Work really really sucks right now. A new player on the team and she’s a real woodpecker. Shallow and insecure micro-manager who is not only technically incorrect much of the time, but she loves to bolster her flawed viewpoints by being over-confident and dismissive of any alternative viewpoints. A real joy she is. Petty, small-minded people really try my patience with the world.
On a more positive note, on our morning walk the other day, Marti levied a vicious attack on the lawn sprinklers at Brittany’s place and that somehow puts life back into a more acceptable perspective. Work is simply something we do so we can have fun and occasionally eat. Marti attacking a sprinkler head is a life fully lived.
I am working on getting another gig in any case. No need to work with toxic people.
It’s funny the things a guy might learn while sitting in a hotel room at 3:00am trying to get back to sleep. In my most recent case, I woke to find ‘The Color of Money’ just starting up on Hotel Showtime. Good movie — if you can overlook Tom Cruise’s poor acting. But Forest Whittaker is brilliant and Paul Newman is …..well, Paul Newman. Always nice to see John Turturo.
What I learned that I did not know is that Robbie Robertson did the musical score. How about that? It made sense once I remembered that Martin Scorcesee directed ‘The Last Waltz‘.
I love the expanded presence of rugby right now because of the olympics. And women’s rugby is right there. Those girls are amazing. Olympics will bring more great athletes to this sport.
I had no idea there was such a thing as men’s field hockey until I saw it on the olympics at the restaurant TV the other day. What’s wrong with those people? By now they’ve seen rugby right? Field hockey?
2001 was the year of the honey badger in Martinitime world. What then is the spirit animal for 2024? In the most important election in my lifetime, Trump is riding high after an amateurish but remarkably close assassination attempt and the Democratic Party looks like the Hindenburg as it was fully consumed by fire and falling from the sky.
At this point, I’m in favor of kidnapping ole Jimmy Carter from hospice, duct-taping him to a furniture dolly, and parading him around the country as our nominee. I think Jimmy feels he still has some unfinished business and, at 99 years, this might be his last chance. What better options do we have?
Okay. How quickly the worm turns. I wrote those words soon after Biden had his now famous debate meltdown and things indeed seemed dire. Barely two weeks later, Kamala is the official Democratic nominee and she is killing it. Already leading in the polls and Dems feel re-energized. So I guess we can leave ole Jimmy in peace.
Guess if I am going to be topical in my posts I also need to be timely.
Motorcycles are terrific therapy. As the saying goes ‘there are no motorcycles parked outside the psychiatrists office‘.
I’ve got two. Both got good workouts this week.
One is my shy, pretty, slightly awkward, low-riding Triumph. Transmission is geared down and she is throaty and slow tempo’d like a Harley. She’s happy to putt along nice and slow and does not like to be pushed. I had to make my peace with this one after she put me in the ditch two years ago when I tried to make her dance a little. I was rewarded with a broken arm for the effort. Since I’ve adjusted my attitude, we get along just fine.
My other bike is the powerful, big-boned, rambunctious BMW. Finest German Engineering has to offer. This one wants to run all the time. She is sure-footed and is happy only when galloping and eating up the road. With her we hit the turns at pace and lean low to the ground and are already accelerating before reaching back towards centerline. The big difference between the BMW and the Triumph is the power. They are both 1200 cc engines. But the transmission on the BMW is geared such that power is always available. If I am geared too low and hit the throttle, she will respond, although perhaps with a slight lag — maybe to encourage me to pay more attention to my riding. Then she roars up into the power band anyway. If I am in the right gear and RPM’s are at 2K or so, there is no lag in delivering the juice.
I really love this motorcycle and will ride her as long as I can keep up. Maybe another 10 years or so I hope.
They are both fine machines and suited to different styles and purposes. Who is luckier than me to have two great motorcycles to share time with. Also two canoes, a jeep, 2 cars and 2 bicycles. But who’s counting.
The other afternoon I took the big girl out for a long ride across the countryside. I stopped at the cigar lounge near Buckeye Lake on the way back and had a very nice Oliva Maduro and double-pour of WhistlePig Bourbon while I read the NY Times on the back deck. Then a long slow ride home through the corn and soy bean fields. Later, after dinner and walking the dog, I took the little British girl out. A short summer rainstorm had cleared the air and the sun was only barely down. I had intended to go to town and have a nightcap at the local. But I kept turning the wrong way and adding miles to the trip. I could smell the corn in the fields and the air was just that perfect temperature for riding. I know not to challenge this machine so I just enjoyed the ride. It was glorious.
I’ve had some anxiety these past few weeks for a variety of reasons — but at moments like this, it’s possible to think that our life consists of just this moment and the next and the next but never beyond that. And why worry beyond what the headlight illuminates immediately ahead. Finally I made the correct turns and put the little filly into the barn and gave the dogs a treat and a last look outside and then to bed and the book and a nightcap.
Brittany and I spent a lovely long weekend at Canaan Valley Resort in northern West Virginia. We took Marti and shared a cabin with a few others with dogs. Great weekend. Lovely weather and good food and companionship. We took some long hikes and just relaxed. Something we need to find more time to do.
Every day is good and brings something new to my life. Some new thing I didn’t know before and there is great joy in learning. Walking the dog is an adventure. Cooking a nice meal and sharing it with Brittany and friends is lovely. Motorcycle rides. Hikes in nature. Occasional long evenings alone are important to me. Listening to Van or Mark or Prine or Van Zant while drinking wine and cooking. Canoeing down the Greenbrier; dropping a dead ash tree and cutting it into logs and splitting the logs into fireplace size is enormously gratifying. Driving the jeep with Marti’s front paws stretched out on the hood in her ever vigilant wildlife spotter pose. Reading is a joy that I had partially suppressed for some time but am now making up for lost time.
I’ve had such a fortunate life. Now a super-smart, smoking-hot girlfriend who inexplicably loves me and forgives my many faults. A beautiful, athletic, rambunctious young dog who is precocious and ornery but also sweet and vulnerable. I’m normally able to find work adequate to fund my many and expensive adventures. Family close by who are not too crazy and I am for the most part pretty healthy.
It can’t last forever of course but for the moment I am grateful.
There was a beautiful article about Normal Maclean in The New Yorker a few weeks ago. He is one of my writing heroes. I first read ‘A River Runs Through It’ around 1992 or 1993. I went to see the movie with a girl that worked at my coffee shop/bookstore and loved it. So I went back to the College Market, pulled the book off the shelf and read all night — finishing the book in time to help Michelle prepare for the morning rush.
I soon read ‘The Mann Gulch Fire’ and some essays he had written over the years. He was not prolific, or least did not publish prolifically, but when he did publish, it was among the best we had in US literature. So I was reminded of his greatness in this article. He was by all accounts an excellent teacher (University of Chicago) and a very kind and compassionate person.
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives might be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Wendell Berry
We are at ATL, having left CMH earlier today and enroute to JNB where we will overnight and then off to WVB next morning. 3 weeks in Southern Africa with family and friends.
I am blessed.
Humbly Submitted
Robert Myres – Flanker, Portneuf Valley Rugby Football Club (ret.)
The Martini Tales 