It Doesn't Matter to Me

The river level is steady. There has been promises of a little cooler weather for the big (Fourth) holiday weekend. It is supposed to start getting hot today – there is a possibility of showers later in the week. When I got back eight weeks later the river was still high. Caked dry mud covered the grass. What they save not having to mow they might be able use acquiring new trees - most of the young ones have died due the flood - if only there had been any money in the municipal budget to begin with. Maybe they can apply for infrastructure development funds.

Now the dog expects (demands) to be taken to the coffeehouse after his walk. I shoulder my pack and he begins to bark and nip at my heels. He misses his friends. He has become addicted to the attention. All the ladies love him. That's the cutest little dog I've ever seen. We both love it. Ok, ok, I say. I put on my shoes. I grab his leash. He jumps up and down. I don’t put the lesh  on him until we get downtown. I pick him up and carry him out to the car.

People making money

            How boring

And they are so animated

How inane

It’s all so insane

They all think they

            Are the sane ones
OK OK if you wish its me
            Who is crazy

The Racket exists always and everywhere, for it is impossible to escape from one’s time and we are in the time of money - Victor Serge – Memoirs of a Revolutionary 1901-1941, 1963 p11

Out to the sand bar. It is hot. Puttta Putta putt. A slow cruise around the lake in a counter-clock wise direction – putta putt putta – the pontoon boat rocks. Who makes the rules? Two ice chests loaded with beer – putt putta putta putt. Weight anchor in the middle of the lake. Come to a stop. Everyone’s here when it’s this hot. Hop out. The water is just thigh deep. The water is just right. Hold your beer aloft as you wade about. The dogs jump in too. A barge with four dogs approaches. The big guy is urging them on. Arph arph, he says. They howl. Arph arph. They growl. They howl. The louder they yelp the more enthusiastic he gets. Later he will dons a shark floatie whose inflatable head serves as a parasol - his delicate skin - the big slob. I think he looks like a hippopotamus (the eyes look like ears). He chases all the girls pretending to devour them by encompassing them in his shark head parasol. Joe says I don’t like the way that guy is coming on to my girlfriend. Girls don’t fall for hippopotami, I say. The boat is filling up with empty beer cans. It’s a small lake. Everyone knows everyone. Wading from party to party greeting everyone. Politicking it is called. It’s the ritual as much as anything. It is expected like sending birthday cards only this is something the men are better at than are the women. The dogs get tired and stretch out on the decks of the boats in the sun. They are not howling anymore. Sunscreen in part of the preparation as is the chips and the dip and the ice cold beer. The boats swing around on their anchors.  A paddle boat has come lose. It bumps into the side of the barge. We take the speed boat home. The stern settles low in the water as we pick up speed. We bounce as we hit the wake of a ski boat. Early every morning the neighbor, a podiatrist, barefoots around the lake. He can be seen waiting until exactly 30 minutes after dawn. Another one of their rules. This morning this will be at seven o’clock.  At exactly seven to the second - he is very anal -  you hear the roar of his boat and see his rooster tail from the far side of the lake on the other side of the sand bar.  Now ease back on the throttle and nudge it into its docking station. Everyone gets out. The barge returns later with everyone else, the ones who wanted to stay. Everyone is all worn out, its not just the dogs. It all makes you so tired and its not just the beer. Late afternoon is a\ nap time. Later as it begins to get dark we’ll take a slow cruise around the lake and comment on all the residents and honk the horn when we see someone we know bar-b-quing on the patio or out on the lawn next to the beach. Putta putta putt. Time passes by so quickly.

What distinguishes the blind… from those who have sight is that the blind accept a large part of what exists is indescribable – John Berger – Harpers – April 2011 p48

By seven it’s sticky and muggy. The flies swarm. It is to be a miserable day. I read Sylvia Plath – poems written in 1960. I was twelve. Taking Red Cross swimming lessons and spent a week at Boy Scout camp where I had my own foot locker – a plywood box with a combination lock. Years later I painted it black and used it as a night stand in my first apartment. I had a green porcelain lamp that I kept atop of it. I need to take the dog for a walk before the day gets unbearably hot. The landlord reminded me to pick up after the dog. I showed him the plastic bag that I had in my pocket. Good boy, he says as if I had been the dog. Landlords are wantabe capitalists and tend to be very patronizing and condescending.

The tariff had created a vested interest dependent on the tariff; once called into being, this interest had a right to continued government protection – Daniel Webster, 1848

From KCI

Low and overhead

            Climbing and whining

Off on vacations

On the way home

            From Arizona

Off to the Orient

Soon gone

On the way

Out of sight

Out of mind

Too low for

            A contrail

Up into the

            Clouds

South to the river

Turn left and climb

            Up and up

            And into the clouds

Over and out Miss Ohio

Above the oceanic waves

            Anywhere but here

He showed me a photo of her. She wasn’t especially pretty. Her face betrayed sufferings, and under that suffering, simmering rage. I imagined her in an apartment… with the windows shut and the curtains open, sitting at a table eating sliced bread and a bowl of green soup – Roberto Bolano – The Insufferable Cuacho, 2010 p4

It is gonna be hot today. It is already miserable. Went to Weston last night to a party at the BBQ cook-off held by Dave and his Grillers – old high school buddies thirty years out. They have been doing competitive BBQing now for seventeen years.

It was the dumb decision of the / madness of my youth that left me with / this cold eye for the fact; that keeps me quiet, walking toward a stinging end – Yvor Winters – The Collected Poems of, 1978 p127

The news had reported that when the water reached the sandbags that they would shut Main St down. I was wondering if the Coffeehouse would be open today. If I could even get to. Maybe the street would be blocked off. The news got it wrong again. They had taken a story about a small upriver town where  an evacuation had been ordered for noon and transposed the location south. Everything was normal. I did not need to find another spot for my caffeine fix.

The number of people in the U.S, who are treated for illnesses and injuries resulting from taking prescribed medication jumped 52%  between 2004 and 2008 – from 1.2 million people to 1.9 million – from side effects and injuries from taking or being given the wrong medicine or dosage