17 May, 2005
news at eleven

there's a reason that i don't care much for tranquilizers... they make me stupid. since this is a state i can achieve without much provocation, i tend to take a pass on that kind of medication.

after all, i have the local TV weather forecaster for that.

to this date, concentrate though i may, i cannot ever recall what the weather is supposed to be... despite sitting for the requisite eight minutes of local map/national map/animated map/too-detailed meteorological explanations/cringing over the stage-fright/off-camera stumbling back to the news desk. it's just too distracting, all that drama. makes me drool like a stooge... zero-retention, in-one-ear, out-the-other.

one bit i did get, was the possibility of thunderstorms. which we got. oh, yes... some good spine-tinglers just as i was putting the finishing fire on some skewered-shrimp on Saturday evening.
not so terribly long after, sitting on my ass on the futon, digesting... i heard the storm continue. for about an hour. i finally caught on that the detonations were much too regular. until about 9:30.

walking out onto the darkened porch, away from the drone of the TV, i finally figured it out. it wasn't thunder. it was artillery. swear-ta-gawd.

the local paper didn't mention it, but the Wilderness Battlefield, some twenty miles away, was celebrating a re-enactment of the conflict that occurred this weekend... about 140 years ago. "celebrating". what a fucked up word to use. i doubt they were celebrating dismemberment, blood poisoning, or burning to death at the time. now, contractors build houses over the no-man's-land, where the troops fell.

unsavory... and bizarre to hear from such a distance, in the night. rhythmic. earth-shaking. sounding much too close.

then, the small-arms fire began. fireworks with a purpose.

i decided to tranquilize with a black-and-tan or two.

before Yoko stumbled off to bed after eleven, there was a story about how some guy passed out in his minivan, and crossed six lane of traffic before he ran into the wall of a fast-food joint. dead, before the impact. turns out, SlickWillie motorcycled with him on a run to South Carolina, not so long ago. in a hailstorm. with an inch of runoff rainwater on the interstate.

payback is a bitch.

(beware, dangerous segues!)

a few days ago, i posted photos illustrating what cute little field mice can do to car interiors. i set a mousetrap on the floorboard and dared the little bastard to try again. he did. this time, the shift lever boot. and the nest of insulation fluff in the boot... which i saw when i lifted the lid. i also saw his little grey ass as he skittered off behind the battery.

enter, the poison pellets. last resort.

didn't see him yesterday. regardless, i upped the ante... opened the doors, bonnet and boot lids, set up the convertible top, switched the ignition on... and tuned to the afternoon opera show on the radio. LOUD.

Wagnerian Payback.

it would chase me away.