16 January 2014

Dian Fossey


I would like to celebrate the birth of male, and some female, gorillas favourite pin-up girl, Dian Fossey.

09 January 2014

An Intervention...



Since hearing the news, yesterday, I have been near inconsolable. The news was reporting that The Powerpuff Girls are returning to the Cartoon Network on or about 20th of January 2014.

So close to my birthday, it must be a sign from the Universe that I am special.

Chosen.

What am I to to?  I no longer have any friends with little girls to conveniently blame, when asked why the girly show was on.

I answer it was the girls and I was too busy with my fantasy football league and HALO to change the channel. My remarks always elicited a round of high fives.
 
I remember, when my addiction began to interfere with my life. I remember as if it was only yesterday. It was winter and I was taking entry level bioanthropology class my professor was distributing graded exams, the non human primates.

I did not get mine.

My professor called me aside and asked me to her office. She wanted to know what was my problem, I had answered all the questions with Mojo Jojo quotes.

I turned pale and panicked, I could not her the truth.

How could I? How could anyone?

I made up some spiel, something about being high on the bud during the test.

As a result of my fib, I was suspended from school and I went to jail for a few days.

Fibonacci Sequins? So, why does Ringo Starr get to be on The Powerpuff Girls?  He is nothing special, just rich, famous, and talented. That is it.

My greatest quandary: Buttercup is my favorite, but Bubbles wears blue.

They (not the voices) tell me to buck up and be a man. They (not THE voices, I tell you) tell me that the first step to  getting better is to admit I have a problem.

Perhaps, I am ready.

Hello my name is Christopher and I have been Bubbles, Blossom, and Buttercup free for 20 hours.

(It is a beginning)

08 January 2014

Blizzard of '78

Following years of crappy, short-term employment, my father had at last been hired on to Caterpillar. In 1977 Peoria, Illinois, Cat was the sanctum sanctorum of employers. It was by far the largest employer in central Illinois. EVERYONE worked at Caterpillar or their family members worked there. All businesses were oriented to servicing Caterpillar's ravenous industrial hunger.

With the new job and an enormous boost in pay, my parents were finally able to save a little money to use as a down payment on a starter home. In a short time, they managed to scrape together enough to purchase, on a contract for deed, a tiny house on Krause Avenue. The very official deed, described the house as having two bedrooms. It did have two but only if you count the shoddily constructed one room addition, originally added as a mudroom, pantry, etc.

The room had a door so that was close enough to a bedroom.

Remember, this was before Reagen broke the unions and destroyed American industry, times were different. Small Midwestern cities and their discrete industries operated in a mutually beneficial symbiosis: John Deer, Oshkosh, International Harvester, Caterpillar, etc. No more unions and the relationship shifts from symbiosis to predatory.

Generations of Peorians had been employed at Caterpillar. Lifetime employment, graduate high school, get hired by Caterpillar, retire. Simple. My parents were certain that now they would have a permanent and regular income. They signed on the dotted line, happily. The house that was not exactly the nicest in the world, but, had some upgrade potential or that could, easily, be sold to some other smaller family. 

They signed on the dotted line for their cut of the American Dream©, get yours while supplies last only 42 payments of $19.99. And if you act now, you can super size your American Dream© for no additional charge!

What, I remember most is that I nearly died that night.

While, I would turn four in a few days, my sister was not yet even two. That night in January, I was asleep in my bed, my little sister was in her crib on the far side of the room. Earlier in the day, I had played in the snow and payed to no mind, it was only snow.

I woke to creaking that sounded like a woman screaming, so loud my ears hurt. It was the house tearing itself apart. Then came the explosion and not from RDX or gas, the snow had become so deep it had piled up to nearly 2 meters. Much snow had melted against the walls of the house. The water had gotten into and soaked the cheap 'wood' door and walls, and then refroze with predictable, if catastrophic results.

I made my way into the hall, where bits of door were still falling when the roof of your shared bedroom finally gave way. It whooshed like the house had been punched in the gut.

Before, I could even get my head around what had happened my parents were in the hall outside our room. By this point, I could hear my sister crying and my parents yelling. My father was investigating that horrible sound.


I house was continuing to moan and groan. It was becoming louder all the time. Small cracks and pops of a continuing process. An enormous noise, I do not mean some crack-pop of a pencil breaking but a noise so loud, it felt as if the very world had shattered asunder.

The door had shattered, the frame and and parts of the wall went as well.

There was no way out the back. The front of the house had been buried by the city tractors earlier in the evening. We could not get out of the house.

We are going to die.

After the failed attempt out the front, my father got on the phone, working, and called on of his friends to come over to assist. He had us climb out the crawlspace window, the one above the trashed room and four foot deep snow.

Joy.

I have never been able to remember exactly what happened next, but, I do know my sister and my mother went to the hospital. My sister was not exactly damaged but the obsessed nuns made her spend the night. While my parents stayed at the hospital, I was farmed out to my great-aunt. I was always happy to head to her house, it always smelled of her gingerbread men.

When we returned a week or so later, the parents investigating the damage They found house on Krause could not be repaired for any amount of money we could afford. In a show of absurd over-compensation, my parents went and rented over large house on Arago Street. The house felt so huge to a 4 year old, Tesla would have to install a Supercharger to power the trek from one side to the other.

The new place was not even two blocks away from the old. So close in point of fact, my electric toys had the range to travel on their own, if I had ever had any batteries.