I had a mystical experience last night. Driving home from playing tennis, I was stopped by a train. I had an Afro-Cuban jazz CD playing and as soon as I came to a stop, a song came on that was a percussive immitation of the rythm of a train, including some instrument doing a damn good train whistle. Very strange. Then when I got home and downloaded the photo, I noticed that it was image number 0666. OK, I’m sure that there’s an explanation for this, but it gets even wierder, I can’t seem to locate that cut from the CD.

A certain local ad exec was known for his womanizing. Some years back when he was on his second wife, he bought a $150,000 Porsche convertible. He was preparing to make a business trip and he told his wife, “Don’t drive the Porsche, it’s too much car for you.” While he was gone his wife found out that his secretary was out in New York with him, not for business but for monkey business. Enraged the wife called the local garden store and ordered 500 pounds of sheep manure. When they arrived to deliver it they asked where to put it. She told them to put it in the garage. “But lady, you’ll have to move the car.”
“No, you don’t understand, put it IN the car.”
She moved out leaving a note that said, “I didn’t drive the Porsche.”
It was summer and he didn’t return for quite awhile.
Revenge is sweet.

Once again it’s time for March Madness. No not the tournament, the fact that I actually plop down ten dollars to get into a tournament pool. In the last two years I’ve finished last and second to last. Now I figure I’m pretty knowledgeable about hoops. I’ve played, coached and reffed. I just don’t take the time to pour over the sports page all year and watch it on TV during the season. And I just did my picks in about 10 minutes without consulting any references. Why don’t I just take a ten and burn it? I guess it’s because I enjoy taking abuse from my co-workers for being so clueless.
A time honored Minnesota tradition is to have a blizzard during the State Basketball tournament. It came last night. This time for the girls tourney. I don’t know if you’d really call it a blizzard, more of a pain in the ass three inches. That’s what one of my old girlfriends used to say about me.

Kind of pretty though.

And now for the obligitory Irish joke:
John O’Reilly hoisted his beer and said, “Here’s to spending the rest of me
life, between the legs of me wife!”

That won him the top prize for the best toast of the night!

He went home and told his wife, Mary, “I won the prize for the best toast of
the night.”

She said, “Aye, what was your toast?”

John said, “Here’s to spending the rest of me life, sitting in church beside
me wife.”

Oh that is very nice indeed, John!” Mary said.

The next day, Mary ran into one of John’s toasting buddies on the street
corner. The man chuckled leeringly and said, “John won the prize, the other
night, with a toast about you, Mary.”

She said, “Aye and I was a bit surprised me self! You know, he’s only been
there twice! Once he fell asleep, and the other time I had to pull him by
the ears to make him come.”

Happy St Patty’s Day

“Did you feed the chickens honey?”
“I thought you did.”
“No goddammit, it’s your day.”
“No, it’s my day to water the plants.”

Beck and I on vacation in 1984. Talk about your bad haircuts!
This was not a great time in our lives. It was between the time that our son Ross was born and then died 23 hours later and when Lucia was born in 1985. Ross had trisomy 13, an extra thirteenth chromosome. Down’s Syndrome is a trisomy, trisomy 13 is much more devestating in it’s effect. Very few trisomy 13 babies live very long, and Ross was not destined to. There was no indication that there was any problem during the pregnancy but when he was born the nurses and doctor rushed him out of the room. Apparently he stopped breathing immediately and they resucitated him. The doctor returned to the delivery room and told us that he had a cleft pallette and some other problems, and that they were evaluating him. We really didn’t think much of it, “Oh well, cleft pallette, we can deal with that.” But then the doctor returned and told us the full story. Most of his systems were really not developed at all. Including his nervous system, including his brain. We were, of course devestated. Beck and I and some family were in her hospital room when the doctor, a really sweet man, came in and asked to talk to us in private. He wanted to know if we wanted them to do any heroic measures to keep him alive. I said that I’d like to talk to Beck alone and he understood and left the room. I knew what I thought; I turned to my wife, her eyes were wide and damp and she was shaking her head no. In a sense that was both the easiest and the hardest decision we’ve had to make. The doctor hadn’t gotten two doors down the hall when I caught him and gave him our decision. He stayed alive through that night and died the next morning.
Things were pretty rough for us over the next years. Becky was dispondent and had a very hard time for a long time. I started drinking more and my temper got worse. People from our social circle, I won’t call them friends, avoided us because they simply didn’t know what to say. For awhile we were afraid to try to have another baby. We had had genetic counseling and they told us that it wasn’t hereditary and that the chances of a recurrence were small, but there is always that nagging fear that it could happen again. Amniocentesis would tell us of any genetic defects, and that’s what eventually gave us the courage to get pregnant again. In 1985 while Beck was pregnant with Lucia, I quit drinking. And then L came into our lives and then Q came into our lives and the recovery began.

Another word about the doc. He was a big Italian guy with a beard, about my age now. He was a tremendous comfort to us during that aweful time. At one point in the highly emotional scene, he hugged me and kissed me on the cheek. My mother-in-law was so entertained by that.

This beautiful woman was my Aunt Alice. I found this photo tonight rummaging around in the basement. Alice Peabody. Yes, Peabody! She was actually my great aunt, half sister to my maternal Grandmother. She was a wild woman, married to a handsome man who was a cad, the legend went. She had a good job as a court reporter. I remember her living in a second floor apartment across from a school in St. Paul. Was it on Randolf? We’re going back 45 or more years here, memory dims. I look in awe at the elegant beauty in this photo. Certainly because of the elegance and beauty but even more so for the shocking contrast to the Aunt Alice I remember. She was a shut-in, the apartment was always heated to about 85 degrees by the radiator in front of the window that looked down on the schoolyard where I watched kids playing and wanted to be with them instead of in the sweltering apartment, even though I was informed that they were a pack of ruffians. The building in general and her apartment in particular had a distinctive smell that I haven’t smelled since, but would recognize instantly if I ever did. Alice, oh Alice, where has your elegance gone. She was a wrinkled old prune with a squawking whiskey soaked voice like a chain smoking parrot. In my memory she always was sipping whiskey and smoking Old Golds. She wore a house dress and exposed way more leg than I ever wanted to see. Her hair was like a frightened brillo pad. I dreaded my trips to see her and also looked forward to them. She was so damn funny! She would tell a story and crack herself up and start cackling and then would lapse into paroxysms of coughing. She told hilarious family stories and was tapped into an endless source of political gossip. She sat there in that overheated apartment and enjoyed life. It was emphysema that finally got her I think, but she was well into her 80’s when it did. She was what you call “a pistol.”

I bought a really little digital camera so I could carry it with me everywhere. You never know when a great shot will come up. So did I have it with me this morning as we were driving down the freeway and saw a mini-van completely covered in artificial turf so it looked like a motorized roll of sod going down the road? No.

I just had the “telecaster through a vibrolux turned up to ten” in the words of John Hiatt, except it was a strat and a Princeton Reverb when L and two of her freinds came giggling through the door. I’m sure that something like, “ooooowwwhh, Mr. Keller rock out!” was uttered on the way through the garage.
Part of your job as a parent is to embarrass your children. I work very hard at it.

Goaltender Greg Stutz of Centennial got his third consecutive shut-out, Cougars mash Spuds 1-0.

Rebecca is going to some big dinner for a colleague in the ad biz. She’s asking me about what to wear. Like I have a fucking clue. The invite has references to the “heady days” of Twin Cities advertising and “munchies.” This got us remeniscing about the herbally boosted days gone by and Rebecca said, “These days they treat it like it was a business!” Maybe that’s why advertising these days seems to suck so hard.

I’m desperately looking for signs of Spring. Other than nasty, predictably unpredictable March weather. Lot’s of bird activity in the yard this morning, but no migratory species. Seems like I should have seen a robin by now. One sure sign of Spring is the Minnesota State High School Hockey Tournament. My alma mater, the Moorhead Spuds are in the finals tonight. They’re the underdogs, but I’m predicting a victory. They lost to their opponents during the regular season, but it was the second game of back to backs played on a trip down to the cities to play against the metro competition. From what I’ve seen of the flying potatoes, they’ve got an incredilbly potent offense and seem to play at a level of speed a cut above the rest of the teams I’ve seen, these kids can motor. If you’ve never seen Minnesota High School hockey, I think you’d be amazed at the level of play. We’re definitely a state of puck heads.

Lindsay Whalen has started practicing with the team and should be ready for the tournament.

That’s my dear departed mother on the left. Dame Etta. She had a great sense of humor and would probably laugh at this, but if either of my sibs see this I might be in trouble.

I am Oliver, I am the Anti-Christ.

The scoop on the book group. We call ourselves, informally, the Kenwood Book Group. Kenwood/Isles is one of the wealthiest areas of the city, tucked around the Lake of the Isles and north and west of Uptown, over to Mt. Curve which overlooks 394 to the north. Charming old houses, some I guess you would have to call mansions, nestled into the gentle hills and urban forest that surround the lakes. The turnout is usually five to ten people, men and women. No spouses. The penalty for having an affair with another member is expulsion, although we haven’t had to impose it yet. Tonight we had seven people show up. There were two CEO’s, a children’s book illustrator, a college English professor and a low level corporate lacky. The latter being me. I’m kind of the outsider of the group. New Hope isn’t exactly what you’d call a wealthy suburb. We have not yet met at my place, I don’t think they really want to schlepp out to the burbs and I’m a little nervous about how embarrassing it would be for them to try to say something nice about my house.
How the hell did I get in this bunch you ask. Well the illustrator is one of my old animation buddies whose been very successful and whose wife is even more so. Mike Reed. You may be familiar with his work, he’s the creator of the Flame Warriors. He is the founder of the group and really the driving force behind it. He knew that I liked reading Literature with a capital “L,” so he invited me to join. The original plan was to read the “classics” defined by us as literature from before 1960, or something like that. It doesn’t matter because we broke out of those confines within a few months. We’ve read Rusdie, a couple of Faulkners, Roth, and a variety of more obscure fiction. We’ve read some non fiction, we tried the Adams book but most, including me, couldn’t get through it. We have never settled on a process for choosing the next book, or rather we’ve settled on several processes, but have never stuck to any of them. We are an uncontrollable lot. Once we were supposed to go around the circle and each recommend a book. We might have gotten past two people before we were hopelessly lost on a tangent. You would think such successful people would be able to complete a simple group task, but no.
I’ve waffled through the years between dropping out and staying. I feel out of place. These are very bright and well read people. Many are trained in literary criticism, I missed that class. Their insights into the works and their ability to articulate them makes me sometimes feel like a stammering idiot. But I hang on. One reason is that I really like the people. Other than a very few exceptions, they are not ego maniacs. The two CEO’s are very liberal, one of them gets around town on the bus, even in winter. They are compassionate and interesting. I never would have read most of the books had I not been in the group. I don’t often get to participate (however weakly) in that level of discussion very often. And it gives me the chance to see Mike at least once a month. We’ve kind of drifted apart since he’s climbed the social ladder, but he’s still a great friend who’s company I enjoy. Plus, these people put out fabulous spreads of snack food. No cheese whiz yet.
Speaking of levels of discussion, that’s one of the reasons I hang out here. It’s great to hook up with smart, articulate folks of all ages. Not to mention funny! Thanks to all of you who entertain me with your posts and take the time to read and comment on mine.
Peace, bk

Reading Reading Lolita in Tehran In New Hope
30 pages left.

DONE! In the nick of time. Off to the city for the book group meeting.