of the nuts and bolts. That could be a record for me. Driveshaft all packed up and ready to go and off to the post office and away it goes.

Now what was the point of all this? Anyone remember? Um, something about funny galaxies? No, wait,  comedic universe, that was it. You see, in addition to the camel—a horse designed by committee—the way mechanic-ing goes serves to prove it. Why else would the gremlins, brownies, fairies, angels or God or whomsoever is driving this train hide the extension or make Mikey take ‘em by accident or whatever happened to them? Why else would the nuts on the driveshaft have been torqued to a million foot pounds? Why else would I have bought the wrong socket set? (Yes, I can blame the almighty for my mistakes as well as anyone.) 

Simple isn’t it? God, the universe or whatever has a sense of humor. 

Creation vs. Evolution or Be Nice, Don’t Fight

The notion of creationism is not ridiculous to me. The notion that the world was created some 20,000 years ago is. Too much evidence to the contrary. 

Then again, given the evidence of the platypus, that could have been God messing with our heads like, “Hey, Satan! Come over here and check this out! You know how I built the world in seven days a mere 20,000 years ago? Yeah? Well look what I did, I put a bunch of stuff there so the people would think it was a helluva lot older than that! Hah! Now that’s funny right there!” 

I know, you’re wondering why God is talking to Satan and not Michael or Gabriel, well, here’s why: Michael is seriously lacking in the sense of humor department and Gabriel is always blowing that damn horn and Satan was hangin' with God in Job. 

Anyway, why can’t it be that the world, the galaxy, universe and all that stuff were actually created by God, but by actually using evolution?

Think about this, if the bible is right and we are created in God’s image (Ever notice that it says in ‘our’ image? What’s up with that?) then wouldn’t our thought processes work like God’s, perhaps with a few less memory chips and smaller hard drives? 

That's what I thought too. So isn’t this how humans create stuff: I’m sitting on the ground and an apple falls on my head. Not being Newton I don’t create the theory of gravity but instead note how it rolls over the ground after bouncing off my head. I think, hey, if I had a couple of those on a stick-I could call that an axle-I could roll stuff. 

AND if I made ‘em of harder stuff, say wood, I could fashion a way to carry stuff and if I had two axles with a platform I could carry lots of stuff and if I put a donkey or platypus in front I could have them pull it! 

The next thing you know, you’ve got General Motors and some President is bailing them out!

Right? I know! Now it doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to figure out that the process just described is the evolution of the automobile.

So. A quick reverse engineering of the universe from the apple-automobile example and you got both your “God Created the Universe,” and “The Universe Evolved.” Combined. Problem solved. 

Cosmic integration, just another service I offer. Along with sarcasm and pretty damned good cooking. Just sayin’. 

We should get something to eat. Just sayin'.

Gender Understanding

I sometimes wonder if a book written from a woman’s point of view by a man, or from a man’ s point of view by a woman would yield some great understanding about either. 

Isn’t it possible that a woman could see things in a man the man can’t? 

If that’s possible, then couldn’t she write it out so the man could read it and think, “Oh, that’s where that came from," or "Oh, that’s why I do that.” 

Then the same thing would happen on the flipside and women and men would understand each other so much better. Relationships would blossom and stay fresh. 

Nah, probably not.

When You Love Someone

When you love someone you sort of lose track of what you’re doing, how you’re doing it and why you’re doing it. 

So like you go through the day and you get up and make coffee and cook breakfast—Fat Jack’s Bacon and Egg Sandwiches would be nice—and clean up and take a shower and get dressed and go do whatever it is you do like work on your LandCruiser and shovel the mud off the driveway and make lunch and clean up and do the living room floors and cook dinner and clean up and watch “Parenthood” and brush your teeth and go to bed and make love and go to sleep.

Then she dies. And you realize that everything you did, you did for her, with her. Everything was about her, filtered through the reality of her. 

When you cook breakfast you turn to give a sandwich to her. When you get dressed you turn and ask her if you look ok. When you work on the Landcruiser you come in to tell her about it. Before you make lunch you turn to ask her if she wants some. You holler for her to come look at the clean driveway and living room floors. Make dinner for her and turn to her to laugh or cry about “Parenthood.” But she isn’t there. You go to bed and you’re alone. So very alone. And there is no more love-making.

But you’re not dead. You act like it but you’re not. So you go through the motions, adjust your actions to the new, hateful reality. Mostly you just sit, both figuratively and literally. You don’t do the floors. The Landcruiser patiently waits and quietly rusts. Friends wonder where you’ve been. You travel a lot because it’s easier when you’re not at home.

So then, as the universe is so very good at doing, something happens. You meet someone. Zeezzzitt! Sparks fly. You thought you were old and ugly and saggy and sad, she thinks you’re cute. Pow! You’re back. 

It doesn’t exactly work out, but it doesn’t exactly not work out either. Which proves that while the universe does stuff for you, it also has a rather wicked sense of humor.  

Wait and see. This is a strange and wonderful place, this world. It never gets old, living here.

It's a Zen World

It’s a zen world. 

You look and look and bust your ass looking. 

Then you say, 'F#$% it,’ and quit and then over it you trip. 

It jumps in your lap. It appears in your hands. Bolt from the blue. 

You say, ‘where was it when I was looking so hard?’ Whisper steals into your mind, ‘Here all along, here all along. Waiting for you to be ready.’

Talking to Hammers (Hey! Read me first!)

It’s important to talk to things. Certainly to people, but also to dogs and cats. Trees, fish, lakes, the odd lizard you come upon, you should talk to them also. Cars, motorcycles, even microwaves and washing machines they should be addressed also. 

I have a friend, a born-again Christian, who would say this is at best heretical and at worst idol worship. 

I have another friend, a Native American, that would admit there are spirits in the ‘natural’ things but not the machines. 

I’ve long disagreed with the Christian view and considered the Native American view valid for an equally long time. On reflection I have decided that all things have spirits because all things come from nature. Even if natural substances have been manipulated or tweaked, they’re still from nature.

Consider: is charcoal any less wood because it’s burned? Altered yes, but no less a part of nature and no less a form of wood. 

So that’s why I tell the microwave I hope it likes 90 seconds instead of a minute and a half. 

I tell my LandCruiser that she’s doing well and to just ignore those silly show-off hot-rod pickups flying by us ‘cause she’ll get to the top of the mountain as well or even better. 

I even told a hammer once to be careful because while there is joy in slamming down on a nail head it would inconsiderate to slam down on my thumb. 

It listened for then but forgot the next day because after all, hammers are steel and wood and don’t have long memories.