Neanderpundit

Annie was a field mouse. She had a nice warm spot under an old milk crate in the basement of a human house, away from the cold of winter and the hawk and owl.

Annie was raising six tiny mouse babies that were smaller than dimes, and she had to have food to make milk for them. So she climbed along the rafters into the pantry of the human house to find a bag of pumpkin seeds there, and every day she would go eat five pumpkin seeds, take several pumpkin seed meats in her cheeks back to her little nest, and so she had plenty of milk for her babies.

One day, as she was eating a pumpkin seed, the door of the pantry opened, and Annie saw the big human look in and see her. She ran as quickly as she could to her tiny nest in the basement, and the human followed behind. She darted under the old milk crate, and as the human picked up the milk crate, she and her tiny family of tiny baby mice lay in the nest looking up at the huge human, thousands of times her size.
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which can happen,I expect you to be
my companion and solace me.”

Ben Rumson to Pardner, Paint your wagon, 1969

I like a musical,even though I’m straight, and dad did too- he had a big booming baritone, which could be crystal clear or gravelly and whiskey rough depending on his mood and his health.

Dad would sing the songs from those movies, movies he and mom had gone to see together, some when they were new. In the June before he died, he’d had some back trouble due to an injury at work, and I spent a weekend with him while mom visited with family, he’d just bought a new VCR and we rented “Paint Your Wagon” (In which Clint Eastwood actually sings) (and sings fairly well, too) and we watched it together We watched “Hotel New Hampshire” that weekend as well, I was cooking for him as he couldn’t get around well. We were eating mostly bluegills frozen from the summer before, and beans and cornbread.

Times like these, that dreadful melancholy spreads over me like a pall, thinking that he’ll never get to know how wonderful my daughter is, and how she’ll never know him. Then I think, He already knows her pretty well. And she’ll learn about him from me, I’ll make her feel his presence by telling her everything I can about him.

I owe him that much, at least. I owe her that much, at least.

Hang on to every moment with everyone you love, folks. I can’t say this enough.

A friend had some trouble with one of his machines and I went out to try to troubleshoot them today. I know what I’m doing around these machines, and quickly managed to narrow the problem to a recalcitrant servomotor. Very rare, with Fanuc, but not unheard of. The shipping guy who opened up the plant for me was watching- remarked “you figure this stuff out pretty good”.

Took me back to the beginning of my training as a mechanic, at my father’s side. Dad approached troubleshooting problems in this simple manner: What thing will you feel most stupid if you overlook it?

This applies to about everything. If something doesn’t work, first ask the stupid questions: Does it have gas? Oil? Water? Is it plugged in? turned on? connected to the cable/internet/telephone line? I do a lot of tech support work, or have over the years, and as often as not, I find I can troubleshoot most stuff over the phone by asking those simple questions.

So today, bummed about not being able to get into the class, I back the bike out of the shed and start it up. As usual, it starts immediately, but it’s back t it’s old tricks of not wanting to rev beyond idle.

So I get a little pissed, and think of all the things it COULD be, and then I think, Stop. Pull the gas cap.

Sure enough, it’s dry as a popcorn fart.I put gas in and it’s fine.

Sometimes I just think I’ve worn out my brain. At least I didn’t tear the fucker apart trying to find a nonexistent problem.