jumpingfish

Years ago I worked on a team with a guy who lived somewhere in North Texas. The company was a big supporter of telecommuting, and he worked from home. Periodically he would come down to see us face-to-face, but most of the time he dialed in remotely. In the spring you could hear the Mockingbirds in his yard and sometimes his dog. That was just part of the company culture. People worked from home and were sometimes interrupted by chirping or barking or sometimes whining kids.

Today I work at a different company, and I’m the telecommuter. The kid is at college, but there are Mockingbirds and Cardinals and Lesser Goldfinches and two kinds of Wren and (alas) squawking Grackles. And you probably know that there’s a dog.

Most of the day he just sleeps. Guinness is a dog, after all: they sleep. But in the afternoons when dinner time approaches (approach being defined as two hours away), he’ll come in here all wag-tailed and ready-to-go, and if I’m not careful (on the phone) a bark will come at the wrong time.

In this job, at this company, virtually no one telecommutes. My coworkers all think it hilarious when Guinness barks. It doesn’t make much difference what’s being said, when he barks in the middle of a conversation, there’s almost always some way to imagine him offering commentary.

And so they laugh. Every time they laugh. And I wonder if my reputation suffers.

Sometimes I cloister myself in here with the door closed and the electronics driving up the temperature, giving Guinness free reign of the house and the backyard.  But most of the time I just don’t worry about it. My reputation is as I do not as my dogs says, and I figure if he barks, well then … it is what it is.

Besides, there are the birds singing outside the patio door on the first day of spring. No amount of laughter can take that away.

The full moon rides across a cloudless sky, closer and bigger and brighter than it has been for 20 years, casting shadows of budding branches on the ground.

The wind blows thru the branches, shaking the shadows, making the wind chimes chime.

Maybe someday it will rain.

It was a sunny day. The winds of yesterday were gone. The sky was blue. The air was warm. The Irises were beginning to bloom, and the leaves of some trees and woody shrubs were beginning to push out, if you noticed closely enough.

She left on a sunny day for the cold white north. She left without a coat. Needing none in the warmth of Texas, she had sent hers on ahead. What a day to leave: temperatures in the seventies under a cloudless blue sky. What a day to fly back to the thirties and snow and grey skies and leafless, cold forests on the hillsides. Without a coat.

He stood by the curb watching her walk into the airport, her purse and bag over her shoulders, her suitcase rolling next to her. Then she stopped and turned back. With a motherly goodbye smile, she waved and stood there watching him. With a son-ly goodbye smile, he waved back and stood there watching her. You go first. No, you go first.

“I love you.”

“Good bye.”

She told a tale of winter, of snow dragons rearing their heads and gnashing their teeth. She said how warm the one-degree-below-freezing temperatures seemed and of the no-big-deal report of the weathermen during their snow forecast. She told of 100 inches accumulated so far this winter.

And my mind turned to the shade I ran in yesterday to keep from getting hot. And to the Bluebonnets springing up from last year’s seeds. And of the Agarita’s yellow blossoms that have poking out for a week or so. And of the Possumhaw and Texas Persimmon pushing out spring-green leaves, the Persimmon notably more cautiously than the Persimmon.

It will be in the high seventies today: warm enough to close the windows in the early afternoon to keep the house from getting hot.

I hear the snow’s still falling up there.

We sat in the dark theater at Alamo Drafthouse watching the big screen.  Trudy was eating her fish and chips and drinking a beer.  I was devouring a BLT sandwich and relishing the luxury of hot french fries and ketchup. We were there to see the Coen brothers’ True Grit.

This is my report, such as it is.

1. Mumbling

I hear the complaints are coming in that Jeff Bridges was mumbling, that his lines were garbled, that he was indecipherable. Hogwash. His was a brilliant rendition of Rooster Cogburn and a creative hat tip to John Wayne, who might not have garbled his lines as effectively as Bridges but was without doubt a mumbler extraordinaire.

Anyone who has trouble understanding Bridges delivery has trouble with accents in general and in my way of estimating isn’t from around these parts. I suspect that the complaints issue mostly from back East, where bloodlines and enunciation evidently runs purer and clear.

2. Staccato Phrasing

The dialog by the other characters was altogether of a different sort. We were often laughing at lines that by themselves probably didn’t warrant a chuckle. Yet the combination of the words and the staccato delivery made the whole theater laugh. Something like: “Hark, what light thru yonder window breaks—it is the dawn” meets J.R.R. Tolkein’s archaic-sounding English meets “Howdy pardner.”

They didn’t talk like that back then. I mean the rowdies in the hills with rotting teeth, scars on their faces and six-guns at their side didn’t talk like that. It was pure artifice. And it worked. Much like color in a comic book cell distorts reality for effect, much like Wham! Bam! Pow! is a worn cliche, the color and cliche of this dialog created an atmosphere for characters who were, in any event, bigger than life.

And there you have it. Hats off the the brothers Coen.

Not exactly traditional romantic fare for a Valentine’s Day, but fun was had by all. The beer and fries were great, we enjoyed the movie (especially the dialog), and it’s far too late for me to be up writing this, as I’ll be on the road early tomorrow.

So let’s call it quits, shall we?