june 27another browser friendly no graphics home page!
at no additional charge!today:
workin' livin' movin'
calvin'?today was a reception for my grandparents, to celebrate my grandparents' 90th anniversary and grandfather's 90th birthday. 100 one hundred people and 11 eleven relatives appeared at the homestead restaurant in stuart to wish them well. i interviewed people on videotape about their memories, unfortunately i didn't get to the guy who stuffed potatoes in my grandfather's tailpipe. the pranksters had the direct interactions with them, over discipline issues; the rest of the folks had nice things to say, and one guy who had been saved and set straight by my superintendant grandfather was very earnest but not very detailed.
mom hears the phrasing, "i went to school to your father" only in connection to her parents.
derrick, a young guy related to a nurse at the parkside manner nursing home, he has been hired by my granpa at $6 an hour to do odd jobs. some oddjobs are odder than others - granpa attaches a grindstone, like to sharpen knives, to his chordless drill, and he uses that to grind down his calluses. they took away his drill at the rest home, and he went and bought another one. they told my uncle, they have never had to make rules about power tools in the rest home before.
so granpa has derrick put padlocks on different cabinets and drawers - so the rest home bills my uncle for them, since not all the furniture belongs to warren. they're not happy about the locks either - it means grampa can have stuff in his room they don't authorize - like his own vitamins and one time, someone from the home was going through his things, and found some bread, some ham and some cheese. (they won't let him have a fridge, so her just keeps it in his cabinet instead.).
one time derrick and he stained a cabinet derrick had built, and they brought the cabinet in before it was done drying. the smell was so bad, they had to evacuate the wing. another time granpa calls derrick up and has him bolt down the two easy chairs to a board, and then calls him in to unbolt them the next day.
recently, granpa has had two strokes. moving into the rest home has slowed him down some - he may be 90, but he is independent and likes to move around. the rest home has rules and routine he has to abide by, and i think he's suffered from losing his own routine. he was in danger of falling over though, hurting himself living on his own, so he had to be put in a place where someone could watch over him and provide basic care. but he has sure aged since i saw him last.
grandma, on the other hand, she has improved a ton since she left texas, and the nursing care that was (mis)provided in their trailer park home. she talks more than she used to. she can feed herself. she is more awake. it's wonderful to see. also, she engages the home like grampa doesn't - she takes part in all the activities, breadmaking, sewing, arts and crafts, bible study. grampa doesn't do any, he sez it's because he's too busy. gramma sez, "the fact that he thinks he's busy is mostly in his head."
thinking about nebraska, feeling some longing; like wanting to get closer to and understand this side of myself. these people are nice decent people and they are different in ways i don't fully understand, different from my san francisco peers. probably similar too, like hondurans.anyways, i start thinking about manual labour, and living outside of the crazy loop of my life recently. a second cousin, linda peterson has her farm staffed with 4 family/free workers, and 6 hired hands. this is just maintenance, keeping the corn watered (hopefully "knee high by fourth of july"). but there are times when they need a whole lot more folks. i asked about planting, and harvesting; mid-april to mid-may is planting, and october is harvest; when i mention wanting to work some she sez i might want to come for calving in march. whew! that would be some dirty hands!
but maybe there wouldn't be anything to do, as jim sez, they've replaced labour with captial: the work of five folk is now the work of one machine.
i like to think about changing things up radically, and living simpler like just me and some room and board in exchange for working so hard you forget to hate it because you're so desparate to sleep. and then i could go fishing on the weekends!
but i am building a life, i crave a home, a place to be settled. i love amy, i love curling up next to her to sleep, and slipping inside of her before bed. arguments over movie rentals. cooking. can you take vacations from that? easier now, soon i may have not only rent but car payments. whew. what a weird scene.
speaking of:
jim reports, something like 70% of the world's hog population is located within 400 miles of omaha nebraska. i was asking about organic food standards, and he sez that most of neb's food does not go directly to table. corn grown here is for feed, or popcorn, (nebraska is the leading producer of that too).colin remembers to me this:
"if you want something done, ask a busy person" - marie k. stonei love being with my family. they're funny and smart. now they do push my buttons mercilessly, they make fun of me and everyone's a target. but there's real heart behind it. and smarts.
we talk, during the five hour van ride from stuart to lincoln, we talk about colin's job, and my work some (most of that talk was at dreisdale's). i spew some about my ideas for an internet publication, it's taken some additional shape. i'm excited, i can warm to the subject.
but then i had just finished with talking on zdtv. and i know that the more time i put into that the more time i get out of it.
so do i max up and out and work both ideas and put in bastante time and zdtv and meanwhile build this dream i have of self-determined publishing for multiples and money and risk over extension or screwing over one or the other. the other choice is to hang loosed between my paying job, zdtv, which i think i should maintain for the experience, but sit on the idea of publishing. no can do. but hey! something to realize. better to fail doing fun stuff than to piss away my time, right? or i could lead a balanced life.
did johnnie von neumann?
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today's muzzik: 99 hooker, some weird video music trip on lincoln local cable access. like art - french fries twirling and cuts to bodies in showers and voice over about the lord saving people. (i'm on ppp so i haven't researched it. single white female is on cable here in my uncle's house, i have it on mute. never seen it. now, i've seen it, but i've never heard it. some cat fight!
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justin hall | <justin at bud dot com>