jumpingfish › version 3.0

Watch Out

Wed, 15 Jun 2016, 09:25 PM (-06:00)

Trudy! I wrote on a piece of paper. Watch out for the spider, Trudy. And I taped the paper to a lawn chair. And I set the lawn chair in the walkway to our front door, blocking the path.

Because there, in that space between the eaves of the roof, a spider had set up shop. And if you weren’t careful, you’d end up with a spider in your mouth.

We haven’t seen these guys for a several years, and we took it as a good indicator of the health of our yard that this spider had strung her web across the walkway. Indeed, I unhooked one of the main guy-wires the day before, but attached to the location, she rapidly redeployed.

So she gets to stay…

…for a while.

Missing

Mon, 13 Jun 2016, 09:10 PM (-06:00)

1. An Unfortunate Discovery

“Hi David,” Marcia said. I handed her my salad, which she put on the scale.

“That’ll be $7.29,” she said.

I looked up at her in a brief panic, “My Discover card is missing.”

“Oh no,” she said.

“It’s ok. I have another card.”

I pulled out the other card and swiped it… but the machine prompted me for a PIN. This wasn’t a credit card. It was a debit card that I never, ever use.

In this way, I discovered that not only was my Discover card missing, but so was my Visa, and so was my ATM card.

As panic began to descend upon me, Marcia showed me how to use that debit card as a credit card, which was fortunate, because otherwise I was going to have to abandon the salad and walk out hungry.

2. In A Real Panic

I was convinced that my cards, which are prone to sliding out of my wallet, had slid out when I grabbed my stuff from the dresser this morning in the dark. So when I got home in the afternoon, after greeting the tail-wagging dogs and giving Trudy a kiss, I walked into the bedroom. But to my grave disappointment, there was nothing on the dresser.

“And my driver’s license is gone, too!” I told Trudy.

It was gradually dawning on us that somebody had somehow taken my credit and ATM cards and driver’s license. I was cleaned out.

In denial, we began tracing our steps over the last few days. I called the barber shop. I called a restaurant. No joy. Still, there was virtually no time that we could reconstruct when my wallet had been outside my control. How could anyone have stolen anything?

So we began to think the unthinkable… that someone had come into the house Sunday while we were (all four of us) slaving away in the backyard.

Real panic began to set in, and I began to get jittery.

3. A Rubber Band

Over and over we tried to find an alternate explanation. What day was it when we went to Lowes? I paid for the popcorn at the movie, didn’t I?

But think about it. If you walked into someone’s house and needed to quickly look in one place for something to lift, it would be the dresser in the master bedroom, right? And my wallet had been there for many hours on Sunday — the only time we were apart.

Somebody had come into the house, made for the bedroom, found what they needed and quickly left.

Oh for heaven’s sake! Certainly not! Trudy kept going over the days, trying to find the explanation. I began to pace nervously back and forth. The jitters got worse, and I began to sweat.

My driver’s license and credit cards and ATM cards. They took nothing else. Just the good stuff.

And then on one of my passes thru the bedroom, I reached into the dirty clothes basket and felt in the pocket of a filthy pair of shorts I had worn Sunday. There was some kind of lump in the pocket. And my heart briefly stopped as I carefully reached in …and pulled out a lump of business cards and credit cards and an ATM card.

They had not been stolen. I had not left them at a store. They had not fallen out on my dresser or anywhere else. But what about my license? It can’t slip out of my wallet. Where was it?

I looked at my wallet again. Pulled out the empty sleeve where my license should have been. And there was my driver’s license in the sleeve backwards so that it seemed to be missing. It had never been missing in the first place.

At some point last night, a wad of business cards and plastic had slipped out of my wallet when I took it out of my shorts, probably at the end of the day when I took a shower and went to bed.

False alarm. Nothing was missing. No one had been in the house.

“I have to sit down,” I said to Trudy.

“You have to get a rubber band for your wallet,” Trudy said. “Just like your father.”

Writing on the Wall

Sat, 11 Jun 2016, 08:17 PM (-06:00)

We were going back to work from a lunch of hamburgers and fries. I was telling a story of someone I once knew who had abruptly quit his job and gone to work somewhere else. The economy had been bad. There were funding problems. And eventually other people started leaving, too.

“He must have seen the writing on the wall,” I said.

Camille asked, “What does writing on the wall mean?”

I glanced over at her to see if she was messing with me. Then I looked in the rear view mirror at Kyle.

“What… Is that an old expression!?” I asked him, stupefied that I might be using a phrase that their generation no longer uses —no longer even understands.

“Well,” he said. “It’s kind of an old expression.” And then he explained to Camille what the expression meant as I turned left at the light and lamented my plight.

On Lake Walter E. Long

Mon, 6 Jun 2016, 08:00 PM (-06:00)

After some grueling paddling into fierce winds, we finally found calm waters in the lea of the trees and cattails lining the northern and western shores of Lake Walter E. Long.

Kyle and Ry were in a new red canoe. Izzy and I were in our new red kayak. (The colors were coordinated almost perfectly.) And when we spotted a creek with ultra-calm waters, we were all in agreement, because we were all tired out and ready for a rest.

“Now this is more like it,” I muttered only half under my breath. Izzy found the courage to climb back up on the slippery bow. And Kyle threw his anchor so that we could just hang out for a while.

We drank drinks and ate snacks. Izzy found Kyle’s watermelon particularly satisfying. We told little stories about our lives.

I told them about picking up blueprints at the printing department when I worked as a draftsman’s aide my senior year in high school.

“Imagine,” Ry said. “A high school job that would actually look good on your resumé.”

“I used to work with a man,” Kyle said. And then he briefly stopped, motioning towards me. “In fact, he reminds me of you,” he said.

“Oh no,” I thought.

“All he did was smoke.”

What!? All this guy did was smoke and he reminds you of me!?

“He never ate. And I never saw him drink a thing.” Then he turned to Ry. “Just like David. He only drinks coffee. I never see him drink water.”

In the morning. I only drink coffee in the morning. …Ok, ok. I’m busted. At least Trudy wasn’t there, so she’ll never find out about this, because if she did, there would be much finger waging.

She’ll never find out, right?

Filipe

Mon, 6 Jun 2016, 07:29 PM (-06:00)

While we waited for our enchiladas and chalupas to arrive, the waiter across the room caught my attention. His face was familiar. I leaned toward Trudy.

“I think that guy used to work at El Patio,” I said.

She looked at him and smiled. Let’s just say that my reputation does not include great facilities of memory. Still, of all the things I forget (and there are many), faces is not one of them.

“It’s him, I know it’s him.” The shape of his mouth. His eyebrows. Something about his eyes.

It had to be him.

But years had passed. It’s been a long time since I’ve been there. (Why is that?) I could have been wrong. So I looked at him each time he walked by.

It had to be him. No maybe not. Yes, it just had to be him.

Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore. As he walked by our table, I reached out and touched him on the arm.

“Yes sir?” he said.

“Excuse me, but did you used to work at El Patio?”

His eyes lit up. “Just from 1981 to 2005!”

We introduced ourselves and shook hands. His name was Filipe. He told us about his years there, before he came to work here at his sister’s restaurant, Hecho En Mexico (in between long shifts doing microelectronics work).

He told us how he had started at El Patio washing dishes. And although he didn’t say it, I knew the progression, because we had seen guys work their way thru the ranks, there. From putting silverware on the tables to bringing out chips and queso to bringing out the food and finally to the main waiters. The guys there were long time employees, which is one of the really amazing things about that place.

“Did you make it to a red coat?” I asked.

“Oh yes,” he said. And then he explained how he had climbed as high as you could climb there, because the only other position was David Joseph, the owner. He laughed when he said that.

Austin has grown very large. Sleepy nearby towns have grown into the expanding city limits of Austin, becoming sizable cities in their own right. And Austin has become a metropolis. Just look at the skyline on the lake for proof. But sometimes, if you’ve been here long enough, small town Austin still shines thru.

A Work of Art?

Mon, 6 Jun 2016, 01:08 AM (-06:00)

“Have you seen my table?” Trudy shouted across the street? She was eager to show off her husband’s (rare) handiwork.

Bill walked over and stood in the shade of the Lacy Oak. “Wow… He’s… he’s…” Then was silent, holding his chin and looking down at the ground.

“He’s what?” Trudy asked. I cringed at what might follow.

Bill held up his hand with his index finger pointing upward. “Who is the guy who painted the Sistine Chapel?” he asked.

Trudy laughed. “Michalangelo,” she said.

“That’s it!” he said. “He’s Michelangelo.”

I turned to look at my creation: an over-varnished steel wire spool converted into a crude table. I ran my hand along the top of it, getting a sliver in the process.

I’ve been to Rome. I’ve sat on the benches along the walls and strained my neck looking up at those frescos. And of course I don’t need to tell you this, but a work of art this table is not. Cool looking, yes. Useful, maybe. But art!?

Let’s just say… it doesn’t have my initials on it.

Mohammed Ali, RIP

Sat, 4 Jun 2016, 12:38 PM (-06:00)

I was in middle school. All the cool kids sang all the commercials on television. They argued with some authority about who was best, The Beatles or The Stones. And the boys passionately debated who was going to win the fight.

I sat quietly on the sidelines during these discussions, never having heard of the Frito Bandito, not knowing who The Rolling Stones were and not particular caring about the fight.

But… what a man he was. R.I.P., Mohammed Ali.

original photo credit: Gordon Parks/AP

What The Rain Did

Fri, 3 Jun 2016, 09:03 PM (-06:00)

The tomatoes and cucumbers are a lost cause. The rain has stopped them from blossoming, and the hot heat of summer is just around the corner. Another year’s fail for the Trudy and David vegetable garden.

But look what else the rain did.

Click the pics!

Looking Back

Thu, 2 Jun 2016, 09:19 PM (-06:00)

Pluto just moments after closest approach as sunlight glints thru the planet’s — yes, I said it — stratified atmosphere.

credit: New Horizons/JHUAPL

Click the pic to enlarge.

A Scary Story in Two Parts

Thu, 2 Jun 2016, 08:56 PM (-06:00)

1. At The Boat Ramp

“I saw something last weekend that really scared me,” he said the other day when we were at lunch.

I raised my eyebrows in a do tell way as I took another bite of BBQ sausage.

And so he told me this little story of how he saw a guy at the boat ramp launching his boat. As the guy backed his trailer towards the water, his truck started sliding.

“It was a small truck,” he said. “Something like a Jeep. And the boat was big.”

The truck started sliding, and the guy applied his breaks, but the boat kept pulling him down the ramp towards the water. All four tires were locked up, and the guy was turning his front wheels to try to get the truck to stop — to no avail.

Think what that guy must have been thinking.

It turned out well, though. When the trailer slid into the water, the sliding stopped, and the guy got out of his truck and launched his boat.

That was the end of the story.

2. End of the Day

I woke up last night at 2:00 am.

Bang! I’m awake with my eyes wide open.

As I slept, it struck me that the story wasn’t over.

“I realized something last night that really scared me,” I told him at lunch today.

“Oh?” he said.

And so I told him how there was more to the story about the guy with the Jeep and the boat. It was a holiday weekend, and so the guy was probably out on the lake for a long time. It would have been early evening when he got back to the ramp.

“And it rained in the afternoon, remember?” I asked.

“It did,” he said.

So I pointed out that if the boat and the trailer were so heavy that they dragged the Jeep down the ramp earlier in the day, how on earth was that Jeep going to pull that boat up the ramp while it was raining?

His eyes widened, and he set his hamburger down.

“You’re right,” he said. “That is really scary.”