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Week 510: Snow Daze Enthusiasm; Everyday Enthusiasms; More From the Pantry and a Long Distance Dedication From David McCallum

ireneallison12

(Meet Boo, picture provided by Tressa Bella Barrigar)

Snow Daze

The fine fellow in this image is Boo the Husky Artist as a Young Dog–who to this very instant remains a close associate and housemate of our friend, Dale Williams Barrigar. I think Boo exemplifies the Spirit of Snow Day as well as any living creature. Huskies can handle the chill. They will smile and play and chat gleefully at the Antarctic, and raise a quizzical brow as your blood freezes faster than the face of a strip club bouncer when you get all hands with his girl. (For what I hope are obvious reasons, I have never been inside a strip club, but my brother saw a guy get jacked-up something awful for engaging in the described stupid activity: “Dude gotta face full of fist…lost some teeth.”)

Although I live “up north,” snow days are rare in the Puget Sound region due to the presence of the sea itself and two mountain ranges that cause a snow shadow. Doesn’t stop the rain; but a typical winter day features a high of 44 degrees F, a low of 42, sideways rain, coffee, snotty looks cast by portly non-smokers, dreamers gone over to sneering human barstools and a general mildewing of the soul. But when it does snow (usually once a year) two things happen: We become as joyous as Boo and drive no better than I assume he can. We scare easily around here, and everything will shut down once three inches stick–blame it on a climate that produced Ted Bundy and the Green River Killer, or a sea that will kill you within half an hour of exposure.

Still, I imagine that living in a place where there is snow on the ground pretty much all the time between Halloween and Memorial Day can be a drag, unless, of course, you are of Boo’s hardy breed. But I recall the great joy of hearing my school closed for the day over the radio. For some reason the Jack LaLanne Show was on every Snow Day (for those of you unfamiliar, he was a manly pre-apocalypse version of Richard Simmons). We’d go out and do the usual kid stuff and for a moment, all was right with the world. But later in the day, when the snow inevitably turned to rain, a strange sadness would form inside me; one that always forms and finds me gazing out gray windows unless I keep busy or indulge in mind altering chemical pursuits.

Still, it is encouraging to see joy. Dogs and Donkeys are very good at expressing happiness. So, before we move on, I raise my glass to Boo and his lust for life.

Any Day Enthusiasms

This week was odd because we had only one site newcomer appear. Two have returned for a second bite, one for his twentieth and another hit number thirty-two. All are men (refuse to say male, that’s for parsing through the Puppy box), yet each one is quite different from everyone else.

Still, our own Diane M. Dickson carried the Venus flag (unable to be toted by Ms. De Milo) with the Sunday rerun. Poor Phil has been floating by for almost ten years, but his tale, Phil’s Last Journey remains as fresh as it was on the day Diane wrote it.

Ben Fitton made his second appearance with Personal Growth. It is a rare parallel story in which the intimacy of a personal relationship sails along with the random evils of the greater world. It is also a bit strange, yet in a good way, especially the metaphorical “hole.” Regardless, it is interesting and the final paragraph is a beaut.

Tuesday featured a frightful visit to the always dangerous literary barnyard of T.G. Roettiger. A Good Hen is not hard to find in T.G.’s world. Of course that depends on your definition of “good.” Moving, dark and funny–and set in a strange yet familiar place, this one should not be missed.

Long time site friend Harrison Kim made his thirty-second appearance to mark the middle of the week with Leon’s Magic Love. Although he has a wide range, Harrison excels at writing about people who are underrepresented in literature–save for as objects of scorn, or as stereotyped fools. He takes you inside the trailer homes and the inhabitants. He paints an objective picture and never judges his characters. Yet here we have magic candles, a two man band and a lovers’ escape scene that can be seen as in Bergman’s Smiles of a Summer Night. Nothing is forever but death, but it’s nice to think that for awhile.

Our lone first time contributor Jeremy Akel presented Charlotte on Thursday. This tale of closeness is poignant and contrasts well with the horrors that lie within urban decay. No one should have to live that way–and certainly no one should have to grow up that way. Brief and beautiful. Utterly tragic. We hope to see more from Jeremy soon.

James Hanna closed the week with his twentieth LS story. Orville Baumgardner and the Morning Glories is a perfect example of the pontificating and sometimes clueless mindset of windy Orville. Mr. B is serious when he means to be funny and funny when he makes a point in earnest. James has perfected this ironic character over the years, and Orville is equally loquacious on both sides of the sod, so to speak.

Let’s have a hand for our writers. Also, I would like to honor those who died on this date in 1941. As their surviving comrades slowly pass into history, may no one who served the free world in WWII ever be forgotten.

More From the Pantry

My Idea Pantry needs thinning. It is as crowded as the stateroom in the Marx Brothers’ romp, A Night at the Opera. The other day I opened it and a memory that I hadn’t examined in five years or so fell on me: I used to work for Seattle Goodwill, and one day an urn (occupied) turned up in donations. It somehow got mixed in with the occupant’s stuff and we were fortunate that it was one of those heavy well sealed plastic urns you get from the crematorium (like the one my mother is in). Moreover the person’s name was on the urn (which was also abundantly present in the bric-a-brac of her life). We found the relatives and they claimed Grandma; but it was unspeakably sad for me to see her lifetime of stuff, including photograph albums all just dumped off at Goodwill. Of course she might have been a Witch of the 13th Circle, but no one deserves that cold of a send-off. There must be more to say about someone who kept the same jar of unopened curry on a spice rack for at least forty years. A little bow of the head, maybe, to note the passage.

This has remained in the Idea Pantry because I cannot think of a good way to write it. Could get ridiculous and have the urn contain a Genie. Could go all sunset and have the occupant be a mystery that sticks to a Sensitive Soul with the heart of a cardigan sweater–the sort of person who gazes out gray, west facing windows, hallucinatory light filtered through melting icicles. Naturally, that version would be called The Donation. Something to send to The People’s Friend. A third way is to tell what happened but infer that Grandma’s inclusion in the goods may not have been accidental, considering the reluctant attitude displayed by her kin. I like that best, but it still sits in the Pantry awaiting the right feeling to come. The cardigan soul version of The Donation would be an easy paint by numbers sort of thing; but I find that activity as cheap and cynical as the plethora of teen sweetheart killing songs of the sixties. Anyway, The Donation will have to wait for a genuine emotion to come along to breathe life into it–and if it doesn’t, well it will be better that way; if anyone out there has a feeling for it, be my guest.

I now present a list of other items that have nested in the Idea Pantry and appear to be content remaining non-stories; not a single one has budged any closer to fruition; it is as though a place in the Idea Pantry is their Paris in the springtime. As always I leave the tenth slot open for the audience to fill.

  • The Lugubrious World of Henri Nadir (First name pronounced “Ennui.” The ultimate buzzkill with an innate ability to direct any sort of conversation towards him and his pain. Henri is employed as a “room clearer” by upper class party givers who want to go to bed. He waits upstairs until rang for–or is that rung?)
  • Five Dollars Worth of Chemicals Taking Orders From a Budweiser Brain (aka, Mostly Budweiser)
  • Jacko Saville (accidentally created creepy AI, a robotic “Herbert the Pervert.” Might be in questionable taste)
  • Elon X. Muscatel (the adventures of the world’s poorest wino)
  • The Donation (as stated before)
  • The Humungi Fungi (A socially awkward E.T. fungus, capable of creating anything, goes from world to world and pulls practical jokes on the inhabitants as a misguided attempt to impress a female fungus. At Earth he turns Cheops upside down; changes all clouds to pornographic positioned silhouettes of My Little Pony characters, and reconfigures the faces on Mt. Rushmore to those of Pol Pot, Stalin, La Grande Orange and Meghan Markle. He gets his comeuppance when an interstellar posse finally tracks him down–but maybe he gets the girl anyway–depends on my mood)
  • Soul Coroner (only a title–could call it a prompt)
  • Tally Ho This, Philip (a personal favorite that features a level in hell with armed Foxes hunting Fox hunters, including Prince Philip who was big on killing shit; a comes round goes round sort of thing)
  • How Many Licks? (At the center of every galaxy stands a giant Tootsie Pop; ours is Grape. The Answer to All Questions is inside; but only if you can lick your way through and keep an accurate count–species without tongues are S.O.L. No cheating or biting. Biters are instantly banished into a black hole and never spoken of again. Can be regarded as a somewhat dirty by people who tend to think that way)
  • Yours

I close with a special dedication to a person whose behavior warrants such. Email assassins are quite common anymore–interestingly their numbers correspond with the sum of homo fecesbrained stupidous that walk the Earth. Anyway, this clip is for such a person who enraged me with his submission email. And as long as the clip exists, David McCallum will always be remembered for more than Uncle and CSI.

Leila

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Published by ireneallison12

43 thoughts on “Week 510: Snow Daze Enthusiasm; Everyday Enthusiasms; More From the Pantry and a Long Distance Dedication From David McCallum”

  1. Hi Leila
    I was taken away by the poor woman’s remains left at the Seattle Goodwill. This is a great story already simmering in the “Idea Pantry.”
    It reminds me of shopping through people’s homes when there is an estate sale after the occupant has passed to the great knick-knack store in the sky. “Hey look at that!” Holding a horse figurine up to the lamp.
    Great picture of Boo!
    I enjoy your commentary!
    Christopher

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    1. Hi Christopher
      Thank you for dropping by!
      All kinds of odd stuff in donations. Pornography shows much more often than one would think (or should). And a friend of mine who worked in processing books found 1700 dollars taped by 20’s and 50’s to separate pages in a birdwatching book. She is an honest person and turned the loot in. Another person found 800 bucks in a shoe and I came across a shotgun (never any loot to check my honesty.
      Hey there’s another pantry item. A killer who drops his gun in a Goodwill donation bin. Still, that feels like it may have been “done.”
      Thank you again
      Leila

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      1. Leila
        That’s crazy about the money! And the shotgun sounds insane… And probably would be a good one. I mean, I can see a pistol but a long ass shotgun… That just sounds nuts to me. I read somewhere that “Terrible Ted” used to drop his victims clothing out the window of his bug and at Goodwill.
        Christopher

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  2. You have some fine ideas in your pantry. I hope you don’t clear it out too soon. One from my own pantry is a couple that can do magic but only if they’re touching. I’d love to see the email that prompted the video David McCallum. RIP Illya Kuryakin.

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    1. David
      That is an interesting idea. It also could bail you and them out of jams.
      I recall the furor over Man From Uncle, which was on when I was six or seven. It was amazing that he did 20 years on a CSI show, beginning at age 70!
      Thank you!
      Leila

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    2. Hi David!
      THANKS for coming back to say a good word for Boo and his confreres, the Dog Kingdom! As Walt Whitman said, “I wish I could turn and live with the animals / they are so placid and self-contained.”
      Dale

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  4. Dear Leila
    Boo can’t type because his paws are too furry, but he says “thank you” for using his puppy pic in your photo essay today. His brother Colonel and his best pal Bandit are also applauding your photo essay: dogs never feel envy the way we humans sometimes do, so they’re nothing but proud of their pack member on this chilly December morn outside Chicago.
    I can attest to the fact that Boo, and his Husky brother Colonel, never get cold, not even when it’s forty below F wind chill. On the contrary, the colder or snowier it gets, the more energized they become, almost as if you could hook ’em up to a sled and they would literally run all day in it; and if you hooked ’em up to a sled, they WOULD literally run all day in it, not under coercion, by choice and with mucho joy!! We’ll never try it but you can just tell it’s true by looking at ’em…Watching these two at the dog park in the snow is better than a nature video on you tube.
    Incredible creatures! During bad famines, the Siberian Chukchi peoples who created these beautiful animals would die of starvation before they would even think of eating their dogs, LITERALLY. The dogs sleep inside with the humans and they can survive very easily on their own in the wild too. In the multicultural urban neighborhood where I live outside Chicago, many folks think Boo not only resembles a wolf, but IS a wolf. He’s applauded and adored by many, but other extremists even think he should be illegal and have told us this on the street…(again, dogs don’t care, these kinds of rare comments elicit carefree tail wags from Boo).
    Your essay/post has more LOLs and mental energy than a piece by Vonnegut or D. Parker, and at the same time it’s all and only Leila, so THANK you for the immortal writerly beauty on many levels!
    My Idea Pantry contains a novella from Boo’s POV but I’m intimated by my own half-assed fiction writing skills (sometimes I can overcome them a little bit) and the fact that Jack London already did this way better than I ever can!! (I envy the fiction-writing skills of yourself and C.J. Ananias, Hugh and Diane and many others on the site!!!!!!!!…….) (Oscar Wilde said the fact that one can’t do something makes them the best critic of it, lol.)
    THANK YOU LEILA! You’re an American (and English Language) treasure, truly.
    D.W.B.
    PS, God bless those who fell and served.

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    1. Hi Dale
      Boo is very welcome and although he may be too modest to say it, it’s about time that people caught on to his awesome majesty.
      Send his pals’ pics and I will weedle them in by and by.
      Thank you for the compliments. Writing these little things are a joy to do because they come without expectations.
      Thank you again! (Gotta find a way to say that differently someday)
      Leila

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  5. Dear Leila
    This is a shout-out to Tom Waits.
    HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOM!!!!
    Your song “Last Leaf” as performed by Willie at 91 not too long before Kristofferson passed on when I saw him live with Dylan and Mellencamp in Illinois earlier this fall is a moment I will never stop remembering…
    “I’m the last leaf on the tree. / The autumn took the rest, but they won’t take me. / I’m the last leaf on the tree.”
    Dale
    PS,
    Your song “Lucky Day” brings me to tears every single time.

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      1. Leila
        ((Tom is a massive Bukowski fan, and L. Cohen was a massive fan of Tom’s.))
        I love this quote of his: “The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering.” LOLs
        D…..

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      2. Hola Leila!!!!!!
        Just 2 more from Mr. Waits on his 75 b-day:
        “Don’t you know there ain’t no devil, it’s just god when he’s drunk.”
        “Wasted and wounded, it ain’t what the moon did / I’ve got what I paid for now.”
        D.

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      3. Hi Dale
        The first time I ever saw Tom Waits, believe it or not, was in the Sly Stallone flick Paradise Alley. Overall the film was a trainwreck, but an interesting trainwreck. Lots of neat little bits in it, including Tom
        Leila

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      4. Leila
        Yes, Tom tends to show up in all kinds of unexpected places! Another of Boo Barrigar’s favorite Tom songs = “Shiver Me Timbers” from The Heart of Saturday Night…It has Jack London and Herman Melville in it…
        Dale

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  6. Leila
    My #10: I always wanted to write a book titled “Fuck Me” but never had the heart nor the stomach. I also knew nobody wanted to hear my bad news, so I offer it free of charge to the Idea Pantry. — Gerry

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  8. Another fascinating factoid about the Siberian Husky is that the Siberian Chukchi peoples who created (bred) these animals believe/d they are reincarnations of their own ancestors sent back by the gods of nature to watch over them.
    = One reason they would never eat them, even during recurrent famines, and would rather starve first.
    D.

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  9. Great post and a bonnie dog.
    My suggestion for the No10 spot:-
    ‘For sale: Chemical Toilet, only used once. Slightly damaged.’
    I did actually write a 50-word story on this theme. But I’ve always thought there is a much longer poignant tale to tell.
    Mick

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    2. Hi Mick!
      Thanks for calling Boo bonnie. He’s a big fan of over there, so he digs it!
      Looking forward to your next piece whenever it appears on the LS screen…
      Dale

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  10. I could look it up, but as I recall Charles Bronson “stole” Ducky’s wife Jill Ireland then she died of cancer. I’m frequently wrong.
    I have two unused idea on my story list. “Freud” – I have no idea what do with it other than some weird uncovered Freud paper about armpits or something about as absurd as much of Freudianism. Sometimes an armpit is just a cigar.
    I started flow chart twenty or twenty-five years ago and wrote a paragraph. After a weird date, the future possibilites are revealed as a flow chart, which would have been difficult to form – the indent gets bigger the deeper into the chart?

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    1. Hi Doug
      Now that flow chart has potential. But it could drive you crazy. I didn’t know Jill Ireland was married to The Sixth Finger! But I am sure David got over it because he outlived Charles by many years.
      Thank you,
      Leila

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      1. I meant to mention that your Seattle weather is much like Portland. We go to the snow, it (usually) doesn’t come to us. Worked in a rainy park planting this morning. Was going to see some entertainment, but street not moving. That’s more common than snow. Guess I’ll have to nap.

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      3. Nothing like the 115 or whatever it was a few years ago. 1965 I had a summer job with the highway department and was testing roadbed along Hwy 26 to the east through Sandy and beyod (a whole story along with dangerous radioactivity) when it hit 107 outside while I was in an enclosed panel truck.

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      4. Doug
        No way I could do that. I would melt and evaporate. Now, I used to work in a grocery store meat department and freezer–about ten years; I learned to handle cold, but there’s no defense against the sun when it feels a mile away.
        Leila

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  11. Hi Leila,

    I love the word ‘handsome’ when I relate to it over elegant ladies and braw dugs!! Boo is a handsome fellow. Be proud Dale!

    ‘The Deliberate Stranger’ staring Mark Harmon is the best adaptation of the Bastard that was Bundy. Ahhh, acceptance from the establishment gets you away with soooooo much!!

    The last day of our honeymoon I saw that Gwen was a bit annoyed. I thought, ‘She’s come to her senses and my arse is oot the windae’ but she explained that she had a presentation to give for her work that had to have electrical content in it. In my wisdom(???) ‘I said fuck it! Talk about something you know and are interested in. (She was a Serial Killer freak – Fascination not participation I might add…Hopefully!!) I asked her what she was confident about knowing and she said, for a laugh, ‘Bundy’. I had a quick look through her books and there I saw it. There was a part of the evidence that was spotted through an electron microscope and I suppose my poetic licence mind kicked in. I asked her what she would want to say and I wrote her speech for her. She was still in pieces when giving the speech and panicked about the electrical content. (HAH! I don’t even know if an electron microscope had anything to do with electricity but neither did the bell-ends who were ‘judging’ her!!! (Gwen has worked in a secure unit with beasts, killers, arsonists and all the nasties that you can think of without any hesitation. But if she has to do some public speaking, the wee soul goes to pieces!!)

    When I asked how she got on she told me that they bombed her out due to the lack of electrical content. But I can still see the grin on her face when she said, ‘I was the only one who got a loud round of applause.’

    Snow days – I was only ever sent home once. I bought two onion pies a paper and a Mars Bar…That was the best breakfast ever!!

    Now the occupied urn is so sad. But once again, the genius of ‘Only Fools And Horses’ takes this idea somewhere else. In one episode ‘Del’ bought an object from an old family friend that he thought was a Miscon (Sp??) vase but it turned out to be an urn. The old grandfather said, ‘Oh my God, it’s Arthur’s ashes’ Del hadn’t seen them and said, ‘What??? The Black bloke that won Wimbledon??’

    Sadly – Nothing is in my pantry. I was going to write an entertaining take on my memoirs but as I said…I have nothing!!!!!!!!!

    David McCallum has, to me, had a strange career. Most of his work was TV (I think? ‘Sapphire And Steele’ with the beautiful Joanna Lumley is an example) but he was in one of the greatest movies ever, ‘The Great Escape’. And if memory serves me well, he was also a wee Judas. And if that is correct, he was in a film with the worst James Wayne line ever!!!!! (That is not a mistake just a nod to the Humanist wumin who did my brother-in-laws mum’s funeral service. She was of my age and managed to get John Wayne’s name wrong. That still makes me laugh. And George, he still giggles about it!!)

    Oh my point was, I reckon he should have been in more films. He would have been better than Tom (I’ve only a sincere face) Hanks in ‘The Davinci Code’. He could have been a part of ‘Ghost Busters’. I could see him as Zeus in ‘Clash Of The Titans’. Now I know that overtaking Larry is controversial but I reckon he could have done it. I also reckoned he could have played ‘Shipman’ although James Bolam did a cracking job but that was another TV series. And here’s a weird one, I reckon he could have made a cracking Bond villain.

    As always Leila, you instigate, or is that initiate, contemplation, reminiscing and thought.

    Brilliant.

    Hugh

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    1. Hi Hugh
      The state of Florida connected Ted to the subject of electricity very well!
      I was twelve when the local news reported some guy named Ted who had a VW bug was luring young women at the lake. The one who got away gave a great description. But the geniuses at the Seattle Police department (even though they actually questioned him) botched and he went on from there. Then again, Colorado didn’t do much better letting him escape through a vent.

      But the creep met his Waterloo in Florida. Say whatever, but Texas and Florida have never been shy about exterminating killers. Cold comfort to the victims’ families, especially when better police work and custody would have saved lives.
      Harmon was perfect as The Deliberate Stranger. I’m certain that Gwen’s presentation was far more interesting than what the audience deserved!
      Leila

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    2. Hugh
      Thanks for giving Boo kudos! I told him what you said and he did a tail wag….
      Re: those monstrous freaks of nature with whom I too am periodically fascinated (because anyone human has to be, because they are human, after all), the Chicagoland region has John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and Richard Speck.
      Once Gacy filled up his basement, he started tossing the bodies into the Des Plaines River which is a couple of miles from where I live….he tossed the bodies in about twenty miles up river from here. He claimed that Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci were his two biggest inspirations….There’s a photo of him with Rosalyn Carter when she was first lady of the USA and visited Chicago (no joke! He was big into local politics and considered an up-and-comer at one point)…and his last words were: “Kiss my ass.” Right before they did him in in the Big House.
      Dahmer met his end via the broomstick method and two fellow prisoners who accomplished jailbird’s honor, i.e. executing child molesters.
      Richard Speck was asked years later if he felt bad or regretted what he’d done. He said: “No. I never felt a thing. By the way, it takes three minutes and a lot of strength to strangle someone to death.”
      There’s a great film about Hitchcock called HITCHCOCK starring Anthony Hopkins (as Hitchcock, and you can hardly tell it’s Hopkins, he’s so much like Hitchcock) which explores Alfred Hitchcock’s fascination with so-called serial killers…And the making of PSYCHO which Hitchcock was forced to finance himself because the studios thought it was too much….Hitchcock, like Orson Welles, was a famous “self-publisher” of his own films…HITCHCOCK is also about Hitchcock’s collaboration with his wife.
      Thanks again, Hugh! Your commentaries are always insightful, original and thought-provoking!
      Dale

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  12. Hi Dale,

    I’ll take a tail wag from a dog or a head bump from a cat more than a babies smile any-day!!!!!

    I’m sure that you will have seen it but I thought Brian Dennehy’s portrayal of Gacy was brilliant in the film, ‘To Catch a Killer’. He also had a superb performance in ‘Prophet Of Evil’ which was about Ervil LeBaron.

    And if I’m on the subject of Seriel Killers, the old ones are the best!! Richard Attenbourgh (Sp??) as Christie in ’10 Rillington Place’ was mesmerising!!!

    …And I think the Toni Curtis film about The Boston Strangler was the first film to do the split screen????

    Your love for the written word is a joy to behold but when the film-makers get it right (HAH!! Not necessarily accurate!!) it can raise curiosity which makes folks seek out the written word!!

    The one thing about films is people need to realise that they are films and not documentaries. (They can also have many a problem!) My point is if anything tweaks interest, then, that can only be good!!

    All the very best my fine friend.

    Hugh

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  13. I like that description of Puget Sound weather….. reminds me of “Who’ll Stop The Rain” “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head,” and “Here Comes The Rain Again” among others. It is the dark time of year. Boo the Husky juxtaposed with Seattle made me think of Jack London’s “The Call of The Wild,” partly set in that city. I also worked at a place like Goodwill, doing some “community service work” but it was strictly furniture, so no urns allowed. Also have an idea or two in the pantry from that time. I like that concept, Elon X Muscatel sounds promising…. I’ve got a lot of ideas and scenes from over the years and where to find the time to take them out of that pantry and mix them up and cook them into a story?

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    1. Hello Harrison
      I missed this comment. The Strait of Juan De Fuca, closer to you in BC has always been a mythical thing in my mind since childhood, full of monsters and people like Odysseus.
      The big thing about Elon X Muscatel would be that he’d be accused on social media for not earning his poverty, for being born with a dirty spork in his mouth, left in a trash bin by his crazy mother.
      Thank you!
      Leila

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  14. Great photo of a gorgeous dog – I am a sucker for dogs! As for cold weather, I lived 5 years in Russia, 2 in Ukraine, and 2 in Kazakhstan (the coldest of the lot – where it starts snowing in October and doesn’t melt away until May) and still I’m not used to it! The Jacko Saville concept is truly terrifying by the way!

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